SomTervo

Both Skyrim and Fallout 4 let you free-walk. I've been playing bouts of Fallout 4 VR on the Vive. Really good craic. Mechanically much more fun than the original, even if it's a tad wonky. The immersion factor is immense. Wrestling with item weights, though... Especially on Survivor. Aint nobody got time for that. Think I'll mod it to increase cap to 9999.

So apparently Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin might be one of the free offerings in February's Playstation Plus package. Pretty nice, luckily I never bought it. And I always like a bit more Souls.

Just had to pop back and check this thread was still going. Y'all doing me proud. Indeed: 'Years after predicted “death,” game consoles are doing better than ever'

Truly beautiful game, yeah. And there is a day/night cycle, it's just often pushed/pulled for mission context. Just like Assassin's Creed when day/night time suddenly swaps to be appropriate to the mission. The gameplay in this honestly just gets better and better the more you play it. The more you get Overrides and the more different types of machine and environment crops up. Horizon and Zelda: BotW right next to each other is... Insane. ^^^ You see? You see?!

I got BotW and my Switch a day early thanks to cheeky independent stores. I've got about 7-10 hours in Zelda. And in those hours I've probably had about 10 seconds of frame rate issues. It's generally really smooth, and apparently only gets smoother as you keep playing. And yes, discovering even tiny things on your own is immensely rewarding and fun. They've taken a lot of leaves from the Souls book in terms of encouraging the player to piece rules and systems together without guidance. So many 'aha!' moments. So many smiles when you notice another cool detail/system.

Some of the impressions from people who have the game early across the web are pretty insane. Sounds a lot like the best bits of Shadow of Mordor, The Witcher 3, InFamous, Monster Hunter and Shadow of the Colossus. People saying a lot of the time it looks almost as good as Uncharted 4, sometimes better, and it's an open world game, too. Shit's cray.

It's confirmed that you get new ships using a method the original streamer didn't take the time to work out. Several of the original streamer's complaints about/criticisms of the game arose from him just not fucking paying attention to the tutorial messages etc, and not exploring very much, which subsequent streamers did/worked out/had a much better time with. Even worse - the guy's done it in the past. Batman: AC, Fallout 4, Bloodborne, The Witcher 3 - the guy has managed to get all these games 1+ weeks early (god knows how) and has given weirdly misinformed, erroneous reports on all of them, complaining about things which really weren't problems with the games. Regardless, he actually enjoyed all his time with No Man's Sky and says he's keen to keep playing it even after launch, which is something. Other streams have revealed a far broader and deeper experience than this guy's "gotta go fast [to the centre of the galaxy]" narrative

Has this already been posted? Sums it all up in a oner for me: Yeah, he's camp in a slightly irritating, forced way - which frustrates anyone trying to be 'cool' - but he is legitimately funny if you sit down and watch one of his shows. Content is pretty trite but execution is amazing.

Honestly, there's a pretty solid chance the co-op mode is going to be the best one yet. It's being given a full 3-7 month delay and coming out as its own expansion, pretty much. I'm hoping it's at 30FPS will the full fidelity of singleplayer, with a 'Survival'/horde mode, and can be played alone. That will be... Just the greatest Imagine co-op in the large playable areas of SP, with vehicles. Could be insanity. FYI the multiplayer mode is really good generally, too. Also the more I'm replaying the more I'm appreciating Uncharted 4's campaign. There's a lot more combat in there than it feels like. There are long stretches of Scotland and Madagascar which are pretty much constantly combat. The background 'sliding scree' is also just a flat texture moving down as a group. If you look at it up close it's actually pretty ugly, haha. Still, a fantastically designed effect and its impact is flawless when outwith 15 feet distance.

Uncharted 2 is still great, and I think as a straight-up videogame with lots of action-packed gameplay, it's better than UC4. Only in that regard, though. The Last of Us is better, I'd agree with that. But Uncharted 4 is also just on another level in so many senses. It's flawed in minor ways but the overall thing is just... Another level. A huge leap. That makes it really hard for me to choose between TLoU, UC4 and UC2.

The Universities up here tend to lump Languages in there, too. Eg Arts, Humanities and Languages. Maybe not, though, based on what TN says

Yeah, those little design things that scream 'The Last of Us'. There are also slightly spoilery non-combat sequences (you've seen one, Hottie) which are lifted straight out of certain parts of TLoU. I'm not 100% convinced they worked as well in UC4 as they do in TLoU, but they are still good bits. FYI You have a long way to go. It's a long game. The adventure is only just getting started at Chapters 8/9. I'm replaying it on Crushing skipping most/all of the cutscenes, and it is fucking great. There's something so vital about the gunfights now. Feels closer to 'movie gunfights' than we've ever seen before. Also there are a lot of optional conversations, texts and treasures. Many of which add a lot to the context. Hottie: This is definitely the most replayable Uncharted game, I think. The loading times and pacing are a bit frustrating sometimes but there's so much more content, and so much more choice.

