Whatcha Been Playing?

[chase210]

Dead nation >.<
This game has squandered all the good will I had for it at the beginning, by becoming just grossly unfair and difficult. How is it fair I keep getting continuously killed by zombies that take away 2/3 of my health and I can't even see them coming cos my gun/torch wasn't pointed the right way? Or the endless zombie spawners in the final bit of this level you wouldn't even know were there.

Nope, unless I can find a co-op partner, I'm out.

[dezm0nd]

Ooh I could add the PC version to my collection for that sort of price. Is it a complex process to buy Mexican?

Sorry for the late reply but I think the flash sale is over now. It's a really easy process to access other regions websites using a browser plugin called Hola Unblocker. It basically just switches you to whatever country you want by simply clicking on its flag from the menus.

It also means it's the easiest way to access Netflix US on the PC!

[ratsoalbion]

Cheers for the info, I'll give that a look.

[The Sonic Mole]

I downloaded Mario Picross on my 3DS and am utterly hooked. As such, I've now downloaded the other picross titles on the e-Shop. I can't believe I've only just discovered them!

[ratsoalbion]

I like a spot of Picross - got hooked on the DS version a few years back.

[dezm0nd]

Well, I was playing Wolfenstein this morning until my PSU died. I think its time for me to stop playing the latest big budget retail games on my PC or upgrade it a touch? I dunno.

New Wolfenstein felt good to play but lacked some polish. Missing sound effects were the most obvious.

It had a decent map system which gave player decent info on gold pickups etc and had a decent perk/challenge system to play with.

Ho hum... Just waiting for the new PSU....!

[countstex]

Never underestimate the requirement for a quality PSU

[dezm0nd]

Ive had it for a good few years now and I'm surprised something hasn't gone wrong beforehand.

I don't know what causes them to die but the sheer amount of dust in there was obscene. That and a series of mini powers cuts in the space of ten minutes yesterday probably didn't help matters.

[NokkonWud]

Well, I was playing Wolfenstein this morning until my PSU died. I think its time for me to stop playing the latest big budget retail games on my PC or upgrade it a touch? I dunno.

New Wolfenstein felt good to play but lacked some polish. Missing sound effects were the most obvious.

It had a decent map system which gave player decent info on gold pickups etc and had a decent perk/challenge system to play with.

Ho hum... Just waiting for the new PSU....!

Never nice, had mine go once and it took a whole heap of stuff with it, wouldn't mind, it was a Hiper Type R too.

Now I have an EVGA G2 850W and I'm very, very happy with it. Just installed a G2 750W in a friends new PC too and that's also a wonderful piece of kit. Recommended. Plus it's an eco PSU too so it doesn't even spin up unless necessary and doesn't always run at full whack, so it stays nice and quiet.
Oh yeah, and it comes with a 10 year warranty too...

[countstex]

Those Hiper R's had a design fault I think. Remember articles about it. Mine blew too, took the floppy disk drive. Never bought a replacement for that though

[Scrustle]

So, Drakengard 3 has finally arrived. And I don't know what to think of it yet.

I suppose some part of me is comparing it to Nier, but I know this isn't supposed to be that. Nier was the odd one out spin-off. This is back to what the series was before, or so I assume. If that's true, then I think perhaps it has gone a bit too far with that.

It feels like a PS2 game to play, and not a particularly good one. It feels very basic and unpolished, on a level that does make it feel quite old. Basic movement controls and animations feel messy and floaty, and so far gameplay basically involves running through a very linear level and button mashing when the generic enemies walk up to you. Actual fighting doesn't feel bad though. Animations there aren't bad, and it has a relatively nice sense of impact. Sound effects that accompany it again feel very old and low-budget though. Like they took them from an open-source library from a decade ago. Responsiveness is pretty quick, but I wouldn't exactly call it sharp. Fights tend to be pretty messy, animation aside. I don't hate it, but yeah it certainly feels like a game that was simply "good" maybe ten years ago.

There have also been a few flying sections though, on the back of your dragon. Again, they feel very basic and unpolished, but they are a little more interesting than I was expecting them to be. So far I've done two sections of that, once in a kind of tutorial section where you have to sink a ship, and another which was an actual boss fight. They played out the same way, but obviously it was more serious the second time. You get free range to fly around the battle area, and you can use fireballs and a charge attack. That's it though. So far at least. Controls for these parts feel a bit wonky too, but not unworkable.

