What games are you playing now?

[JFarrell71]

I'm sorry, and I don't want to argue, but I think it's objectively impossible to say you saw the whole thing and you only saw boring office environments.

I didn't say I saw only boring office environments. I said there's a lot of backtracking through fairly boring office environments, which there is. So it may be impossible to say that, but I didn't, and I did indeed watch the whole thing.

 

[JFarrell71]

As far as Spider-Man goes, I guess I liked it more than the rest of you. Superhero games are not a draw for me. In fact, if a game involves superheroes it creates a built-in level of resistance to me being interested. But sometimes if it's a good enough game (like the Rocksteady Batman games), I'll give them a shot. Thus is was with Insomnia's Spider-Man game.

It is repetitive, absolutely. So is, in my opinion, almost every open world game known to mankind. I thought at least the various powers you have (and you do have quite a few different attacks), were fun to use. It's always contingent on a player to consciously use a variety of moves in games like this if they want to avoid repetition, because it's pretty much always possible (and easier) to just find a couple you like and do them over and over.

And the side content was mostly boring. Agree on that too.

I liked it because the traversal and combat were fun, the game wasn't long enough to completely wear out its welcome, and I liked the way the story was delivered. When I got to the end of the 30 or so hours, I was ready to be done, but just. I haven't gotten the Miles Morales sequel because I feel like it probably will be mostly more of the same.

 

[rikus]

just did a diablo1+hellfire run from zero to finish on normal.
amazing fun. took all saturday(cleaning up all levels).
good game to wait for diablo IV, if you're tired of the d3,d2 genre.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Yeah, it's weird, I can feel the repetitiveness of something like Alan Wake, especially in terms of combat scenarios. Pretty much each one feels like the previous, with very minor variations. In Control the combat feels very versatile and diverse. And I love the enemy types. Except for a very few of the bosses, some of them are downright annoying.

I just finished The Foundation, and while it's generally been more of the same, with also some very cool side missions. Two of them in particular were very ingenious. One in terms of mechanics, and one in terms of the idea.

But they had to kind of spoil all my good fun with another unbalanced boss fight right at the end. And believe me, I'm overpowered as hell. I unlocked 95% of all skills. And it still took me down a bunch of times, and I only managed to beat it by cheesing the fight. God, so annoying. I really wonder if I'm just not doing something right in these fights that feel grindy. I hate it when there's a mission item that I have to use, the game doesn't make it obvious (or I just missed it completely) and I just hit my head against a wall trying to beat it the way I've been doing it throughout the game. Anyway, the Alan Wake DLC is next. I'm curious about that one. I picked up a couple of hidden logs and liked the hints it was making to it.

Speaking of New World, but more around mmos, I hear Guid Wars 2 is finally coming to Steam? That's a weird twist. I think I'll probably want to try it, since I hear there's 10 years of content in a not-so-mmo style of game? Anyone have experience with that?

 

[DArtagnan]

As far as Spider-Man goes, I guess I liked it more than the rest of you. Superhero games are not a draw for me. In fact, if a game involves superheroes it creates a built-in level of resistance to me being interested. But sometimes if it's a good enough game (like the Rocksteady Batman games), I'll give them a shot. Thus is was with Insomnia's Spider-Man game.

It is repetitive, absolutely. So is, in my opinion, almost every open world game known to mankind. I thought at least the various powers you have (and you do have quite a few different attacks), were fun to use. It's always contingent on a player to consciously use a variety of moves in games like this if they want to avoid repetition, because it's pretty much always possible (and easier) to just find a couple you like and do them over and over.

And the side content was mostly boring. Agree on that too.

I liked it because the traversal and combat were fun, the game wasn't long enough to completely wear out its welcome, and I liked the way the story was delivered. When I got to the end of the 30 or so hours, I was ready to be done, but just. I haven't gotten the Miles Morales sequel because I feel like it probably will be mostly more of the same.

Again, not all games are for everyone

The irony of this particular statement:

It is repetitive, absolutely. So is, in my opinion, almost every open world game known to mankind. I thought at least the various powers you have (and you do have quite a few different attacks), were fun to use.

With your criticism of LP videos of Control would seem to underline what I was trying to say. I mean, I could have said the exact same thing as you just did about Control

Well, except that - in Control - my progression choices felt meaningful where they didn't in Spider-Man.

