SomTervo

Sony will milk this for all it's worth. It was an expensive game. I don't think we'll be seeing it on PS+ for at least a year, possibly longer – like Second Son but more so. Plenty of people on various forums seems to be having a blast with it. 65 is fine if it's something which appeals to you enough that you can forgive shortcomings. But hey. I'm not biting. Plenty of other junk going on. EDIT: That just ain't true, and it's subjective. I've had a lot of fun with plenty of games which scored around 65. This also isn't how it works elsewhere. In Scottish high school - 50% is okay. 60% is good. 70% is great. 80-100% are varying degrees of excellent In UK universities - you're aiming for mid-60s. Mid-60s is considered a totally good degree score for your entire three/four-year degree (a 2:2 or 2:1). 70 and above is excellent. 80 and above is phenomenal, borderline unheard of.

I can't imagine how it's going to work as one academic year, but fair enough. Like, I'm at month 6/12, I'm level 18, and I have 12% of all possible personas discovered. How the heck does that work? Am I doing something wrong? Or will I gain 70+ levels in 6 months and discover hundreds of personas?

There are times when it feels like it would be a stronger show if some of the cast were more consistent. Still, great stuff

I wouldn't call 65/100 on MC (which is meaningless anyway) terrible – but definitely not great. You did call it, MEth. I think I was trying to be optimistic about it, but it looked flawed since day one. That said, reviews like this mean that if you're fanatical about Victorian fiction or graphics, it's probably worth a buy (though Kotaku said the graphics weren't all that great, seem to be an outlier). Looking forward to inevitable, drastic price drop then an enjoyable experience for £15 It's great how the last half year has been a real kick in the teeth for the highest-budget end of the industry's spectrum. They need to get their shit together. A lot of mismanagement – and plain old wrong priorities – has sabotaged several game launches. Hopefully we'll a sequel which will have plenty of actual, high quality gameplay. Or, y'know, no sequel and the game being a pillar of the "start making good games, not good graphics" message for publishers. Making pure spectacle can only take you so far into success. Like Zack Snyder. At first it was kinda like "okay, yeah, cool, this looks nice even though it's vacuous junk" but four films later it's like "this guy can not get away with this anymore, these films are meaningless"

Yeah, the way it handles saving is amazing. Proper old school survival horror where saving your game is an important resource you have to manage, and makes the game 100x more playable when you do so properly.

Persona 3 FES has my by the goddamn throat It's amazing fun. Suddenly the prospect of a 40+ hour JRPG – which in the past was one of the reasons I was apprehensive about even starting one – is really exciting and I can't wait to get through it. Btw, I assume the game doesn't take place over one academic year, like I suspected? I'm level 15 at about month 6 and I know people level up into the 50s at least. Is it over 3 years? No wait, don't tell me, just tell me if it's more than one year I'm actually about 15 hours into the game as well – which is a pretty slow start. It feels like it just got going, really. I assume Persona 4 gains momentum far quicker, and this may be part of the reason it's rated above 3?

Sounds like easy-mode fights while running through all non-combat sections. Apparently there's quite a lot to take in during the parts that aren't gunfights. Probably not as much as, say TLoU, but still a substantial amount.

The issue isn't on you: the pacing and balance gets a lot better and the scenarios open up a lot as the game progresses. Eg there are far fewer scripted sections from the 1/3rd mark. Those were really frustrating while they lasted. There are a few others peppered throughout the game. It also gives you more and more tools which you can use in surprisingly clever ways, and these really even the odds out.

Yeah, that is bad ju-ju. Big mistake. I didn't get that from skimming by the pictures/posts. On the topic of game-length, a quote from GAF: However I've seen three other users say around 6 hours (one said just over 5, one said 6, another said 6-7). At least one of these guys was guestimating – probably very inaccurately. It's impossible to gauge how long you've spent on a game by subjective thought, because the human brain can't really do that when it's being bombarded with information over many hours Who the fuck does one believe

Oh shit, yeah, as a QTE sequence, that's full-blown retard Dean: they never showed enough of it to form a proper opinion tbh. It could have been as deep as TLoU or as deep as Gears, but we only ever saw short gameplay snippets. Sounds like it's a lot like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune or Assassin's Creed in terms of gameplay. Basically a rough proof of concept which, similarly to AC1, has really good simulation – cutting edge in this case.