As status suggests: finished this gem up last night. It's a very special game. A real treat. In terms of 'wowing' experiences, Uncharted 2 and The Last of Us are probably bigger leaps in terms of quality, so Uncharted 4 isn't quite as purely special. It's also very long, with a touch of odd pacing. It's a masterwork though. A love letter to Uncharteds 1-3, a love letter to adventuring - a love letter to probably the last happy-go-lucky game Naughty Dog will ever make. The graphics and gameplay are absolutely staggering. Visually, there are moments that look like high-end digital concept art come to life. It looks better than a rich, detailed painting. Then you push an analog stick and it moves, and you're walking/traversing through these places that are frame-by-frame fucking art. It's crazy. The gameplay is massively improved. Combat is energetic and faster than before. Lots more verticality, more options, enemis react far more easily and immediately to your shots. Your AI teammates are actually helpful - killing enemies, grabbing them for you to get a punch in, saving your ass with ambushes or grenades, etc. The majority of the gunfights feel more like wild, sandboxey skirmishes than the 'pop n stop' gunfights of Uncharted 1-3. I only played on 'Moderate' difficulty and I had to keep moving. The following is going to sound ridiculous: But there are two or three parts which are the most amazing things I've experienced in a videogame. Literally. It's like playable Mad Max or James Bond stunt stuff. And when I say "playable" I mean playable - you're in control practically the entire time and things can even pan out differently. It's insane. The pacing is odd. There's a lot of Last of Us DNA in here, to mark out the changes in Drake's life and the themes/tone of the whole thing. Probably 70+% of your time is spent exploring and platforming. It's really nice and padded out - but there are times when you're gagging for intensity or action, you really want a gunfight to break out. However, it shows real integrity that they didn't do that. Unlike Bioshock Infinite or The Last of Us or Uncharted 3, Naughty Dog stuck to their guns and only included gunfights where it felt natural. There are fewer gunfights than ever before and they occur in places that make complete sense. This does feel disappointing sometimes - but I guess multiplayer is there to give you wall-to-wall action when you want it. Re level design, which is amazeballs, there are multiple routes even when doing the 'climbey' bits - so it never feels like "mash X to continue" like it did in Uncharted 1-3. You will mash X for a bit then reach a 2-4 split route up a cliff and think "which way will I go?" One might lead around to a cliff, one might include a daring rope-swing out into a chasm, one might just be a crumbling ledge to creep along. The adventure feels like yours. Plus treasures and secrets are now far harder to find. They seem to have followed a rule that they will only place Treasures where it makes sense for a treasure to be. As a result, some of them are fucking well hidden. There are even little secrets and puzzles and combat encounters hidden away in the larger playspaces. The story is really good, though there are a few odd decisions, and it definitely doesn't have the impact of TLoU or the conciseness of UC2. Still a few fucking stand-out moments that are special and push the lore/backstory in really interesting ways. (Sam Drake is bloody great.) Anyway. It's a real treat. A special game, even if it has some very strange quirks.

What I don't understand is why people say things like this when new members come along: Really sends the right message, you know? Really welcoming to complete strangers.

Aside from that, it's going fucking great, best pace the show has ever had. You can even see where they're fast tracking things that would have dragged for episodes and episodes in earlier seasons

Same here. I like that there seems to be more explicit actual "fantasy" in this one, like they've gone back to the roots of what the phrase means. I didn't think the gameplay was very deep - then I watched a video of an experienced player doing the last boss, and he was... Yeah, he was flying around, mixing up weapons I never even found in the demo, doing crazy Devil May Cry-style moves. There's clearly some depth there, even in the demo. All I did was swap between holding Circle and holding Square and it was relatively lame (and I almost lost). There's a little left to be desired of the image quality and frame rate, but it seems very functional indeed. Vehicles were an amazing surprise for me - I had no idea there were drivable things in the game. So that truck popping out of nowhere and it actually having solid driving was a mind-blower.

Finished Assassin's Creed Syndicate. It was bloody great, up to the end. Well, there was a slight dip in quality/pacing at the 10th/11th hour, but it picked up again for the ending, now I've just got the really fun side activities to do. Great game. ^ best thing anyone's ever said

I loved it until the twist in-between the two twists you mention. No wai TW2's high-level story being better I definitely think there's an argument for, I can see that, but in terms of gameplay? TW3 is better in literally every way. Movement, combat, RPGing, dialogue/outcomes, yadda. Anyway. Not a Witcher thread.

Yeah, it's really good. What platform are you on, Hottie? PC side here. Would be good to hook up, but I imagine you're on PS4? I'm only lvl 16/17, been taking my sweet time and eking it out, because I know if I hit 30 and there's nothing else to do, I'll be frustrated. Super excited at the prospect of the later-year DLC where the entire map gets turned into Dark Zone... Main missions on Hard with three other people is amazing - legit better than anything I played in Destiny and often even better than most fights I had in Diablo 2/3.

Dark Zone is awesome. I really wasn't interested in it until I tried it with a buddy. If you want to hit some up, add me - Som_Tervo on UPlay. Yeah, The Division is fucking great. You know that bit in Splinter Cell Conviction where we played a segment of the Afghan war? So it was more like a third person shooter with that classic smooth cover mechanic? The Division is like an entire game of that, but hugely polished/refined and with a load of great RPG mechanics bolted on top, and a really compelling loot system. I feel the same as you re Division/Destiny parallel, MJ. Obviously the comparison's with Destiny are a bit facetious, but there are a few parallels, The Division is fully delivering on what it promised, unlike Destiny, which delivered in mechanics and polish but not content. I'd put it like: Destiny: - mechanics: 9/10 - polish/style: 9/10 - content: 3/10 The Division: - mechanics: 8/10 (though for my personal tastes they're a 9/10) - polish/style: 8/10 (a lot more complex than Destiny and a few things are quite clunky) - content: 8/10 On the whole it's just a better package, even though Destiny definitely did some things great.