RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS - FREE WHITE HOUSE MONTAGE

[Malcador]

CK2 is free until Saturday 10am PT - http://store.steampowered.com/app/203770/Crusader_Kings_II/

 

First hit is always free.

[Serrano]

To be fair, I spent at least a couple hours trying to spell things out in bullets in Goldeneye for the N64.

I miss that game. They did a Source remake a while ago didn't they?

Edited April 5, 2018 by Serrano

[Katphood]

 

Yes.

[Fenixp]

(cue the forced stories about how much difference it made in that particular firefight YOU had blah blah)?

Well there was that one time an RPG rocket ricocheted off a windshield of an approaching vehicle and blew up a nearby gas station, that is besides the point tho. But you actually struck a nail on the head there - there were a lot of stories generated by a ton of tiny details that other players may have never experienced, that only I did end up having in MY particular firefight (blah blah.) You and everybody else gets attacked by a honey badger and a crocodile in FC3. Breaking weapons, cars that won't last 40 000 crashes etc. are all elements which do end up reducing predictability and removing power from the player, yes.

 

 

Want to talk about predictability? How about we mention those outposts again? You know with 100% certainty what will happen when you see one. They are never empty, they are never friendly, there are never even different types of soldiers (or even number of soldiers!). Go play any of the newer Far Cry's and tell me they're predictable once you've attacked an outpost, been attacked from behind by a patrol while a plane crashes into a mountain in the distance and a honey badger eats up your last sliver of life. You can criticize a lot of stuff in the Far Cry series, but predictability is not one of them. Unless.. you mistake reactability for predictability and think shooting a tree into smaller chunks is unpredictable.

There are literally two unpredictable events I ever encountered in FC3 and 4 (I have yet to play 5, but I already left 4 halfway through as it's just... More of 3.) - animals and enemy patrols. Majority of war stories I've ever seen concern these two. Apparently FC5 will add randomly crashing planes to the mix but that's still not all that much. Unexpected events do happen in the games of course, but they're much more of an exception than a rule.

 

Far Cry 3+ are trying their damnest to give as much control as possible to the player - marking enemies (and animals with the right drugs), making majority of outposts clearable without even considering weaponry you'll bring along ('cause... Bow). Weapons not jamming/falling apart and vehicles lasting insane amounts of punishment only add to that.

 

I won't argue about crappy outpost respawns and random vehicles on the roads of FC2, because they're both crappy mechanics. They ultimately add to the whole 'misery simulator' feel of the game, but the game would be significantly better than it is without them. Still, when I approach an area with a lot of dry grass, I leave my rocket launcher behind and grab an RPG in Far Cry 2, because I don't want to risk a random fire burning my arse off. I don't expect my X-ray vision to spot all enemies in the big mission areas as I would in FC3+, and can't even fully lean on exploring the locations previously, because enemies happen to wear clothes that make them difficult to make out in the environment (Shockingly). These mechanical interactions are what allows the game to generate situations that even developers never expected, and it is in turn what makes FC2 much more replayable than FC3+ to me.

 

However, through giving player a lot more control, FC3+ games became a much smoother and more streamlined experience - and I most certainly do not expect majority of players to enjoy broken, janky messes that I do.

Edited April 6, 2018 by Fenixp

[Blarghagh]

 

Just in time for my birthday, w00t.  Earlier than I had expected, have not been following people in the alpha to see what state it's in though.

Blizz seems to have a different alpha strategy this time, adding content piecemeal in the order one would play it to get feedback from the ground up as opposed to their usual "we dump in as much as we can and tell people what to look at". As such the alpha seems sparser but the available content seems much more polished. Hard to say what shape the launch product will be in.

[Malcador]

Seems a better approach. WoW forums are declaring this WoD 2.0, but that is meaningless

[Blarghagh]

WoW forums hate everything. Blizzard could give them solid gold and they'd complain about it being too reflective.

[Chilloutman]

I need to know what next big patch/DLC for Stellaris will be, I GOT ITCH and it needs scratching!!

[Katphood]

Eurogamer has released a pretty neat article on Far Cry villains, watch out for spoilers though!  https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-04-04-far-crys-villains-are-sick-of-far-cry

 

 

Also, it's finally confirmed:

Edited April 6, 2018 by Katphood

[SonicMage117]

 

Shadow Of War ditches micro-transactions... smh.

Edited April 6, 2018 by SonicMage117

[LadyCrimson]

SE at Pax East announced their plans for the 4 new FFXV DLC. Two, at least, which sound like separate but tied together alternate path/rainbows and kittens ending DLC's (Noct and Luna). Maybe including a redemption arc for the bad guy, judging by a "painting" they also showed. To all be released by summer 2019. Color me unimpressed. All this basically fan-service stuff, for paid DLC.

 

http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/04/06/pax-east-2018-final-fantasy-xv-4-new-story-dlc-episodes-coming-in-2019

 

Also, level/mini-game mod tools not until Fall (weapon/clothing in early Summer). And a stand-alone version of Comrades so one wouldn't need disc/main game to play it (no word whether that'll be yet another separate purchase or they'll update it somehow....)

 

I'll still love/play the main game, mind, and patiently wait for mod tools but yeah ... I think that's about the end of my interest in future content. It was a good run. And I still have the original game/Episode Ignis. :D

Edited April 6, 2018 by LadyCrimson

[Mamoulian War]

Have any of you heard about this project?

