What are you playing right now?

[Majek]

NieR:Automata. I got the japanese version so the first 5 minutes were spent in the main menu not getting past Press any key -> New Game and back to Press any key. Then i remembered that japanese use the Cirlce for confirm and X for cancel ... xD

 

Then the i started the game on Hard being full of myself since i was pretty good in Platinum games on higher diffs. All i got from that was the first ending and no saves for first 2 hours. So i had to switch to Normal and now i'm enjoying it fully.   WIll have to try Hard again later.  But i guess i'm just not good enough for Very hard anymore. ;_;

[SonicMage117]

I agree about the bosses in Dying Light but out of the hundreds of Zombie games out there, Dying Light is still on nearly top. I put it above Dead Island, Dead Rising series and Resident Evil series.

 

Also, Lego City Undercover will be available on pc soon. It will support 4k Looks like I will be picking it up for both Switch and pc now.

[Katphood]

7 hours into Nier: Automata and I must say that I am really impressed. Combat is great, characters are fun and memorable and I just can't get the awesome soundtrack out of my head.

 

Fallout 2 doesn't have nearly as many ties to the original game as Mass Effect 2 does

 

It did. Vaults, Mutants, FEV, Harold, NCR...

[Bartimaeus]

...I think they meant story-wise...

[Wrath of Dagon]

On to Tyranny now. Man, what a huge info dump right at the beginning. To be interesting, info needs to be dribbled out, not poured out in a flood. Plus I'm not invested in the world yet, so I really don't care. Other than that seems pretty good.

[Bartimaeus]

I didn't much like that, either. GLANFARTHAN(?) THIS, GLANFARTHAN THAT, what the heck are we even talking about, let me get at least a little accustomed to the setting before you start having all this thrown at me

[algroth]

I didn't much like that, either. GLANFARTHAN(?) THIS, GLANFARTHAN THAT, what the heck are we even talking about, let me get at least a little accustomed to the setting before you start having all this thrown at me

Glanfathan is Pillars, though, not Tyranny? Either way I agree that the game is a little too wordy and expositional in place. Maybe it is just my compulsive tendencies of needing to read out and exhaust every thread of dialogue possible, but I didn't really need to hear about how much the Scarlet Chorus and Disfavoured hated one another from fifty different people from each band.

[Bartimaeus]

Whoops, somehow, I read "Tyranny" as "Pillars". Well, either way, I think you're better off with a little bit softer of an approach for a new setting. Baldur's Gate was, you're raised in this great library-fortress of Candlekeep by your foster father Gorion, you're about to go on a journey, get ready. Simple, to the point, nothing too crazy mentioned yet. Pillars was a bit more forceful, especially when you threw that intro guy repeatedly saying the word "Glanfathan" multiple times in the first conversation. If I've played the game for a while, "Glanfathan" probably sounds perfectly fine...but uh, two seconds into the game and hearing it voiced a few times like that is a little much.

[Keyrock]

Personally, I liked the "info dump" at the beginning of Tyranny, plus I thought it was necessary.  In Tyranny you're not just playing some random schmuck who, via the magic of deus ex machina, becomes The Chosen One™ (though you do still get your deus ex machina moment), you're playing a Fatebinder, a dispenser of justice and a high ranking official in the government/military that rules the world.  I think it's necessary to be intimately familiar with the world right from the beginning for a couple of reasons.  One, as a Fatebinder you would likely know these things, as it impacts your duties.  Two, your character was personally involved in the conquest of the Tiers, your character should be intimately familiar with the Tiers and its conquest because you were there.  You helped conquer the Tiers.  Why wouldn't you know these things?  I get that getting barraged with a whole bunch of info right off the bat can be a bit overwhelming, but your character would know all this because of who he/she is and therefore you, the player, should also know all these things right at the beginning, and I don't see any other way to achieve that than info dump.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Keyrock

[Wrath of Dagon]

Your character has to know, but you as a player don't necessarily. Plus you can just get a short summary instead of a novel. I've never had a problem picking up lore throughout a game, even in a completely unfamiliar setting. Show don't tell. Edit: Plus you get to ask a bunch of questions like you've just been born, so that premise isn't even correct.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Wrath of Dagon

[algroth]

Whoops, somehow, I read "Tyranny" as "Pillars". Well, either way, I think you're better off with a little bit softer of an approach for a new setting. Baldur's Gate was, you're raised in this great library-fortress of Candlekeep by your foster father Gorion, you're about to go on a journey, get ready. Simple, to the point, nothing too crazy mentioned yet. Pillars was a bit more forceful, especially when you threw that intro guy repeatedly saying the word "Glanfathan" multiple times in the first conversation. If I've played the game for a while, "Glanfathan" probably sounds perfectly fine...but uh, two seconds into the game and hearing it voiced a few times like that is a little much.