Where did that impression come from? I'm curious to read it. Nobody else I've seen said it recycles any gameplay And for fuck's sake in quoting your message the spoiler tags were removed and I saw the goddamn pictures I didn't want to have spoiled To me this looks like the same enemy type, but in two completely different contexts? Basing a several-minute scene on two single frames seems a bit facetious. That's like saying "man, in Gears of War you fight this boomer in a room, then look, later in the game, you fight a boomer in a room, too!"

That's really, really early in the game. As I've said before, the first 3-4 hours are very weak tbh. You're still in that phase. As IDD found out, by the time you hit hour 7 onwards, it becomes incredible

Yes, this looks great. Trustworthy folks loving on the writing, too. Same boat. I really enjoyed it but it felt absolutely nothing like what a good open world Western game would be. Was like a poor man's GTA in a good few ways. Great shooting but badly paced imo (should have been slower, more dangerous. More tough survival mechanics may have fixed it actually)

$12 an hour? What kind of gross-ass whores have you been going to? Ones with gross asses

There are about 6-7 people on GAF who have early copies of the game and are posting positive impressions. It sounds better than I thought tbh, but not a masterpiece. Gameplay I'm picking up a 7.5-8/10 vibe Everything else sounds like a 9-10/10 vibe They say it falls into the category of great, flawed, short singleplayer games which have been studded throughout gaming history. Examples like Metal Gear Solid, Ico, Killzone 2, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. - They say that technically it's unprecedented. A tiny margin away from "playable movie". Showstoppingly good simulation, including interactive elements eg gibbing, gore and reactive animations. - The word is that gameplay is very solid and borderline great, but only really comes into it's own around the middle third of the game. At the beginning and end there isn't enough of it, and encounters could be better. - Apparently the soundtrack is all written and recorded on period instruments and is phenomenal. - Also apparently very good writing, like high calibre. They're all refusing to talk about the story – suggesting it's very good and needs to be experienced first hand. They say the character writing and emotional impact is top-tier It's bouncing around on the GAF Gaming Discussion front page, so have a look there if you're curious. Sounds like it'll be worth a buy from me, but for people who like open world games, games with multiplayer, or games with RPG mechanics, it won't be worth going in on. Length is never an issue for me really, as we'll usually play things again in coming months/years and get double play length anyway. Edit: apparently the 5-hour thing was massive misinterpretation. The guy himself came out and said "you're all being ridiculous, I started at 1.45 pm and am still playing at 10pm, not finished" Looks like an average playtime of about 8 hours from various sources. Some say 6-7 hours, some say 10-11 hours.

So Boomerang Rentals inadvertently renewed my subscription and sent me Ass Creed Rogue. It's very good. The same as Black Flag but more ocean, more to do – which is all one could really want from a successor to Black Flag. However, going back to the old mechanics (in quick succession) from Unity, is utterly horrible. The free running is so imprecise and clunky. Arno is like a bird in flight by comparison. And the combat is actually almost identical in mechanics - the only real difference is that the AI in Unity attack all at once and are far more aggressive, not giving you a chance to get a breath. It's agonisingly idiotic in old-AC that 6 guys will stand and do nothing while you stab one of their friends savagely to death. Combat in Unity feels challenging and alive, and still follows almost identical controls/patterns. Still, the dynamic between seafaring and land exploring is brill-O. Oh, but the protagonist is the worst. He's total Shay-te. Awful Irish accent, unlikeable, looks like a dunce, has the worst told story out of all protags so far (at least where I'm up to, about 3-4 hours in). I'm using this as an exercise in "what would AC be like if it were an RPG". I'm just ignoring the main story, imagining the protagonist is a blank vessel as me, and going off, making my own adventures. It's great. But I feel like when I go back to finish off Unity, it's going to be a magical, liberating experience.

On PS4 it's been smooth 30 for me, maybe with occasional dips to 25 The Ravenholm thing is totally true - I thought the same myself ages ago - and imho that's a plus point. It's often basically open-world Ravenholm: the Game. Captures the atmosphere, the gameplay opportunities. And is totally awesome for it. Re all the running around, naturally that's a huge leg of the gameplay, and I don't think the FoV is too bad, so I don't have a single problem with that aspect. I heard on PC there's a setting for FoV but maybe the person who said that was lying. Might be in a file somewhere?

