TheMightyEthan Posted January 1, 2015 Report Share Posted January 1, 2015 Just beat Dragon Age: Inquisition. 121.5 hours, blowing away my previous single-playthrough game record of 86.2 hours on Kingdoms of Amalur. Really great game, quite possibly my favorite RPG of all time. I don't get the hate for the ending though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saturnine Tenshi Posted January 1, 2015 Report Share Posted January 1, 2015 Playing that now! Not many issues with it, though I do have a few. Currently I'm grumbling over the sonar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted January 1, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2015 My only complaint is that nearly all the helmets look stupid. I did encounter a few glitches, but considering how big the game is they weren't bad Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saturnine Tenshi Posted January 1, 2015 Report Share Posted January 1, 2015 (edited) Yeah, I turned helmets off. Besides the search function, my only other issues are gathering and a lack of romance options. Oh, and combat movement is pretty wonky if you aren't in tactical mode. Otherwise, I'm enjoying it. Edited January 1, 2015 by Saturnine Tenshi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted January 2, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 An obvious solution to the helmet problem is to make them an add on like the legs and arms, so the helmet always matches the armor. I ended up turning off helmets too, but I was reluctant because for some reason that's something I really have trouble suspending my disbelief about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saturnine Tenshi Posted January 2, 2015 Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 Helmets, pah! I'm pretty sure my wife is wearing a heavy helmet on her character (who wears medium armor), so it looks even worse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Posted January 2, 2015 Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 Beyond Good and Evil. Good game but I think the PC version is hampered by a sub-par port. I do not think I was running at 1080 because the graphics appeared blurry and at time actually majorly fuzzes out. The sound sometimes also cuts out. While playable on m+kb, there was no native controller support, it made parts of the game harder than it need be due to dodgy controls. While the OST is great, I felt it only shined during cutscenes. Maybe it was cutting out during gameplay... This game though commits such a damn sin with so many instant fail stealth sections. Most were optional but god damn were they annoying. It doesn't help with at times auto correcting camera view. Like holy shit, suddenly I'm playing classic Resident Evil after being in a free form Spyro. Again, I would like to point out the dodgy controls. I'm sure if I do joy2key or something, I will have a much better time. In the end... Beyond Good and Evil 2 got to happen someday. Give it crisp graphics, an awesome OST, good story and we might have a much better sequel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted January 2, 2015 Report Share Posted January 2, 2015 RE: DA:I ending hate - I think the final battle could have been better, and that's the criticism I see most. The battle felt rote and unexciting. I also wish there was more in the game to show how the Inquisition you built affected the otucome of the battle. Something along the lines of the Denerim fight in Origins where different sets of allies would appear depending on the choices you made. Or, even better, something like the suicide mission in ME2 (even though the final boss in ME2 was dumb as hell). The DA:I ending really felt like a standard video game boss fight and did not live up to the excellence of the rest of the game. Hell, Corypheus was slightly more interesting and more difficult when you fight him in DA@ than in DA:I. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted January 5, 2015 Report Share Posted January 5, 2015 I just beat Far Cry 4. It's a pretty solid addition to the franchise and it is improved over the already very good Far Cry 3. However, the improvements are minor, so I feel like the series is in danger of becoming stagnant if it rushes out another sequel too soon. They should take a few years off to think of a way to really make it feel new again. I also have some major gripes about the story. Amita and Sabal, the two people you get most of your missions from, are completely unlikable pricks. In fact, I often had to ask myself why I was bothering to help their cause at all. They're not much better than Pagan Min, and in some ways they're even worse. I ended up killing them both in the end, though killing Sabal (the guy I sided with) had no fanfare to it. I just found him standing around and blew him up with a grenade. No cutscene or nothin. Very unsatisfying after all the dickish things he did.I also chose to execute Pagan MIn, and the game literally cuts to the credits the second after you do so. Had I known the ending would be that weak, I would have let Pagan live just to see what happens. Unfortunately, I don't think I can go back and do it over. Pagan is also the most interesting character but he barely appears, whereas you have to deal with Amita and Sabal's bullshit constantly.Oh yeah, one more thing. This game had ONE character I felt personally attached