Ah, I had no problem with Pillars at all in this regard, in fact for me it was a strength to see the lore introduced gradually instead of through a huge expositionary dump right at the beginning. To the best of my memory, the only mention of Glanfathans in the first dialogue was to state why the ruins were out of bounds, which seemed reasonable to me.

[SonicMage117]

I think Obsidian felt the info-dump at the beginning was necessary because the game is much shorter than Pillars. I think they wanted the world to seem on par with Pillars and so it happened. Plus, the game wasn't kickstarted to my knowledge, so it was a way to introduce things to the players.

 

I think my favorite thing about Tyranny is the characters, you have an almost Lord Of The Rings-ish faction and then a Mad Max-esque tribe as a faction, etc etc. Barik is a pretty cool character and the lore behind him is pretty crazy. He's like a rejected Disney character. I love that.

[Keyrock]

Your character has to know, but you as a player don't necessarily. 

I disagree.  Again, were I playing a different kind of character it might be fine, but as a Fatebinder I am literally deciding the fate of people's lives and interpreting the laws of the land, how am I supposed to do that competently without an intimate knowledge of the land?  As for conversation options later in the game where your character gets to ask about things they damn well should know about like they're oblivious to it, THAT I didn't like and it struck me as odd.  It was like, I'm a pretty ****ty Fatebinder if I don't already know this.  I assume it was there for the people that clicked quickly through a bunch of conquest mode and skipped most of the narrative dump at the beginning so as to get to gameplay quicker.  But if you're the type of player that skips dialogue and lore to get to gameplay, what the hell are you doing playing an Obsidian RPG? 

 

The slow drip of information makes perfect sense in most RPGs because you most often play either some random adventurer drawn from far away to this place in search of glory, money, and fame, a young person who had mostly just lived at home until your family is brutally murdered, or a pupil sequestered away in some remote location until, oops, I forgot to tell you you're the offspring of a super evil god, and not the only one either.  Sorry to break this to you so suddently, but your "brother" is out to kill you now, kthxbye.  In all these cases it can be assumed that you mostly spent your life in one small region, or somewhere else far away, and you're just now discovering the larger world, or this particular region.  The slow drip fits that scenario perfectly.   

Edited April 2, 2017 by Keyrock

[Mamoulian War]

Starting Chapter 12 in Tales of Xillia 2. 18 millions Gald still to pay off from my debt. Moving forward pretty fast on Hardest Difficulty.

 

The hardest fight so far, was in Gaius' subquest episode 2. Had to beat all 4 guys from Chimeriad in Fractured Dimension. After getting kicked my ass 4 times, I have emerged victorious. Using Linked and Mystic Artes at the right time was key to victory. After the fight I got two levels :-P

[Labadal]

Nier. Automata, Tales of Berseria and Yakuza 0. Soon: Dragon Quest heroes II and Persona 5.

 

I no longer regret my PS4 purchase, even if some of these games have come out on different platforms.

[Mamoulian War]

Tales of Berseria is next in line after I finish Platinum in ToX2 :-P

 

Yakuza 0 has to wait few more days :-P

[Katarack21]

Whoops, somehow, I read "Tyranny" as "Pillars". Well, either way, I think you're better off with a little bit softer of an approach for a new setting. Baldur's Gate was, you're raised in this great library-fortress of Candlekeep by your foster father Gorion, you're about to go on a journey, get ready. Simple, to the point, nothing too crazy mentioned yet.

People forget, BG was also in an established setting. Forgotten Realms was already a known quantity for expected D&D players, even then when BG first came out. They didn't have to set up who anybody was or what anybodies relation to anybody else was.