But you're definitely not alone in really liking it. It has some of the best ratings of any game - so it's doing something right for a lot of people.

For my part, I was initially excited by the many gadgets and suits for the game - but since I ended up having zero difficulty no matter what gadgets or suits I used - it felt utterly pointless, and I never even understood what half the powers were supposed to do as opposed to the other powers. They all had the same basic limitations as far as I could tell.

The only meaningful choice I made was using "Web Blossom" as that particular power seemed decidedly more useful than pretty much all the other suit powers - which were almost universally situational and often not very useful at all.

So, my experience with Spider-Man powers/toys was that they all largely did the same thing in a different way, which is terrible design.

I did play on "Amazing" which was the next-hardest difficulty - as that's my go-to difficulty for games I'm not taken with.

I guess it changes on the hardest mode - but I suspect it only makes certain fights even longer - which would have broken me sooner.

 

[DArtagnan]

Speaking of New World, but more around mmos, I hear Guid Wars 2 is finally coming to Steam? That's a weird twist. I think I'll probably want to try it, since I hear there's 10 years of content in a not-so-mmo style of game? Anyone have experience with that?

Yeah, I've played GW2 since beta.

I'm not a big fan of it, though it does certain things really well.

For one thing, it has the best underwater content of any MMO - and almost every game.

One might consider such a thing trivial, but I'm a big fan of underwater stuff - and it's mishandled in 9 out of 10 games that try it.

Apart from that, GW2 has a very responsive and entertaining combat system - and I think the dynamic events are a great and well executed addition to the genre.

That said, they were originally supposed to be the "quests" of GW2 - and I don't think they qualify as a good replacement.

No matter how dynamic you make repeating events - you can't really substitute them for a strong narrative.

There is a lot of narrative in the game, though - but I've only ever done the main story for humans. That's a pretty cringe-worthy story but I guess it's amusing in a certain charming way.

The so-called living story is supposed to be much better - but I never got around to experiencing it.

I get back into the game every year or so and play for a bit. It never really grabs me - because I think most of the gameplay is shallow - and the progression is weak, especially when it comes to gear.

I'm a very progression-driven gamer in MMOs - and that remains the weakest part of GW2 - and it's by design. Well, it's not weak by design - it's "horizontal" by design. To me, that's another way of saying they didn't want progression so they introduced non-progression as a replacement.

That didn't quite work if you ask me, but lots of people enjoy it.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I'm a very progression-driven gamer in MMOs - and that remains the weakest part of GW2 - and it's by design. Well, it's not weak by design - it's "horizontal" by design. To me, that's another way of saying they didn't want progression so they introduced non-progression as a replacement.

That didn't quite work if you ask me, but lots of people enjoy it.

Oh, right, now I remember they made a big deal out of the fact that their mmo won't require a lot of grinding? I forgot about that. Maybe I'll try it. I seem to remember some of the platforming quests being fun? But considering the huge backlog I have, I think an mmo is the last thing I should start.

 

[DArtagnan]

Oh, right, now I remember they made a big deal out of the fact that their mmo won't require a lot of grinding? I forgot about that. Maybe I'll try it. I seem to remember some of the platforming quests being fun? But considering the huge backlog I have, I think an mmo is the last thing I should start.

GW2 has as much grinding as any MMO - especially if you want legendary items or achievement stuff. You wouldn't believe me if I told you what you had to do to craft your own legendary weapons

But it's not a "power" grind, that's true.

It depends on what motivates people to grind - I guess.

For me, progression and power is a LOT more motivational than cosmetics and achievements.

That said, it's 100% true that you don't have to play the game if you don't want to. A strange marketing scheme - but there it is.

I despise jumping puzzles - so I'm not the right one to ask here

They're the worst part of 90% of modern third-person action games.

I hate them in Tomb Raider, I hate them in Uncharted, I hate them in Jedi Fallen Order - and so forth

The only thing that's kept me sane is that I'm pretty good at them.

I suspect it's because of my time with Speccy/C64/Amiga games - as I actually once enjoyed platform games.