to and that was Bhadra, the teenage girl who is believed to be the reincarnation of Sabal's goddess and thus held up as a divine figure. Bhadra is clearly just a sweet, innocent girl who is in over her head, and I wanted to protect her, to take her away from all that Golden Path nonsense so Amita and Sabal would quit using her for their own selfish ends. In fact, if that were an option I would have been fine with Amita and Sabal being such lousy characters because it would mean I get to screw them both over by taking a third option and picking Bhadra. But no. Bhadra is barely in the game at all, and after a while she stops appearing altogether, barring a brief appearance in Sabal's ending to show that no, you can't help her. I don't know if this is the game's way of trying to be edgy and say that CHOICES HAVE CONSEQUENCES or whatever but it's total bullshit. That might work in other games but Ajay Ghale is a one-man army. I took down a dictatorship all by myself (because let's face it, the Golden Path is full of incompetent chucklefucks). If I want to say "screw the Golden Path" so I can save one girl from a life of servitude, I am pretty sure I'm more than capable of wiping the floor with every single one of those terrorist chumps. Despite all those complaints, I still enjoyed the game quite a bit. I'm just a little tired of the Far Cry writers trying to be deep, because they suck at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toxicitizen Posted January 6, 2015 Report Share Posted January 6, 2015 (edited) The Evil Within. Man, this is a tough one for me to evaluate. On the one hand, it's really, really good. I thoroughly enjoyed it on its own merits and I don't want to judge it unfairly, i.e. for what it's not. But on the other hand, it's pretty much a direct spiritual successor to one of my favorite games of all time, Resident Evil 4. And that's where I thought it fell a little bit short. I suppose it's still a fairly strong compliment to say that the most disappointing thing about The Evil Within is that it did not exceed my expectations. It met them for sure, and in some ways I actually didn't expect, but it didn't win a one-way ticket to join its older brother RE4 on the list of my all-time favorites. In other words, it's not an instant classic. I had some reservations about it so I went in with reasonable expectations, which the game had no difficulty living up to. But deep down, I was really hoping it would be another home run for Mikami and it's not quite on that level. But enough about the negative, what's good about it? This is true fucking survival horror, that's what's good. Well, the horror part is arguable but I'll get to that in a little bit. First and foremost, this is the first true AAA survival-horror game I've played in years. This isn't Dead Space or even modern Resident Evil, resource management is a real thing here. I never felt overpowered nor equipped to face the threats I was facing. Whenever the game gave me a bunch of ammo, I just knew bad shit was about to go down because 90% of the time I was constantly on the brink of running out. At one point I was worried I'd have to restart the current chapter, that's how fucked I was. I usually hate running from enemies in games, perhaps because it feels like the game is getting the better of me or that I did something wrong. But about halfway through The Evil Within my attitude shifted. "Fuck this! I ain't dealing with your shit, game!" became my new mentality. Being able to flee from enemies and conserve precious ammo started feeling like a fucking victory. The focus on stealth also helped drive home how powerless you are and how precious your ammo is. Whether it's by running away, sneaking by enemies or even going for a stealth takedown, you're gonna want to take every opportunity you can to avoid shooting. This is where The Evil Within truly shined for me. The game rarely devolved into the dumb action that the RE series is now known for and on the few occasions that it does, you're likely to burn through your entire ammo reserves. Then you're essentially fucked and it creates a whole lot of tension in subsequent sections. So in that regard, the game strikes a fantastic balance. One area where the game arguably fails is the horror side of things. Like I said, it clearly takes inspiration from Silent Hill but it doesn't quite pull it off. It manages to create a confusing and, at times, very tense atmosphere. But I don't think I was legitimately scared a single time. For the most part, it's very style over substance. Great style, mind you. But I dunno, it just didn't really work for me. The only parts that were legitimately nerve-racking were the encounters with the Keeper. Seriously, fuck that guy. I mean, just look at that fucking asshole. Anyway, all this to say that The Evil Within is very, very good and, unlike most recent entries in the genre, it can actually claim to be true survival-horror. Just don't go in expecting a modern days Resident Evil 4. That's exactly what it is in some ways but in others it also really isn't. I have no idea how well the game sold (though seeing it on sale for 20 bucks a mere two months after launch isn't exactly encouraging) but I really hope Bethesda keeps the IP going. I would definitely love more of this. Until then, I suppose the upcoming DLC will have to do. Oh and thanks again, CrowKnow! You couldn't