Hangout The Games Hangout Thread

[z.5]

Being against exclusivity in gaming is really all the effort you need.

I was against exclusivity long before it became cool to be

 

[Faust]

Hey y'all

You people might be interested in the current round of the Top Ten Game.

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[TrienDarkform]

I was looking one of T.Flight Hotas models. They seem to be well liked.

The T-16000m HOTAS set (also from Thrustmaster) might be something to consider as well, if you're able to stretch the budget slightly. It uses magnetic hall sensors instead of potentiometers, which lets you dial down the central deadzone to (almost) zero, allowing for some very nice precision. (You can actually run with zero deadzone when the stick is new, which is amazing for letting you do extremely small control movements by just deflecting the stick a tiny fraction of a degree, but after using the stick for a couple years, the centering mechanism has worn a bit and doesn't return to quite the exact same center consistently anymore, though still pretty darn close, so depending on game I will put in a slight deadzone at times just to avoid getting a very slow drift). Plus the hall sensors (which are contactless) won't wear out unlike potentiometers... though that says nothing about the other mechanical components (gimbal mechanism, buttons, etc.)

I just have the T-16000m stick though, and not the full HOTAS, since I got it before they released the throttle combo, so I can't speak about the other part of it.

The other sticks I've flown with are getting into more dedicated flight sim gear (eg. VKB stuff), which are a huge upgrade in many ways, though only look at stuff like that if you're really interested in getting (much) more serious about it. I still have the T-16000m, but I ended up heavily modding the stick to use as a left-hand stick for dual-stick spaceflight in Elite: Dangerous.

And just a heads up that some (non-flight-sim) games out there do not play well with flight controllers plugged into the computer. They naively assume every controller plugged to be a gamepad, and when they run into a flight controller that doesn't have the same analog axes setup, the zero values it gets (namely because the axis the game is trying to read doesn't even exist) ends up causing your character/menu cursor/etc. to be stuck permanently moving in one direction ... so you may have to deal with swapping/unplugging things depending on what you're playing.

 

[scav]

opinion on the nintendo direct? i'm hyped for the Link awakening remake, Tetris99 look really fun and intense im gonna try it today
Link awakening, Dragon quest 11 S, Fire emblem and Final fantasy 7 gonna be the "buy on release day" for me. Astral chain look good, need to see more.

 

[Jammin]

Definitly interested in Fire Emblem. May even buy a Switch for it.

 

[Sky]

So I was enjoying Jump Force when suddenly...

Spoiler: Are we sure that it is PG12?

 

[z.5]

Don't pretend that it lessened your enjoyment in any way whatsoever Sky

 

[Sky]

Don't pretend that it lessened your enjoyment in any way whatsoever Sky

Look at those two Saints. They clearly enjoyed the view as well.

 

[scav]

Definitly interested in Fire Emblem. May even buy a Switch for it.

just for smash, it's worth it lol. Smash became my go to game, already racket more than 110hours on it

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 19, 2019, Original Post Date: Feb 16, 2019 ---

Played a bit of crackdown 3 yesterday, it's not bad i definitely won't buy feel meh. felt the same for Kingdom heart 3, and i feel like Anthem gonna be disappointing too. I wanna play Resident evil 2 but i feel like it's not worth $60 cuz it's the kind of game i finish in less than 10h and never touch it again, gonna wait for a sale.
Beside FF IX that just dropped on switch, i'm messing around with XCOM2 lately, this game is so hard when you try to keep everybody alive. Been a while i didn't enjoy a strategy game like that.

@Jammin if you the fire emblem series, try XCOM 2.

 

[xi0]

i feel like Anthem gonna be disappointing too. I wanna play Resident evil 2 but i feel like it's not worth $60 cuz it's the kind of game i finish in less than 10h and never touch it again, gonna wait for a sale.

I just hit level cap in Anthem and the feelings are a bit mixed. Has a ton of issues, hopefully they can get fixed because the game is mechanically really good. The movement, combat, customization, graphics are all good to exceptional. Everything else is sort of a mixed bag. How a game can be in development for 6 years and something like map waypoints in freeplay don't exist... there's WAY TOO MANY loading screens for this kind of game. But since the game is a "games as service" type of thing, it was obviously never going to be "finished" when released either. More things will be added on the official release on the 22nd, and more next month... so we'll see.

RE2 is definitely worth the full price IMO. It's not simply a remake and has a lot of replayability. It just added free DLC this past week too.