Platforming is what I consider a gamey-game feature - and I tend to strongly dislike gamey-games.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I despise jumping puzzles - so I'm not the right one to ask here

I like them, but maybe not so much puzzles but using jumping, and other mobility skills, for exploration of the environment. And I remember seeing people using jumping, in GW2, to get around in the most random places on the map, to find stuff. So that sort of thing I can dig. Otherwise, yeah, if it's the sort of timing puzzle where I have to time it perfectly for a jump, otherwise die; yeah, that, not so much. But, come to think of it, Sekiro, is basically a timing puzzle with split-second reaction time. And I really liked that. So, I don't know.

I started the Alan Wake expansion of Control, and it's promising so far, but I suddenly have a fear, seeing as how darkness is such a prominent theme. And they will likely make me carry a flashlight/torch/light beacon with the Raise ability. I hate that. And I have a feeling they'll pull some darkness fights, with me trying to juggle both the light source and my abilities. That would suck. It was hard enough in Alan Wake, to keep enemies in your headlights. But to now have to telepathically carry a spot light around? I hope it will be as little as possible of that.

 

[JFarrell71]

Speaking of New World, but more around mmos, I hear Guid Wars 2 is finally coming to Steam? That's a weird twist. I think I'll probably want to try it, since I hear there's 10 years of content in a not-so-mmo style of game? Anyone have experience with that?

I've watched some Wooden Potatoes (on Youtube) videos, and GW2 does seem to have a lot more single player content than some MMOs. I would put it on the same level, roughly, as Elder Scrolls Online or FF 14.

 

[JFarrell71]

The irony of this particular statement:

It is repetitive, absolutely. So is, in my opinion, almost every open world game known to mankind. I thought at least the various powers you have (and you do have quite a few different attacks), were fun to use.

With your criticism of LP videos of Control would seem to underline what I was trying to say. I mean, I could have said the exact same thing as you just did about Control

But as I mentioned originally, since I only watched Control and didn't play it, I can't say how much fun fighting is in that game. I have only what I see to go by. I have played Spider-Man, so I do know that I generally found the different moves fun to use.

I also said the story in Control didn't interest me much, and I liked how Spider-Man delivered its story. I'm not contradicting myself quite so much as you're implying.

 

[azraelck]

I blew the dust off my PS4 and played some Mega Man X from the legacy collection, and GTA San Andreas from the Definitive Screw Up Trilogy.

I had some serious problems with audio desyncing on X1. Literally 2-3 seconds between doing something, and hearing the sound. But it's still a great old platformer. Add in the ability to save now and it's much better. I made it to the first Sigma stage before switching off to X4, the PS1 classic. No audio issues there. I also played through to the first Sigma stage, though I'm missing an E tank.

While Rockstar botched the landing on the trilogy, looking like fat Chris Jericho dropping on his own head during a lionsault, the core of the games are still there, and still great. Honestly, since my PS2 is long gone, with the games, it was worth it to me to have them on my PS4. Though there's some modded PS2s on Etsy that I'm tempted to buy, just for the PS1 and 2 games.

 

[DArtagnan]

But as I mentioned originally, since I only watched Control and didn't play it, I can't say how much fun fighting is in that game. I have only what I see to go by. I have played Spider-Man, so I do know that I generally found the different moves fun to use.

I also said the story in Control didn't interest me much, and I liked how Spider-Man delivered its story. I'm not contradicting myself quite so much as you're implying.

Oh, it wasn't meant as such.

It was merely a demonstration of how the same criticism can be less of a problem for one game than another - based on personal preferences.

I'm not one to have a problem with people liking what I don't like - or the reverse.

If I'm trying to say anything, I think it's more that our experiences with games are often too subjective to be rationalized in terms of whatever features are implemented in whichever ways

We want to make sense of why we like or dislike something - and certainly that's true for me as well.

It's just that I suspect we're not always capable of it to the extent that we think we are.

 

[mercy]

Brigandine: Grand Edition = essentially an upgraded Forsena

Edit: EPSXE emulator, despite not being developed since 2016 performs significantly better. WTH?! Sound effects are better and music is noticeably more beautiful with P.E.Op.S. Sound Audio Driver v.10, as I already noticed many years ago with Final Fantasy PSX Rebirth.. Also Blade's excellent gpuBladeSoft 1.64 plugin also works way better than Duckstations software renderer, for example the sky is reflected in the water and Fullscreen to window switch is instant as if it would be in Borderless Fullscreen. While with Duckstation HW renderers I get an ugly white line on left/bottom window edge in fullscreen and the software renderer is uglier too.. (

Anyway, managing the game in the Organization Phase is way easier in Duckstation, so I'll do monster management there. While transferring the savegames to EPSXE I'll play the battles there as the graphics + sound + music is awesome!
WOW!! What a difference a 6 years old abandoned emulator does make!