 

They didn't have any *need* for an info dump at first. Although to be honest, we could've *used* one after Nashkel!

Edited April 2, 2017 by Katarack21

[Tale]

I think I need to accept that I'll never beat Drakengard 3. The final boss is a rhythm game. The boss shoots out waves of music and you have to tap a button when the wave hits you. And then it starts playing with the speed.

 

And there are plenty of moments towards the end where you can't follow it visually. The action's off-screen, the screen is all black. All you have is the sound and timing. And sometimes the timing has changed.

 

If you miss even once, you're done. The leading method of beating it seems to be syncing up video guides and following their timing. But I'm not having much luck syncing.

 

I loved the journey of the game, but thank god Nier: Automata didn't have this kind of bs.

[Malcador]

Had an odd urge to replay GTA 4, is fun to have 5 to compare it against. Really should get back to BS4 though, but eh.

[Wrath of Dagon]

 

Your character has to know, but you as a player don't necessarily.

I disagree.  Again, were I playing a different kind of character it might be fine, but as a Fatebinder I am literally deciding the fate of people's lives and interpreting the laws of the land, how am I supposed to do that competently without an intimate knowledge of the land?  As for conversation options later in the game where your character gets to ask about things they damn well should know about like they're oblivious to it, THAT I didn't like and it struck me as odd.  It was like, I'm a pretty ****ty Fatebinder if I don't already know this.  I assume it was there for the people that clicked quickly through a bunch of conquest mode and skipped most of the narrative dump at the beginning so as to get to gameplay quicker.  But if you're the type of player that skips dialogue and lore to get to gameplay, what the hell are you doing playing an Obsidian RPG? 

 

The slow drip of information makes perfect sense in most RPGs because you most often play either some random adventurer drawn from far away to this place in search of glory, money, and fame, a young person who had mostly just lived at home until your family is brutally murdered, or a pupil sequestered away in some remote location until, oops, I forgot to tell you you're the offspring of a super evil god, and not the only one either.  Sorry to break this to you so suddently, but your "brother" is out to kill you now, kthxbye.  In all these cases it can be assumed that you mostly spent your life in one small region, or somewhere else far away, and you're just now discovering the larger world, or this particular region.  The slow drip fits that scenario perfectly.

 

To clarify, I did like the conquest mode. The narrative and the huge amount of info the first companion provides right off the bat I did have a problem with. In general I really hate the info kiosk type of dialogue, with a laundry list of questions you have to check off. There are much better and more compelling ways to present info, assuming you really do need to know all that. For some reason developers assume the player needs to know everything in their design documents, which just isn't the case. Edit: Like a lot of the stuff that Verse tells you about Voices of Nerat you see for yourself as soon as you meet him 5 minutes later. So what was the point? Would've made more sense to be able to ask her questions about him after the meeting. Edited April 3, 2017 by Wrath of Dagon

[Agiel]

An observation I made: I can't help but feel that based on the ads they put out half of Matrix/Slitherine's lineup are turn-based games based on Operation Barbarossa and the Eastern Front in general.

Edited April 4, 2017 by Agiel

[SonicMage117]

Had an odd urge to replay GTA 4, is fun to have 5 to compare it against. Really should get back to BS4 though, but eh.

I liked 5, couldn't stand 4.

[Tel Aviv]

My wonderful wife picked me up a copy of Persona 5! Seems like its only had a limited release in my neck of the woods. It's certainly not as available as most new releases, which is a bit of a shame.

[Labadal]

I think I need to accept that I'll never beat Drakengard 3. The final boss is a rhythm game. The boss shoots out waves of music and you have to tap a button when the wave hits you. And then it starts playing with the speed.

 

And there are plenty of moments towards the end where you can't follow it visually. The action's off-screen, the screen is all black. All you have is the sound and timing. And sometimes the timing has changed.

 

If you miss even once, you're done. The leading method of beating it seems to be syncing up video guides and following their timing. But I'm not having much luck syncing.

 

I loved the journey of the game, but thank god Nier: Automata didn't have this kind of bs.

Just watch the ending on YouTube. I did that for the first Nier.

[HoonDing]

Quitting a game at final boss is like prematurely pulling out.

Only did that once with Parasite Eve.