What are you playing now?

[LadyCrimson]

I don't understand what the reason is behind a limited number of backpack upgrades. It isn't realism - that word does not even belong in the same sentence as this game.

I can understand limiting it in PT1, say, but yeah...after that I don't see any reason to not allow a very high number of backpack upgrades. Just make them really expensive to get to 50+ slots or something. I rarely mind a limit per se, but loot-based action games (whole point is tons of loot droppage) that try to limit you to fanny-pack size inventory space to make it harder to accrue gold/carry too many optional weapons seems a bit silly. Never works anyway - everyone still ends up with more cash then they can spend etc.

[GhostofAnakin]

Nearing the end of BioShock 2.  It's ... less interesting than BioShock 1 and Infinite.  The story seems more like an expansion pack type story, rather than a full fledged new game.

[Calax]

picked up Borderlands 2 on mah pc while it was on sale. And the New Vegas DLC's as Tale has seen, and a few other things

[GhostofAnakin]

Ready Lady Crimson's review of it, I'm tempted to pick up Tiny Tina's DLC.  My buddy wants to play through BL2 co-op anyway, so this could be the excuse I need to download it.

[Humanoid]

Just missed the daily sale for it - though I suspect it'll be back. It's included in the Season Pass if it works out a better deal for you that way.

[GhostofAnakin]

Well that kind of sucks for timing.

[Keyrock]

Playing Tomb Raider, Axe Murderer Lara style.  As an action game, it's pretty good.  As a Tomb Raider game, it's a failure of the highest order.  The platforming, if you can even call it that, is pathetically easy.  Puzzles...  are there even puzzles? (I guess there are, but they're pathetic)  On the other hand, the combat is pretty good.  This was supposedly a reboot for the series, a new beginning.  If this is the direction they're going in, then they can count me out from here on out.  It's a good game, but it's not what I want out of a Tomb Raider game.  Raiding tombs should not be an afterthought just haphazardly tossed in like "oh yeah, we should probably throw this in so we can pretend it's a Tomb Raider game".  Raiding tombs should be the core of the game.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Keyrock

[Humanoid]

The spinoff game/series which dropped the Tomb Raider branding has more tomb raiding than the mainline series which retains it, yeah.

[HoonDing]

Lara kills more in her latest venture than in all previous Tomb Raiders combined.

 

Then again, the series turned into a full action game when Crystal Dynamics took the wheel anyway. I don't recall any puzzles in the few dungeons of Legend and Underworld at all, and dungeon design is so boring and straightforward in those games too.

 

And worse of all, the mommy/daddy issues story.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Drudanae

[Nordicus]

The biggest puzzle in Tomb Raider Legend was working out the horrible camera

Edited July 16, 2013 by Nordicus

[Guest Slinky]

Right, have been playing Skyrim for couple of days.

 

The Good:

- The engine isn't utter crap anymore, now you can actually take something from a table without everything flying around the room. Also extra points for extra fast load times, DD likes.

- No apparent level scaling on enemies, I actually had my arse handed to me in one quest and had to save it for later! DD likes very much.

 

The Bad:

- It's a Bethesda game, so the weak writing shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. They are a successful company, they should have the money to hire someone to do the job right. And I'm sure their current writers miss the jungle. DD doesn't like at all.

- The UI... It might be ok for controller but it bloody aint for mouse/keyboard and anyone with a brain could see that a mile away. Can be modded better but even they can't change the skill menu which is an utter disaster. DD wonders are the people responsible incompetent, lazy or just really stupid.

- My horse could use better controls. And a reverse gear. Another thing that probably is fine on controller, DD is annoyed.

- They apparently screwed up something in the engine, because if you uninstall a mod you previously used your saves might not work anymore or even the game itself untill you install the mod back. In earlier games you could almost freely uninstall mods and keep playing without any problems. I'd like to change one mod to another, but cant because I get CTD on loading the game if I uninstall the original mod, DD is annoyed again and takes back some of the points engine got previously.