So right now on a gameplay level it's kind of "eh". It's not horrible, but it's hard to imagine that it could do any less and still be passable. Not sure that what I've seen already will be able to remain entertaining through the course of the game.

The story, unfortunately, seems to follow a similar trend. I guess I haven't really got far enough yet for the story to properly get going (about one and a half chapters in), but so far nothing has really grabbed me as interesting. This is probably the worst bit to compare to Nier I think, because that game grabbed you with its intensely personal story right from the beginning. This... doesn't. The character you play as, and pretty much everyone else in the game actually, is very obviously meant to be a horrible person, and I'm okay with that. I love a good anti-hero, and some amoral stories. But so far there seems to be very little of substance to latch on to. I guess it's too early to tell right now, but again, comparing it to Nier, that captivated me from start to finish. This hasn't yet.

Oh, and there were certain cutscenes which were "censored" too. I think it was supposed to be a joke though. But it wasn't funny. At all. Just made what should have been an important story moment extremely anticlimactic. I'm really hoping this isn't a trend for the rest of the game, because if it pops up in similar moments again, it'll kill pretty much all the most important parts of the game.

The soundtrack is kind of underwhelming too. It seems most music in the game is very generic and has no personality to it. The audio balancing seems to religate it to the background too, making it more or less unnoticeable. But when you use your "rage mode"-esque ability, the music changes, adding a vocal track on top of it. That's when the music actually gets some personality to it, rather reminiscent of Nier's soundtrack. But the thing is, in that mode you're tearing through enemies like crazy, so you have to pay attention to that. The sound effects get way louder too, kind of overpowering the music again. You can only use the ability in very short bursts too, so for 99% of the time that music isn't even playing anyway. I don't know, maybe that changes later or something.

Graphics aren't great either. That's kind of to be expected though, so I don't mind too much. Environments look very dull and drab. The aesthetic of character design is pretty good though. Looks a little reminiscent of The Last Story. So that makes cutscenes and boss fights a little more interesting visually, but most of the game isn't. But it also has some performance issues, perhaps rather oddly considering how low fidelity it is. Like occasionally when you go in to your rage mode, or in sections involving the dragon (either flying sections or parts where he joins you in on-foot fights), or when they do this split-screen thing they do in some of the cutscenes, there can be some very drastic slowdown and frame drops. Doesn't come up too often, but for a game that looks like this, being released in 2014, it doesn't really have an excuse. Or maybe it does, since it's running on the Unreal Engine, oddly enough. Maybe the studio weren't familiar with it. Seems like a really stupid choice to go with that engine to me, if that's the case.

So yeah, unimpressed so far. I don't hate it, but like I said, it's really hard to imagine how the game could do any less and still avoid being called awful.

Oh, there was one other little detail I wanted to add too. There's a narrator for some of the cutscenes, and I swear her voice is the same as Popla/Devola from Nier. It must be the same voice actor.

[countstex]

Ive had it for a good few years now and I'm surprised something hasn't gone wrong beforehand.

I don't know what causes them to die but the sheer amount of dust in there was obscene. That and a series of mini powers cuts in the space of ten minutes yesterday probably didn't help matters.

Powercuts are certainly killers. Lost 2 3TB hard drives to them since moving here.

[Beck]

Surge protection is a must if you don't already have it.

[Todinho]

Picked up the Banner Saga on steam and it's pretty good so far a very cool mix of oregon trail and a tactics RPG with a viking aesthetic,you can clearly see that it's limited by it's budget and there's alot of untaped potential here but it's still fun the dialogue and characters are pretty good and the plot is interesting with the whole the sun has stopped moving thing going on,the combat is a little strange though your health is also your damage so the lower health you get less damage you deal nad you have armor into the mix too so you have to break that to do more damage and it's an interesting balance but im not sure I like it yet,one thing definitely dont like is how turns work in this game every side gets a turn to move one character and then it switches to the oponent what this do is give a clear advantage to the side with less characters since you'll be able to take sucessive actions much quicker I get it that this is here to make up for the very small sizes of the arenas but I still dont like it.
PS:One of the best maps in any game ever!