Superb amazing Anime cutscenes with fantastic art direction drawn beautifully and sporting the best Japanese voice narration quality!!

Congratulations to the Subtitle Team!

I always wonder at how excellently the Japanese do their anime narration in lot of highest quality products. All anime and games anime-cutscenes should be done with Japanese voices and English subtitles only: I consider that the highest peak of theatrical art ever created for Asian games. (If the Chinese would do games more frequently, I would prefer sublime Cantonese voice actors with English subtitles as it sounds way-waay superior to Mandarin.. But I guess it depends on narrator theatrical voice skill)

PROS:

Nice parts of Brigandine / Forsena Grand Edition:
+ Landscape is beautiful. Cities and mountains even better looking than Runersia's hand-painted landscape! Animated castle flags lead over Runersia.
+ Summoning with 'infinite mana + Turbo Mode + Duckstation Emulator hotkeys' is fun!
+ More monsters and more colorful upgrade opportunities - by reading the Walkthrough
+ Anime cutscenes are bombastic!
+ Cursor speed can be increased from Game--Options

CONS:
Everything else..


Summoning is best fun:
The most fun I found in this game were the mass summoning of monsters. In the excellent Duckstation emulator. I put Autofire function on left SHIFT, turned on TURBO mode and just pressed left SHIFT for 10 seconds and I summoned ~ 110 monsters in that time, filling the max. 140 creatures combat roster in record time!
Just like in my previous description of cheat-summoning only Mana Miracle (elite) monsters in amazing Runersia, this way I could filter from the 100+ summoned monsters the best dozen, and even from that best dozen I selected the very best one or two to be included into my army!

Actually I was disappointed how everyone is praising Forsena/Grand Edition and there is only 6 monster places in one knights army???! One Steam negative reviewer couldn't stop blasting Runersia, compared to how good and original Forsena was.. Well.. where is that exceptional gameplay goodness now? I've yet to find it in Grand Edition!

So the process is similar to the one in Runersia, except in Grand Edition the TURBO mode + AutoFire button allows me to NOT HAVE to press the summon key like 100 times at all. Very convenient and spares my keyboard!

So in the first round organization phase I summoned at least a 1000 monsters, using the 'frozen max mana'-cheat as well. Duckstation Emulator has a sublime easy way to edit and activate cheats!! This way I built up an army filled with best elite 1st LVL monsters, leaving the high level [non-elite] veterans to be sacrificed - dramatically I hoped - later in battles.

But unfortunately here is - after only the 1st round - where the FUN - where is the FUN?? - in Forsena/Grand Edition ends... Why?

Well.. the development team had - they were called Hearty Robin - mixed skill levels.. They had people with weak skills regards spell particle effects / explosions. Lame. Excepting the animated flags, which look amazing and they even lower / stop animating the flag, when there is no knight in the castle. The first SUMMON effect was a tell-tale sign, as it was done at a lame low level already..

Music:
Well, the music is ugly and annoying as hell.. in the Duckstation emulator and beautiful in EPSXE. DD In Duckstation I usually turn it off in organization phase and in combat I wish it could be turned off entirely. Runersia's music on Steam is magnitudes better - if short & repetitive - and at least there - Unity Engine - I'll be able to expand the soundtrack exponentially just as I did in amazing Sanctus Reach, there I made the soundtrack 7x the size from EPIC Warhammer games!!

Combat:

1. Surprisingly low-quality, boring and lame "particle" spell effects, accompany ugly battle sounds. Creatures don't have screams??? WTH? WHY??

2. The animated sprites are just okay quality. Changing to top-down view increases clarity a bit, but looks disillusioning and weak. Runersia has excellent 3D battlefield realization compared to the mess of the "isometric" normal combat view of Grand Edition. Surprisingly confusing.. as lots of people praise Forsena/Grand Edition.. why??

Grand Edition combat is thankfully devoid of those ugly 3D trainwreck Forsena animations, which 3D models aged horribly. They say there was some death sounds to the enemy knights, but I yet have to kill an enemy knight in Grand Edition to check out if knights have nice death screams. I won't try Forsena just for that.