I think my point has been a little misinterpreted. I was making the age-old 'there are no new stories' argument. I wasn't saying a story with well-trod plot points and cliché development is okay if the execution is good enough. I was saying that no matter how twisty and unpredictable a story is, it still won't be a 'new' or 'fresh' or a truly 'unpredictable' story, because every possible plot point a human could come up with has been made. (I've heard it said as, "there are only two stories in history: someone comes to town, someone leaves town".) Look hard enough online and you'll always find someone who says 'I saw it coming, movie/game/book was disappointing for me' because there will be someone who always sees something coming no matter what the work is. It's subjective. I was just saying that, when writers develop a story to a certain point, then it can be saved by execution. I think Dying Light's story is saved, for the most part, by execution. A couple of bits aren't but these are few and far between. And we're also ignoring that story means the universe, the whole world in which the thing takes place – plot means just the cause and effect events which lead us through the story. (This is a cinema theory distinction but it applies to anything imo.) If Dying Light's plot is weak, its story certainly isn't. I've spent over 30 hours in that universe, was really immersed in it for the most part, and will happily go back. The plot may not be amazing, but the story of various factions, various survivors, the way the world changes and progresses – are all really well done. It's a whole other beast from Dead Island - which was worth about £10 imo. I really didn't like Dead Island at all. I put Dying Light up there with Shadow of Mordor and AC Unity from last year, possibly above both, and I know you're a fan of the former. I've had a lot more fun with Dying Light than with Mordor on the whole. DL is really fantastic. On paper it may not look great, and that's all that critics seems to see, but in practice it's far greater than the sum of its parts.

Yes, IDD, yes... YES YES

Yeah, I forgave the fact that she She is a really likeable character regardless of her actions, and phenomenally designed to boot – she seems like a very real, independent, mature person you would get in this scenario. One of the few who really rise to the challenges of the new life. When you look at the broad movements of plot in the game, it's all actually pretty strong. It's just the execution which ruins about half of it (the villain and the 'romance'). PS I don't want to dwell on it, but it doesn't really matter how predictable anything is – story is all about execution and detail. Nobody will ever come up with a 'new' story because there is no such thing. Maybe it's just all the zombie genre retreads which are giving you fatigue about the story!

Think that's meant to be Carrie (sp?) Creepy as shit though Amazing intro

I watched all of Mr Ed, the talking horse last month. It's fucking great

I said that exact line to my colleagues today and the two older ones flipped out about how there were 'millions' of sitcoms around before it. I felt like an idiot even though they misinterpreted what I said, but felt redeemed after I explained exactly what I meant. It's the proto-modern-sitcom. Watching Friends, Frasier, HIMYM, Raymond, 2.5 men, yadda yadda – they're all just Seinfeld's seminal template with variations on top. Though I think Louis may have come along and done it better.

Pro-tip for EU folk from GAF: I went in on this. £15 with delivery to Scotland, I believe. If complete it then trade it in for The Order or Evolve, I'll be getting like £10-15 credit on the thing. Badass. Edit: I better provide an actual update, here... I'm playing it for the first time – my girlfriend is playing it properly since she was wee. It's fucking great. I feel that complaints about the difficulty of puzzles and poor controls are hugely, hugely overblown. It may help that we're playing it together. To be honest, in my recent experience, I'd argue that adventure games should really, truly be played in pairs or groups. The puzzles are easier with more heads, and it's great having a group laugh at good moments. I actually love Tenchu z. I mean, it's flawed and compromises most of what made the early games great. But as a generic ninja game where you can ninja around, with some surprisingly deep RPG mechanics, it's fantastic and unique.

Totally agree. I don't get that show. Totally... don't agree? Might just be because I watched it as a time-filler watch. My standards are very low for those. And I watched it with my gf who loved it. But I think it has some genuinely good character writing and some phenomenally funny scenarios. I think season 2 was a peak for that. Apparently it's gone downhill in 4, and season 1 was often ropey. Relied way too heavily on Zooey's manic pixie dream girlness. Oh, oh: I just started watching Seinfeld! From the top, for the very first time. It's quite something. Feels like the proto-sitcom (even though I know it's not that) It makes me realise how really poor shows like How I Met Your Mother are (even though I enjoyed HIMYM). Like, in HIMYM, they turn 'not wanting to know the score to a sports event' into a whole convoluted, ridiculous episode. In Seinfeld, this entire story arc lasts about 20 seconds at the beginning of an early episode and tells us loads about both of the characters in 0.001% of the time it took HIMYM.