 

[Jammin]

just for smash, it's worth it lol. Smash became my go to game, already racket more than 110hours on it

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 19, 2019, Original Post Date: Feb 16, 2019 ---

Played a bit of crackdown 3 yesterday, it's not bad i definitely won't buy feel meh. felt the same for Kingdom heart 3, and i feel like Anthem gonna be disappointing too. I wanna play Resident evil 2 but i feel like it's not worth $60 cuz it's the kind of game i finish in less than 10h and never touch it again, gonna wait for a sale.
Beside FF IX that just dropped on switch, i'm messing around with XCOM2 lately, this game is so hard when you try to keep everybody alive. Been a while i didn't enjoy a strategy game like that.

@Jammin if you the fire emblem series, try XCOM 2.

Already have. I'm a huge X-Com fan. To the point where I beat the original one superhuman difficulty. My proudest gaming achievement.

X-Com 2 is amazing though. Really enjoyed what they did with the class mechanics. Last mission was also pretty intense.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 19, 2019 ---

I just hit level cap in Anthem and the feelings are a bit mixed. Has a ton of issues, hopefully they can get fixed because the game is mechanically really good. The movement, combat, customization, graphics are all good to exceptional. Everything else is sort of a mixed bag. How a game can be in development for 6 years and something like map waypoints in freeplay don't exist... there's WAY TOO MANY loading screens for this kind of game. But since the game is a "games as service" type of thing, it was obviously never going to be "finished" when released either. More things will be added on the official release on the 22nd, and more next month... so we'll see.

How's the story?

 

[xi0]

How's the story?

Well... this is quite the question. Conceptually, the game is pretty interesting. The NPCs are well-animated and the voice acting is great. The actual story though? I've sort of had a hard time caring about too much in any real way. I have no problem believing that they worked on the actual story last, because it's pretty cliche and a bit soul-less. It's like they got 9/10 steps down pretty well, but forgot to make a compelling narrative, get me invested in the characters, or there being some sort of statement made with it. There's a few NPCs that I wish I could murder violently, but I guess that in itself might not be a negative... As at least I felt something in those moments... lol

The campaign had an abrupt and open end, which is probably a given due to the nature of the game, but I'm not even really sure what the continuing story would look like. That might be a good thing for the writers as they can do a lot of things with it, but I don't know. I'd prefer something less cookie-cutter black and white. The villain is downright faceless and boring.

It's not Mass Effect Andromeda levels of cringe, but it's not really deserving of BioWare-quality either. I can't help but feel like this should have been a Mass Effect spinoff or something. A crew somehow makes it to some alien world with this kind of different technology, and you explore the world in the same manner. I guess I would almost always prefer something fresh and new like Anthem tries to be, but not if the writing doesn't live up to the potential it has.




But even with all this sounding pretty negative, it's not really a dealbreaker for me, because the game just feels great to play. No other game can really capture the levels of blinding destruction this game has. From setting a crowd of enemies ablaze with your flamethrower, creating walls of fire with your mortar, flying from 100 meters into the air and turning a pile of enemies into a flaming, frozen, electrified crater... Or using your siege cannon to create point-blank nuclear explosions... It's just orgasmic.

 

[scav]

Already have. I'm a huge X-Com fan. To the point where I beat the original one superhuman difficulty. My proudest gaming achievement.

X-Com 2 is amazing though. Really enjoyed what they did with the class mechanics. Last mission was also pretty intense.

hum didn't play the first one. I suppose superhuman difficulty is the legend difficulty on XCom2. I'm on rookie difficulty to get used to the mechanics, planning to switch to veteran lol. i'll leave commander and legend difficulty for later. Do you restart the mission whenever someone die or do you go ironman?

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 20, 2019, Original Post Date: Feb 20, 2019 ---

Well... this is quite the question. Conceptually, the game is pretty interesting. The NPCs are well-animated and the voice acting is great. The actual story though? I've sort of had a hard time caring about too much in any real way. I have no problem believing that they worked on the actual story last, because it's pretty cliche and a bit soul-less. It's like they got 9/10 steps down pretty well, but forgot to make a compelling narrative, get me invested in the characters, or there being some sort of statement made with it. There's a few NPCs that I wish I could murder violently, but I guess that in itself might not be a negative... As at least I felt something in those moments... lol

The campaign had an abrupt and open end, which is probably a given due to the nature of the game, but I'm not even really sure what the continuing story would look like. That might be a good thing for the writers as they can do a lot of things with it, but I don't know. I'd prefer something less cookie-cutter black and white. The villain is downright faceless and boring.

