What games are you playing now?

[danutz_plusplus]

I'm particularly anal when it comes to the mouse aiming in first-person shooters, and I definitely didn't experience what you're describing. I wonder if you're having the issue with mouse acceleration that I mentioned.

Either that, or it's an issue with the remasters.

Yeah, the remasters seem to be unstable. Bioshock 1 Remastered only crashed once or twice in the whole playthrough I think, but 2 is incredible unstable.

Yeah, I mentioned that about the remastered versions in my last post, but you probably didn't see the edit before you replied. The crashing seems to be an issue with those versions.

Indeed.

Anyway, back to what I played in the mean time. I put Minerva's Den on hold and started up Infinite. And I'm around 2h into it, and man what a difference. I either have fantastic rose-tinted glasses of denial, or the difference is indeed like I said before, remarkable.

The shooting can't be compared. In Infinite the crosshair is a dot, not a huge circle. Your pistol shots have precision. I can actually get headshots from a distance. You can sprint around which makes movement faster, or at least perceived fastness. The gun models are way more appropriate in size, and don't take up your whole screen. Everything is just way more spaced out. In Bioshock 1 I constantly felt like I was having shootouts at 2-3 steps around me. The available space and how fast enemies move, plus how tight the shooting feels in comparison. There's really no comparison imo. If I'm really not getting this across I must not be using the right words to express how much of a difference it is. I can hardly wait to get the vigor that makes enemies bounce from cover. That was my favorite.

Aside from the tight controls, the game just looks beautiful as heck. I forgot how nice looking the opening areas are. Even though it's an UE3 game, and you can clearly see the polygonal models sometimes, the textures are so nice to look at. And the lighting. Really beautiful.

The only worst thing, so far that I've noticed, than Bioshock 1, is the health system. I completly forgot there's no healing items that you carry with you. And the other worse thing (though the way it was implemented in Bioshock 1 wasn't that much of an improvement) is the save system. Really? No save option? Just autosaves? I completely forgot that. So basically, when I have to close the game, I just have to hope I'm either not too deep into something and the checkpoint isn't that far off. Such a shame. I can live with the health system, but checkpoint savesystem is just terrible. God damn console games.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Yeah, there's no contest in how much better of a game Infinite is compared to regular Bioshock. At least in my opinion. Not just that the shooting is better and story is better, but I'm actually having way more fun shooting soldiers, zipping around on the rails, exploring. I think that, while the setting of a underwater city is fun in concept and theory, it's just way too limiting of a setting. Or maybe I'm wrong, and they could have had Rapture but with the fun gameplay of Infinite. Of course this is all opinion. I'm sure plenty of people had plenty of fun with Bioshock's gameplay.

 

[JFarrell71]

I had plenty of fun with the gameplay in all three games. But then I didn't go backwards in time. I played them in order, so I had no reason to be playing Bioshock 1 and pining for the gameplay in Infinite.

Story/characters wise, the first game had the biggest impact on me, followed closely by Infinite. I barely remember anything from 2, and don't remember ever being impressed by it. I've always heard that Minerva's Den was very good, but as with many DLC, I missed it because I'd already played through 2 and moved on by the time it was released.

I've heard there's another Bioshock in development. My interest in a Bioshock without Ken Levine's involvement is minimal.

 

[Shagnak]

I enjoyed all three Bioshock games, but probably enjoyed the third the least - which still keeps it in the upper echelon of games for me. (I think I preferred the creepiness of the first two.)

I delayed playing Bioshock 2 because the idea of being a slow big lunk in a metal suit seemed a lot less appealing, and I'd heard the game was disappointing. I shouldn't have listened - when I got around to it I found it to be excellent. Great atmosphere (except for the underwater bits, due to the lack of atmosphere, chortle, bad pun), fun combat. I think the combat in Infinite probably seems more fluid because you're not a big metal lunk and you have sky hooks and what-not to fly around. It's more dynamic by design. Things feel different, because they're meant to.

The DLC was superb. Seriously, you need to play the DLC to get the full story across the Bioshocks. Play all of them. And then try to unbend your brain from the pretzel shape it has been turned into.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

So, I finished Bioshock Infinite, properly this time, and on Hard difficulty. And it was shockingly way less difficult than I remembered it was when I first played it on launch. As I said before, last time I played it on release, I could not for the life of me get past the final fight atop Comstock's airship. Which makes me wonder if I didn't play on 1999 difficulty mode back then. Regardless, it was a great ride, and I forgot some very nice story beats that crept up on me. It's such a nicely paced beautiful story.

And I started the Burial at Sea expansions, and man does it look and play good on the Infinite engine. And I also love the slower more survival-esque style of play, compared to the main campaign which was constant run and gun. The one bad thing so far is that Elizabeth constantly gets in my way especially when I need to rush out of the vision cone of a turret.

 

[JDR13]

Still playing Doom Eternal but not actually enjoying it as much as I thought I was going to.

Some of the difficulty spikes are a bit ridiculous, and some battles require meta knowledge to even stand a chance.

 

[Shagnak]

I'm about 40 hours into ELEX II and loving it, though it looks very last gen and makes my new card feel very last gen.
It's interesting how an RPG so janky and unpolished can capture my interest so much more than plenty of more polished RPGs.

 

[JFarrell71]

I'm about 40 hours into ELEX II and loving it, though it looks very last gen and makes my new card feel very last gen.
It's interesting how an RPG so janky and unpolished can capture my interest so much more than plenty of more polished RPGs.

Well, lay it on us. What's appealing to you?