have possibly picked a better game to gift me! Edited January 6, 2015 by FLD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faiblesse Des Sens Posted January 6, 2015 Report Share Posted January 6, 2015 Horror doesn't have to be scary. I don't get why video game players in particular don't seem to understand that. It just has to be you know... horrible. Blood. Monsters. Guts. Evil mansions. That sort of thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toxicitizen Posted January 6, 2015 Report Share Posted January 6, 2015 I'm on board with the first part of your post, some types of horror fiction aren't about being straight up scary. Psychological horror, for example, is usually more about unsettling you, creating a feeling of unease. I haven't gotten around to seeing it yet but Black Swan looks like a good example of this. But if we're talking the usual blood, monsters, gore and creepy settings, then the goal usually is to be scary. The Evil Within was certainly trying to be. It just didn't quite manage to pull it off. Shit, I'd settle for creepy and even then I'd say TEW wasn't quite there either. Then again, that might vary from person to person, I suppose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faiblesse Des Sens Posted January 7, 2015 Report Share Posted January 7, 2015 I'd say your criticism lies in the fact that it tried and failed. Horror is horror even if it's not scary. I seriously only see a lack of understanding of this in the video game world. In movies people understand that horror is basically anything with monsters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toxicitizen Posted January 7, 2015 Report Share Posted January 7, 2015 What? Yeah, horror is still horror, regardless or whether or not it succeeds at what it's trying to achieve. I wasn't trying to suggest that failing at being scary somehow disqualified it from the genre. Reading my post again, the only part I can see that might imply that is "Well, the horror part is arguable". Maybe I phrased it poorly but I simply meant that it wasn't effective horror. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted January 7, 2015 Report Share Posted January 7, 2015 Got the platinum for Far Cry. Some random I was playing with in co-op turned out to be a little kid who was nice enough to help me out. Go figure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Heat Posted January 10, 2015 Report Share Posted January 10, 2015 Finished up The Last Story today. As much as I like Hironobu Sakaguchi for being responsible for getting me into RPGs to begin with...TLS was pretty ehhhhhhhhhhh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted January 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2015 That's weird, because I'd heard really good things about it. I couldn't get into it, but just chalked that up to my general lack of enthusiasm for JRPGs. I just finished Episode 1 of Telltale's Game of Thrones. Quite good so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP Posted January 10, 2015 Report Share Posted January 10, 2015 GoT spoilers: Did you cry when your namesake died? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted January 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2015 No, by this point I just assume anyone could die at literally any moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toxicitizen Posted January 11, 2015 Report Share Posted January 11, 2015 Wolfenstein: The New Order. Pretty awesome game. The gameplay is your typical FPS fare with no mechanical twist or gimmick whatsoever but I thought the story was very well executed. I was interested to see what would happen next the entire way through and I actually cared about the characters and what happened to them. The world-building and visual style was also really nice. Just overall a really well put together game. Except for the enemy AI. I mean, man, those are some stupid fucking Nazis. And kinda blind, too. Or maybe the stealth mechanic is just broken. Sometimes they would walk right by me, literally looking right at me but I was crouching so they didn't see me, I guess? Either that or when their heads turn to the side their field of vision isn't actually scanning that area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Heat Posted January 11, 2015 Report Share Posted January 11, 2015 That's weird, because I'd heard really good things about it. I couldn't get into it, but just chalked that up to my general lack of enthusiasm for JRPGs. The combat had an interesting idea to it, but everyone that wasn't Syrenne and Lowell weren't even remotely interesting. I liked the atmosphere and the locations though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted January 11, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2015 Finally finished The Master Chief Collection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP Posted January 11, 2015 Report Share Posted January 11, 2015 Did you shoot at space enemies while playing as a space marine?? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMightyEthan Posted January 12, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 12, 2015 Yep. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCP Posted January 12, 2015 Report Share Posted January 12, 2015 Yeah you did! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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