 

http://blackgeyser.com/

 

Black Geyser, isometric realtime with pause RPG.

[Gizmo]

I'd like to see Arkane try their hand at an rpg. Having not done any, it's hard to predict how that would fair. 

?

 

Arkane did a superb RPG.  Arx Fatalis. 

 

It's cheap on GoG if you'd like to play it.

 

Edited April 7, 2018 by Gizmo

[SonicMage117]

It's also on Steam for the same price >:-F

[injurai]

I haven't played Arx Fatalis myself, and don't quite consider Dark Messiah and RPG. Regardless it's a different studio today, and last I heard Harvey Smith is taking a bit of a break from directing. I personally want to see them push the types of games that they have already invested themselves in, if they can tailor those into a unique style of rpg that'd be great. I think the team has the talent and ability to pull of an rpg set against the dense first-person style that they are known for.

 

In fact they are probably even more geared towards making Paradox's Vampire gameplay wise than Obsidian is. Especially if they work with MCA again.

[Spider]

Seems a better approach. WoW forums are declaring this WoD 2.0, but that is meaningless

 

I mean WoD was amazing at launch (content wise, the bugginess of servers is a separate issue), it's post launch it suffered. So WoD 2.0 with proper post launch support sounds amazing to me.

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

I'd like to see Arkane try their hand at an rpg. Having not done any, it's hard to predict how that would fair. 

?

 

Arkane did a superb RPG.  Arx Fatalis. 

 

It's cheap on GoG if you'd like to play it.

 

 

 

There's this brutal ambiance to games from the late 90s and early '00 that's not merely the result of a low level of graphical technology. They still kinda had the spirit that the player should 'deal with it' (aka the game world), explore and find their way - or just die. So compelling. Because you know that the game is mostly 'indifferent' to you, so it ratchets up the tension. If you got lost in Gothic, well then, you best ****ing learn where everything is and you won't be lost, a mate?

 

Other than the Dark Souls thing - and that's not even a conscious effort to look back towards earlier game design choices but merely the Japanese continuing to make games in the styles that still hold sway in Japan -  games have become so glib that the intimidation factor is very low. 

 

I remember, the first dungeon of Oblivion/Skyrim was atmospheric, but after that it quickly became laughable as it was so obvious that most things were heavily stacked in the player's favor or simply designed in such a way to be always at his convenience. 

Edited April 7, 2018 by Drowsy Emperor

[injurai]

Sometimes it's useful for games to give you some means of navigating the world, but they should require a bit of effort and should be more of a means to re-orient yourself.

 

RPGs these days tend to do away with good quest logging in favor of simple tracking quests on a radar. Which is incredibly lame. If I can't navigate the world through land-marks and location names, then maybe you should have designed you're world better. It doesn't mean you can't have an automatically updating map, but floating sky markers only make the player's world navigation seem like a deterministic slog.

[Drowsy Emperor]

The omnipresent quest arrow is retard academy, a sure guarantee that you won't appreciate your surroundings, or the content of the mission, or think much about what you're seeing, as you beeline toward the goal (reward) like a pavlovian muppet.

 

Some degree of guidance is welcome, especially in enormous games, but as things stand now, we're far from that.

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

Yes.

 

I felt so burned by DOS I wouldn't play DOS2 if it came bundled with a succubus. 

[HoonDing]

"Original Sin 2 is one of the greatest PC RPGs of all time"

 

The world has already forgotten.

[Labadal]

Have any of you heard about this project?

 

http://blackgeyser.com/

 

Black Geyser, isometric realtime with pause RPG.

Surprised that Obsidian hasn't sent them a C&D.

[Drowsy Emperor]

"Original Sin 2 is one of the greatest PC RPGs of all time"

 

The world has already forgotten.

 

Who said this?

 

I'm quite sure that most people who praise Original Sin played for ~10 hours and then moved on to other things. The game was really good at leaving a nice first impression, with the pretty graphics and and interactivity. 

 

Then you find out it has drivel for story, the combat is always the same, it's slow as molasses, quests are unexplained, broken or plain boring, and the companions might as well be made of cardboard. The worst part is - it's all. So. Excruciatingly. Generic. 

Edited April 7, 2018 by Drowsy Emperor

[Keyrock]

 

Have any of you heard about this project?

 

http://blackgeyser.com/

 

Black Geyser, isometric realtime with pause RPG.

Surprised that Obsidian hasn't sent them a C&D.

 

Why, does Obsidian hold a copyright for isometric RTwP RPGs?  I'm pretty sure lots of companies have made those.  Granted, it does look pretty similar graphically, but that's bound to happen when you go for a realistic art style rather than going stylized.

 

Speaking of stylized isometric RTwP RPGs, Tower of Time comes out of early access on the 12th.

 

 

I've read some good things about it and I may well scoop it up once fully released (it helps that it's nice and cheap).

Edited April 7, 2018 by Keyrock

[SadExchange]

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7XHrk_N-uE

 

Yes.

I felt so burned by DOS I wouldn't play DOS2 if it came bundled with a succubus.

I feel the opposite. Loved the first title on the pc and PS4 and will be picking this up for the PS4 to play alongside my pc version.