It's not Mass Effect Andromeda levels of cringe, but it's not really deserving of BioWare-quality either. I can't help but feel like this should have been a Mass Effect spinoff or something. A crew somehow makes it to some alien world with this kind of different technology, and you explore the world in the same manner. I guess I would almost always prefer something fresh and new like Anthem tries to be, but not if the writing doesn't live up to the potential it has.




But even with all this sounding pretty negative, it's not really a dealbreaker for me, because the game just feels great to play. No other game can really capture the levels of blinding destruction this game has. From setting a crowd of enemies ablaze with your flamethrower, creating walls of fire with your mortar, flying from 100 meters into the air and turning a pile of enemies into a flaming, frozen, electrified crater... Or using your siege cannon to create point-blank nuclear explosions... It's just orgasmic.

I feel like the story and the dialogs are just as important as the game mechanics, it's not just 9/10. If they messed up that part they failed to capture what made mass effect 1 & 2 such good games. If you remove the bugs, andromeda gameplay mechanics are quite good. But they messed up with everything else. I got bored and couldn't finish andromeda for 3 reasons:
1.the enemies are all the same (kett bases and remnants), felt like fighting the same thing over and over again,
2.side quests are repetitive and main quest line is dull. the only part i enjoyed was doing crew members loyalty missions,
3. Characters are blank, story is dull, hard to get immersed. only the krogan had a strong personality.

 

[Jammin]

hum didn't play the first one. I suppose superhuman difficulty is the legend difficulty on XCom2. I'm on rookie difficulty to get used to the mechanics, planning to switch to veteran lol. i'll leave commander and legend difficulty for later. Do you restart the mission whenever someone die or do you go ironman?

I don't usually go ironman but I don't tend to reload missions either. Only time I do that is when I completely get wiped in a way that would make my game unsalvageable. Some losses here and there add spice to the game.

The trick with new X-Com is figuring out the tactics and learning to roll with the punches Depending on the teams and skills of your units you can play a lot of different ways successfully. All the classes and builds are typically very strong in the right situation but the situation is different for each. So once you start putting together those kinds of builds, and positioning them to make the most of it, you feel unstoppable.

Early on I'd recommend trying to get a couple Rangers going (Swords and shotguns are pretty great). Along with at least one Grenadier (Grenade Launcher is justice!) and Specialist (A healing drone helps so much.). Because a lot of missions force you to play aggressively and that's the team you want for that.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 20, 2019, Original Post Date: Feb 20, 2019 ---

Sharpshooter is by far the hardest class to use because it's all about positioning. Extremely useful once you get the hang of it. But it's tricky because you need to plan where the fight is going to be before the fight actually happens to get the most use out of them.

 

[xi0]

I feel like the story and the dialogs are just as important as the game mechanics, it's not just 9/10. If they messed up that part they failed to capture what made mass effect 1 & 2 such good games. If you remove the bugs, andromeda gameplay mechanics are quite good. But they messed up with everything else. I got bored and couldn't finish andromeda for 3 reasons:
1.the enemies are all the same (kett bases and remnants), felt like fighting the same thing over and over again,
2.side quests are repetitive and main quest line is dull. the only part i enjoyed was doing crew members loyalty missions,
3. Characters are blank, story is dull, hard to get immersed. only the krogan had a strong personality.

Well, the point is it hasn't really resonated with me (yet anyways). I have seen some people who seem to really like it. The reason why I wouldn't hold story up as being as important in a game like this is because I think it's not the best type of game to tell a story in. Sure, it tries to be a story-based shooter/rpg, but it's kind of hard to pull that off in a multiplayer game. This game is at it's best when you're tackling hard difficulties with your friends, or just fucking around wit them exploring in the open world. That is not the best environment to be sucked into a story or anything. This is the kind of game where you could go into it wanting to know EVERYTHING about it, because there's easter eggs and little lore nuggets all over the place. The issue is it's hard to do that when you and 3 of your friends are in Discord talking shit, so it could be about the medium rather than the story itself.

Yeah I never finished Andromeda either, and when it became clear there would be no story DLC and no in-game resolution to the Quarian Ark I had no motivation to continue. The crew was laughable compared the ones you had in the first three games.

 

[Jammin]

Just sounds to me like this really is kinda what everybody thought it was going to be. A looter shooter game ala Destiny or the Division that just happens to have been made by Bioware. Which is not a terrible thing if that's what you want. Unfortuantly for me, I don't want that but not everything needs to be for me.

As for Andromeda it wasn't awful, IMO It just wasn't good.

Much like Inquisition before it, I feel like it showcased that the people at Bioware really aren't suited to making open world narrative games. There is this dissonance between storytelling and gameplay fluff. 100 activities isn't equal to 1 meaningful one in a game like that. To build a world you don't need to have a world sized space. Nobody really wants that. All you need is a map connecting distinct zones that informed the player about the great world they represent like Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 had.