 

[Carnifex]

I'm finally dipping into replaying Final Fantasy four, as Everquest two has had some updates lately that have kept servers down or wonky right now. This is the last pixel remaster for me to play, I've played maybe two hours so far and love being back in this world!

 

[JDR13]

I'm on the final level of Doom Eternal now. It's been a love-hate relationship, and I'm not even sure if I'm going to play the expansions. It's significantly harder than Doom 2016 was on the same difficulty, and I'm feeling a little burned-out despite it being a shorter game.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I'm on the final level of Doom Eternal now. It's been a love-hate relationship, and I'm not even sure if I'm going to play the expansions. It's significantly harder than Doom 2016 was on the same difficulty, and I'm feeling a little burned-out despite it being a shorter game.

I like Eternal, but I got nowhere close to finishing it since I really want to finish Doom 2016 first. And Nightmare difficulty is incredibily hard for me, but I'm in no hurry to finish it. I've been at it, on and off, since release. This is one of the few games where a high difficulty, while hard as nails, is not annoying. Farthest I got was very close to release, I think it was the level next to last, VEGA Central Processing, right when you get off some train on a railway running through some ice corridor, iirc. I never managed to get past that fight, and every couple of months I restart it all again, but never got back to that again. Of course, I've been mostly treating it as a fun distraction. One day I'll get back on the horse.

Back to Eternal, it's really quite different than 2016, since they introduced hard counters for each enemy/situation, and so if you don't use the ideal weapon or weapon mod for the appropriate situation, you're gonna have a hard time. Plenty of fans of the Doom 2016 hated this change, since you can no longer just use one weapon to kill everything. It forces you to switch weapons and mods, especially on higher difficulties. I'm sort of ok with this, but I do kind of miss the combat design in Doom 2016.

 

[JDR13]

Back to Eternal, it's really quite different than 2016, since they introduced hard counters for each enemy/situation, and so if you don't use the ideal weapon or weapon mod for the appropriate situation, you're gonna have a hard time. Plenty of fans of the Doom 2016 hated this change, since you can no longer just use one weapon to kill everything. It forces you to switch weapons and mods, especially on higher difficulties. I'm sort of ok with this, but I do kind of miss the combat design in Doom 2016.

Yeah, I liked Doom 2016 a bit more. Eternal takes the arcadey elements a step further and constantly breaks immersion by reminding you it's a game.

I played both on Ultra Violence, and Eternal is definitely more challenging. There have been a few optional encounters that took me around a dozen tries to get past. You might want to consider taking the difficulty down 1 level for Eternal.

 

[Redglyph]

Talking about Quake, I've just seen that Xbox insiders (whoever that is) were invited to preview Quake 4 on PC. I'm not sure what it means since it was released for PC more than 16 years ago. Any idea?

Xbox Insiders on Windows PC are invited to preview Quake 4. Originally released in 2005, players lead the invasion of an alien planet in this epic, narrative-driven and action-packed FPS from the award-winning id Software and Raven Software.

Check out the Xbox Insider Hub on Windows PC to join the preview today! This preview is an integral part of bringing the game to Windows PC, and we are delighted that you’ll be a part of it!
[. . .]

 

[JDR13]

That's interesting. I did a search but couldn't find anything except that they're updating the game to run better on modern systems and with support for higher resolutions.

Seems like a waste of time to me. It was never very popular and, imo, is the worst game in the franchise.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

The only other thing linked to Quake was that some months ago I believe I read some rumours that id were going to do something in the quake universe. Some said it was a reboot of Quake, just as they did with Doom. I can't remember anything else, or how actually believable those rumours were, or what they were based on.

Since I hear Doom Eternal (the ancient gods) leaves off on a cliff hanger of sorts, I would imagine they're working on the 3rd Doom. But maybe id has enough people to at least prototype another game in parallel.

I think a reboot of Quake could be a cool thing, if they actually do it in a more grounded and realistic horror style than Doom. Doom, while awesome, is still over the top. So something like Doom, but more towards true horror could be cool.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Speaking about Doom Eternal, these guys are impressive.

 

[Shagnak]

Well, lay it on us. What's appealing to you?

Apparently Elex II's manly man-ness. My testosterone goes into overdrive, overflowing so much that I have to sit in a large plastic container. There, I can sluice it back all over myself, bathing myself in the essential manliness produced by the video game.

But seriously - there's just so much to do, lots of factions and choices, no hand holding (too hard? - come back to that quest later), great exploration…
All of this fights hard against the terrible optimisation and slight bugginess and wins for me.
It's a pity that the graphical performance is so so bad. They're putting off a significant proportion of their niche audience that would otherwise really like this game. And for what? The chance of attracting a wider audience with flashy graphics? And then they fail at that too.

 

[mercy]

Finished Warhammer 40,000: Sanctus Reach
The DLCs are very well done and gameplay became awesome after my music mega mod and enlarging the fonts! Highly recommended game. Took all the epic soundtracks of the best Warhammer strategy games and merged them so each original Sanctus mp3 file (0..7) contained a full soundtrack worth & length of music!

Next: Brigandine The Legend of Runersia
I'm modding the fonts already.

 

[Zloth]

I've started playing Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Wow, Jesse is really coming on to me!! And Tifa, of course. Never mind my terrible hair, fashion sense, and personality - as long as a guy has a really big sword, he gets all the great looking women.

 

[vanedor]

A steam sale got me to try Elex2. As usual, with PB games, just walking around, exploring the map is pretty fun. Combats, for some reasons, feel better to me with far fewer instant-death than usual but the AI of the critters could use some works.

Where the games is truly bad, it’s as far as the story and the dialogs are concerned. They seriously need some better world-builders / writers.