 

The Ugly:

- Am I imagining, or does the game sometimes look uglier than oblivion? DD is confused.

 

If I was a game critic, I guess I'd give the PC version of the game something like 82/100. Or 100/100 if they would pay me enough. I wish beth would throw the zombies out from their team someday.

 

 

[Humanoid]

Yeah, the level scaling was done reasonably well - which is to say, it was disguised. There are two types of scaling employed: some creature types had both a minimum and maximum level that they wouldn't scale past, but do scale at and around the levels you're reasonably likely to encounter them - this includes all bosses I think. Other creatures have multiple versions, think Heroes of Might and Magic, where as you get to the higher levels, they get replaced by upgraded versions (though it's also partially randomised, the lower level version will still spawn for variety). Zombie King instead of Zombie Peasant, that kind of thing.

 

 

I don't think anything in the world could be uglier than Oblivion though...

[Walsingham]

I'd defer to the devs here instantly if they disagree. But I think good writing is a difficult business. It takes more than just good people. They have to be managed well, and dragooned where necessary.

 

However, I'd agree with Double D's analysis that the writers on Skyrim were weakass. There's just a tremendous lack of conviction in everything. Like all the NPCs are phoning their words in. It's not there all the time. But it is a problem.

[Raithe]

Far Cry 3 has some weaknesses, but some amsuing points as well.

On the one hand it's got the whole "go through hell to rescue your friends one by one, make sure they can hide out safely while you get the rest, provide them an escape option from the island.. and then the moment you say 'you guys go, I'm staying here' you get accused of being a jerk who always runs away"..

 

On the other, you get a german mercenary with some snappy "evil. huh, I lied to get in this group and because I'm german they assumed I was evil and on their side. I only got the promotion because of my accent.." type of snark.

[HoonDing]

Dragons are scaled like Oblivion, the first one you fight is basically just a firebreathing cliffracer.

[Humanoid]

In hindsight I would not have even fought that dragon, activating the whole dragon plot just adds annoying distractions everywhere while you try to play the fun parts of the game.

[Nordicus]

Yeah, the level scaling was done reasonably well - which is to say, it was disguised. There are two types of scaling employed: some creature types had both a minimum and maximum level that they wouldn't scale past, but do scale at and around the levels you're reasonably likely to encounter them - this includes all bosses I think. Other creatures have multiple versions, think Heroes of Might and Magic, where as you get to the higher levels, they get replaced by upgraded versions (though it's also partially randomised, the lower level version will still spawn for variety). Zombie King instead of Zombie Peasant, that kind of thing.

The end result is still almost identical to Oblivion. You mostly fight regular Draugrs at low levels, but at high levels, more than half the Draugrs are "Draugr Wights" no matter what dungeon you visit, and much like with Oblivion, it feels like no real progress was made. Same with all other enemy types.

 

I'll however admit that the level scaling is slightly less uniform than in Oblivion and there are indeed some dungeons where enemies do not scale down

 

Dragons are scaled like Oblivion, the first one you fight is basically just a firebreathing cliffracer.

Essentially, yeah. There's a new dragon type for every 10 levels. By "new" I mean a prefix and buffed up stats

Edited July 16, 2013 by Nordicus

[Amentep]

Right, have been playing Skyrim for couple of days.

So have I!

 

The Good:

- The engine isn't utter crap anymore, now you can actually take something from a table without everything flying around the room. Also extra points for extra fast load times, DD likes.

- No apparent level scaling on enemies, I actually had my arse handed to me in one quest and had to save it for later! DD likes very much.

Weirdly I've had more problems this time around, including a flying mammoth.

 

The Bad:

- It's a Bethesda game, so the weak writing shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. They are a successful company, they should have the money to hire someone to do the job right. And I'm sure their current writers miss the jungle. DD doesn't like at all.