Also feel like they need to pull back on the politics a bit. I'm a progressive democrat so they should be playing my tune but I think they need to realize that sometimes hammering that stuff doesn't make for the best story or gives you the best characters. That should be a storytelling oppurtunity not a storytelling prerequisite and in both Inquisition and Andromeda it felt forced.

 

[xi0]

As for Andromeda it wasn't awful, IMO It just wasn't good.

Much like Inquisition before it, I feel like it showcased that the people at Bioware really aren't suited to making open world narrative games. There is this dissonance between storytelling and gameplay fluff. 100 activities isn't equal to 1 meaningful one in a game like that. To build a world you don't need to have a world sized space. Nobody really wants that. All you need is a map connecting distinct zones that informed the player about the great world they represent like Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 had.

Andromeda's worlds were visually interesting, but the actual content you did got rather old. For me, the main issue with it was the story lacking and the crew not being interesting to me at all. The game-loop wasn't amazing, but I could overlook that if it had a more entertaining narrative and characters.

It's not the best comparison to Anthem though, since playing with friends and systems based on replayability make up for A LOT.

Also feel like they need to pull back on the politics a bit. I'm a progressive democrat so they should be playing my tune but I think they need to realize that sometimes hammering that stuff doesn't make for the best story or gives you the best characters. That should be a storytelling oppurtunity not a storytelling prerequisite and in both Inquisition and Andromeda it felt forced.

Surprisingly, I actually don't think that's an issue in Anthem. It's sort of hard for me to not be cynical about these kinds of things either. It usually comes off as tokenism.

 

[Jammin]

So I guess Anthem is hard crashing PS4's and supposedly even occasionally bricking them now. How did Bioware even achieve that level of technical failure. Even Bethesda has never managed something of that magnitude.

The Frostbite engine must be an absolute nightmare.

Glad I went with Metro Exodus instead. Just beat it today. Great game. Satisfying story, solid gameplay, left my PS4 intact.

 

[xi0]

So I guess Anthem is hard crashing PS4's and supposedly even occasionally bricking them now. How did Bioware even achieve that level of technical failure. Even Bethesda has never managed something of that magnitude.

The Frostbite engine must be an absolute nightmare.

Glad I went with Metro Exodus instead. Just beat it today. Great game. Satisfying story, solid gameplay, left my PS4 intact.

Not that it's acceptable, but "bricking" was supposedly a misconception. At most it required a full database restore because of the hard shutoff. But yeah, it's a fucking joke and I feel bad for console players (even more than I already do ). There's still a mountain of bugs, but I've been lucky. Most of the time @Hakuteiken can't even load in with us when we play and is immediately booted out and has to attempt to reconnect before the empty slot is filled. The game is such an ill-conceived mess right now. They're even holding back on cosmetic stuff for whatever reason. Usually a game will come out unfinished but have content to encourage MTX, but Anthem doesn't even have that right now. I guess it feels "fairer" since you can pretty much grind for whatever you want without ever feeling like you want to spend more money. But yeah, it's like EA doesn't even want people's money.

I think the Frostbite engine is a nightmare for everyone not working at DICE, but EA forces everyone but Respawn to use it, apparently.

 

[Hakuteiken]

Not that it's acceptable, but "bricking" was supposedly a misconception. At most it required a full database restore because of the hard shutoff. But yeah, it's a fucking joke and I feel bad for console players (even more than I already do ). There's still a mountain of bugs, but I've been lucky. Most of the time @Hakuteiken can't even load in with us when we play and is immediately booted out and has to attempt to reconnect before the empty slot is filled. The game is such an ill-conceived mess right now. They're even holding back on cosmetic stuff for whatever reason. Usually a game will come out unfinished but have content to encourage MTX, but Anthem doesn't even have that right now. I guess it feels "fairer" since you can pretty much grind for whatever you want without ever feeling like you want to spend more money. But yeah, it's like EA doesn't even want people's money.

I think the Frostbite engine is a nightmare for everyone not working at DICE, but EA forces everyone but Respawn to use it, apparently.

110~ hours of play time now, a good portion of which is me loading through one screen to another between chain crashing.
I will probably never get to play another game in which my primary focus once the game starts is whether my character has a head in place or not.

On a positive note, the amount of memes we have read and come up with ourselves over this garbage mess got me laughing and enjoying stuff quite a bit.
Pretty much the only reason I'm not going Ursix over the stuff on top of my desk and trash around.