[NokkonWud]

Those Hiper R's had a design fault I think. Remember articles about it. Mine blew too, took the floppy disk drive. Never bought a replacement for that though

What's a Floppy Drive?

[suzzopher]

Downloaded Transistor last night, what a great game this is! I loved Bastion but this is on another level for me, the combat is utterly fantastic and dat soundtrack

Best use of the light bar on the DS4 too, make sure you put the narrator voice through the DS4 speaker.

[Cass]

SKYRIM: What is best in life?
CASS: To go back and crush bosses that had previously kicked your arse, to drive their Draugr minions before you, and to loot their bodies, ash piles and chests for epic gear.
SKYRIM: That is good! That is good.

[Alex79]

Dead nation >.<
This game has squandered all the good will I had for it at the beginning, by becoming just grossly unfair and difficult. How is it fair I keep getting continuously killed by zombies that take away 2/3 of my health and I can't even see them coming cos my gun/torch wasn't pointed the right way? Or the endless zombie spawners in the final bit of this level you wouldn't even know were there.

Nope, unless I can find a co-op partner, I'm out.

Hmm I thought it was alright. I played it on Vita and it seemed perfect for ten minute bursts. I didn't notice a great difficulty spike but I know the enemies you mean, I just ended up constantly running backwards whilst shooting them or using the dodge move a lot. The game got very repetitive by the end and I was glad to finish it, but I think it's worth the £0 I paid for it.

Currently playing Dark Souls II - think I can't be that far from the end. Also I'm about 12 hours in to P4G on Vita, and also looking forward to starting Gears Of War 3 which I snagged for a quid at a car boot last week. Oh yeah, enjoying The Wolf Among Us too, just finished the second episode.

[AndyKurosaki]

For the most part Dead Nation isn't too tough. Sure, the bigger zombie/monsters can kill you with a few hits. But it's worth remembering that most of them die with a couple of fully charged Rifle shots. You can even one-shot them if you've upgraded it enough. Fun game.
Really enjoying Persona 4 and Muramasa on Vita. Juggling them with Dark Souls 1 and Fist Of The North Star 2. Oh and Wolfenstein.

[Scrustle]

I've been playing some more Drakengard, and things are getting better than first impressions seemed to indicate. I've gotten more weapons and levelled up, so the combat has been fleshed out a bit. It's still pretty button mashy, but at least now there are a few different simple combos to choose from, and different feeling weapons too. Enemy variety has gotten a bit wider too. Thankfully, the "censorship" seems like it was a one-time thing after all as well. Just a bad joke. But apart from that, the comedic writing actually isn't that bad. It's not side-splittingly hilarious, but banter between characters is entertaining. The story often takes some very unexpected turns as well, which are really fun. The game loves to play with your expectations. There's a little bit of fourth wall breaking stuff in there too, but it's the bad kind unfortunately. The kind that points out bad design cliches, but still partakes in them. Oh, and there was one more little thing I wanted to add last time but forgot about. The world map in the game is an upside-down Europe. I thought that was an amusing little detail.

I've also been playing Burnout Revenge these past few days as well. Again, partly because of the upcoming episode, so I don't want to go too much in to it yet. Originally I had it on PS2, but this time I've got the 360 version. Turns out it's one of those games that have terrible achievements, because no-one at the time knew how to do them right. Except it's not the type you usually hear about, where they don't bother and just give you everything for easy stuff. Here it's the extremely hard/completionist version. Every achievement is like "finish every event of this type with a perfect rating". I actually find those more annoying than the easy ones. I somewhat look at achievements as a gauge of how much you like or are invested in a game, so I like to have a decent score on a game I care about. But liking a game and being invested doesn't necessarily mean you'll want to, or even be able to perfect everything in it, so it feels a bit unfair for a game's achievements to be scored that way to me. You can love a game and spend hundreds of hours with it, and finish every part of it 99%, and you won't have anything to show for it, just because there's that one super-hard event that eludes you. At least with the easy kind you get something that shows you've played it a decent amount. Like around the same time as Revenge came out, you also had the original Need for Speed: Most Wanted. In that game the achievements were the easy kind. You got all of them just for going through the career mode. At least that shows you finished the game.