- The UI... It might be ok for controller but it bloody aint for mouse/keyboard and anyone with a brain could see that a mile away. Can be modded better but even they can't change the skill menu which is an utter disaster. DD wonders are the people responsible incompetent, lazy or just really stupid.

- My horse could use better controls. And a reverse gear. Another thing that probably is fine on controller, DD is annoyed.

- They apparently screwed up something in the engine, because if you uninstall a mod you previously used your saves might not work anymore or even the game itself untill you install the mod back. In earlier games you could almost freely uninstall mods and keep playing without any problems. I'd like to change one mod to another, but cant because I get CTD on loading the game if I uninstall the original mod, DD is annoyed again and takes back some of the points engine got previously.

I've had a lot of freezes and a game ending bug in Dawnguard (doors wouldn't open).

 

That said, i think the problem with the writing is actually a problem with the narrative as a whole which I think stems entirely from the "you can do everything". The story, therefore, has to be created to not have any real urgency so the player isn't pushed to not do this over that as part of the philosophy of the gameplay.

 

The Ugly:

- Am I imagining, or does the game sometimes look uglier than oblivion? DD is confused.

Sometimes. But it never looks as bad as Morrowind did (I couldn't play that game without graphics mods to improve/replace everything).

[HoonDing]

Without a lighting mod the game looks really dull and washed out; vanilla textures are terrible as well. I wouldn't want to play it on console.

[Oner]

Can someone recommend me any general graphic upgrade mods for FO:NV?
My eyes just can't stand those smudge faces anymore.

[LadyCrimson]

Mind, I didn't get very far into Skyrim, but what I saw I liked. But then, I like grey, overcast, washed out seeming weather and neutral tones....and I like snow in games. There were other graphical things that bugged me in Skyrim tho, like how even with settings maxed, the fact the game didn't draw in high detail land in the distance was glaringly obvious in some cases. Ugly.

 

Here's what I mean.

And blurry table with sharp texture objects ... also pretty glaring.

 

...probably a mod for that, by now.

[Humanoid]

I played Skyrim with default textures - with a 1GB 5850 pushing 25x14 res at the time, high-res textures would have been suicide - and had no particular issue with them, but then I'm sort of used to lower standards and haven't really played many other graphically intensive games.

 

I've since upgraded to a 3GB frame buffer, which would handle the high-res textures easily ....but really have no desire to go back to the game. Maybe if I could get all the DLC for under $10 I might try, but there's no real draw at the moment, and as far as I can see, despite the vaunted moddability of the game, there's basically no real user-generated content that's more than a trivial distraction (the seemingly infinite number of Mary Sue custom companion NPCs don't count).

 

 

New Vegas I pretty much played unmodded, so not much I can say there, except to get aviator shades to hide behind.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Humanoid

[Hurlshort]

Dragons are scaled like Oblivion, the first one you fight is basically just a firebreathing cliffracer.

 

Not really.  The first one is meant to be like a tutorial, so it's not going to kill you easily.  But it has little in common with the terrible cliff racers.

 

But I do agree the dragon fights in general were more annoying than fun.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Hurlshot

[Majek]

Renegade Ops, need some fun top down action. It's still not Jungle/Desert Strike worthy but better than nothing.  It just seems so weird with such big and detailed maps and so little to do there.  Maybe they make a sequel one day and improve it where i want.

[LadyCrimson]

but then I'm sort of used to lower standards and haven't really played many other graphically intensive games.

It's not so much that I demand high quality graphics as it is the inconsistency, like the sharp textures on a blurry table. My eyes notice things like that too much...probably the photographer in me. 

 

New Vegas I pretty much played unmodded, so not much I can say there, except to get aviator shades to hide behind.

I think I'm one of the few who didn't care about the graphics in NV. I did eventually run with a mod that upped the color and some textures a bit (nothing hi-res at all). But since the graphics were largely consistent, didn't bother me. Altho, the odd/ugly face shading in certain lighting/angles would occasionally jump out at you.