Quests:
Grand Edition and maybe Forsena's quest story system is surprisingly inane. I mean kindergarten level or just badly translated? Also the city 3D-->2D backgrounds have mediocre art direction, look out of place. So do not look at all like any fantasy background art of expert studio make..

I have yet to win my first battle, but in hardest = "King" mode one enemy knight already fled with his bunch of monsters.. ??! Why?.....
Edit: Finally loading the savegame in EPSXE I managed to beat one Knight before he could flee. He had no death scream..

Whatever.. In Duckstation emulator I'm surprised how bad & weak Grand Edition is combat-wise compared to amazing Runersia. EPSXE combat is better.

Just to compare the combat: the sprites and their animations and spell effects are Olympus-level Sublime in Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together.
Compared to that Forsena/Grand Edition sprites are just mediocre. Clearly the Anime movie team was entirely separate from the development team as none of their greatness shows in the 2D-sprites...

I'm thinking of going back to Runersia Steam as even Final Fantasy Tactics PSX Rebirth was better with its way over-complicated job and idiot zodiac signs system than this drab & grey and UnFun™©℗® Forsena/Grand Edition.

But I'm holding out for a while for something fun to appear in this game combat-campaign-wise.

 

[Deleted member 18181]

Started a replay of Deus Ex Mankind Divided, and one thing is sure, this game did not aged well or maybe it looked like that at launch too; npcs look realy ugly and terrible, same for the movements in the cutscenes, dont think it has mocap. Oh, and they still sell praxis kits and other shit for real money from ingame menus, 10$ for 15k ingame money

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Since I never finished the original Dead Space, I thought I'd give it a try. I'm also debating just leaving it alone and maybe just doing the remake, if it's faithful enough.

But I started it, and immediately I had the issues I completely forgotten about. Namely mouse issues. The unofficial fix seemed to improve this. Then I moved onto the next major blocker. I can't get through the first door, after getting the first gun. I shoot the door-battery thing to open it. It's model animates away, to indicate it's open. But when I try to walk through, there's an invisible wall blocking me. Sounds like some script broke and didn't remove the blocker from the door.

Myeah, this is my nightmare with older games on modern systems.

 

[JDR13]

Since I never finished the original Dead Space, I thought I'd give it a try. I'm also debating just leaving it alone and maybe just doing the remake, if it's faithful enough.

But I started it, and immediately I had the issues I completely forgotten about. Namely mouse issues. The unofficial fix seemed to improve this. Then I moved onto the next major blocker. I can't get through the first door, after getting the first gun. I shoot the door-battery thing to open it. It's model animates away, to indicate it's open. But when I try to walk through, there's an invisible wall blocking me. Sounds like some script broke and didn't remove the blocker from the door.

Myeah, this is my nightmare with older games on modern systems.

That sucks. I wonder if it's a hardware issue or something to do with Windows 11.

I started it up to see if it was an issue with an update or something, but I didn't experience any glitches. I played just past the point you're talking about.

One thing for sure - this game doesn't really need a remake. At least not from a visual standpoint. It still looks great.

 

[danutz_plusplus]

That sucks. I wonder if it's a hardware issue or something to do with Windows 11.

I started it up to see if it was an issue with an update or something, but I didn't experience any glitches. I played just past the point you're talking about.

One thing for sure - this game doesn't really need a remake. At least not from a visual standpoint. It still looks great.

Apparently it's an older bug when it comes to running the game without Vsync. I have a feeling It's gonna be a pain in the ass to find a fix. I'll have to try whatever stuff people are recommending there.

Can't go through this doorway - invisible wall. :: Dead Space General Discussions

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=143142544 Also, worst controls ever for a long time in a 3rd person game.

steamcommunity.com

 

[JDR13]

Why would you run it without Vsync?

 

[danutz_plusplus]

Why would you run it without Vsync?

I tried running it with the in-game Vsync and it locked the framerate to 30fps. And it also feels a lot more stuttery than usual.

But one of the hints in that steamcommunity thread did seem to fix my issues. It was enabling Vsync but not from the in-game setting, but from the Nvidia control panel for the Dead Space executable in particular. For some reason that seems to work, and locks the framerate at 60fps, not 30. And the locked door bug went away.