_j5689_
Dreads & Bergers
+364|6939|Riva, MD

uziq wrote:

RDR2 was pretty good for videogame narrative. wouldn't win the nobel prize for literature or anything, but it was very good for a game.

the fact rockstar have this amazing world and IP sitting around and do nothing with it, insofar as single-player/narrative-driven stuff is concerned ... shows you where the industry's biggest players and their priorities are.

the game world of RDR2 is huge and insanely intricate. their attention to detail is nonpareil. they are surely no strangers to the idea of wasting an inordinate amount of time on the smallest, most quizzical detail. and yet. even they've moved away from actually making new stories to bring that world to life.
It's really scary to think that Dan Houser doesn't work for Rockstar anymore, he's been a writer on every major hit that Rockstar has had in the last 20 years.  Seems like further proof that story driven games might not be as much of a priority anymore.  Either that or he just wanted to try his own thing, he registered a new company in Delaware(an LLC paradise) last year called Absurd Ventures LLC
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6994|PNW

@mac

I have decided to install Days Gone. I will keep you updated. This PC is over a decade old though so it might not run well. If that's the case, I'll save it for the new computer.
_j5689_
Dreads & Bergers
+364|6939|Riva, MD
From what Digital Foundry has said about the PC version of Days Gone in their performance review of it, Days Gone PC was surprisingly well optimized, so maybe it has a chance as long as your graphics card is at least somewhat recent

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3942

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

@mac

I have decided to install Days Gone. I will keep you updated. This PC is over a decade old though so it might not run well. If that's the case, I'll save it for the new computer.
It was originally a PS4 exclusive. Compare your stats to the PS4 and adjust accordingly.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6994|PNW

That's a lot of accordingly adjustments trying to line up a PC and console's specs, never mind benchmarks. I'm not going to do that, I'm just going to launch the game and see how it does.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6994|PNW

Days Gone, First Impressions:

-0.5 point for unskippable company logo. -1 if it really starts to bug me.
-3 points for very glossed over EULA agreement with game data collection in the headline. Just what I want to look at when I go to immerse myself in a new video game. What even is this security/legal data they're talking about? Why do they need to know about ads and my IP and uSe Of My DeViCe, what, let me read about this in detail.



https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/privacy-policy/

I was under the impression I bought a zombie game. Now I'm playing Ace Attorney or some shit. Project Zomboid didn't hit me with unskippable clickwrap.

I'd dock more first impression points but isn't new. Normal AAA stuff, even for "offline" play. There are mods for it ( https://www.nexusmods.com/daysgone/mods/ ) but without looking into it more I'm not clear on which ones are technically allowed, if they aren't all allowed, and what ones might trigger the Sony police into banning my account because having a 300 foot long baseball bat is somehow unfair to all the other solo players. 15 minutes in and I haven't even gotten to game content. Whatever, continued with "limited data."

Sony can analyze my youtube if it really wants. Even I don't fully understand it, or dig around my folders for photos of old cats before it bugs me enough to try and lock it behind a firewall.

Keybindings:

+1 point for being able to input all of my usual bindings. Not one key I use was blocked, a nice, low-effort feature that so many developers don't care about. Kudos. I'm not even in the mood to play it right now, but that's all done for when I launch it again.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2022-04-12 18:02:47)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3942

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Days Gone, First Impressions:

-0.5 point for unskippable company logo. -1 if it really starts to bug me.
-3 points for very glossed over EULA agreement with game data collection in the headline. Just what I want to look at when I go to immerse myself in a new video game. What even is this security/legal data they're talking about? Why do they need to know about ads and my IP and uSe Of My DeViCe, what, let me read about this in detail.



https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/privacy-policy/

I was under the impression I bought a zombie game. Now I'm playing Ace Attorney or some shit. Project Zomboid didn't hit me with unskippable clickwrap.

I'd dock more first impression points but isn't new. Normal AAA stuff, even for "offline" play. There are mods for it ( https://www.nexusmods.com/daysgone/mods/ ) but without looking into it more I'm not clear on which ones are technically allowed, if they aren't all allowed, and what ones might trigger the Sony police into banning my account because having a 300 foot long baseball bat is somehow unfair to all the other solo players. 15 minutes in and I haven't even gotten to game content. Whatever, continued with "limited data."

Sony can analyze my youtube if it really wants. Even I don't fully understand it, or dig around my folders for photos of old cats before it bugs me enough to try and lock it behind a firewall.

Keybindings:

+1 point for being able to input all of my usual bindings. Not one key I use was blocked, a nice, low-effort feature that so many developers don't care about. Kudos. I'm not even in the mood to play it right now, but that's all done for when I launch it again.
Okay how do you feel about the game itself though? I haven't played it in months. HOI4 takes up all my play time though I haven't played that in weeks either.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
_j5689_
Dreads & Bergers
+364|6939|Riva, MD
I spent a few hours playing the first Max Payne today in back-compat on the XBox One X, and it's a much better experience than the PS4 version of the first game is.  The PS4 version appears to be a standard PS2 copy of the game running on a basic shitty emulator with a handful of achievements worked in.  The performance is terrible(borderline unplayable in the "bad trip" levels), nothing is done to clean up the ancient textures at all and the analog sticks feel kind of like somebody mapped D-pad controls to the PS4's sticks, so moving anywhere other than directly forward, left, right or backwards can feel very inconsistent.  The XBox version, however, runs smooth as butter, plus there's some anisotropic filtering applied to the textures so it looks great for as as old as it is, and the controls work as expected.  It's the definitive way to play the game until those remakes come out, hopefully they're alright, and not lazily done like the GTA Trilogy remaster was.

Last edited by _j5689_ (2022-04-17 20:21:14)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6994|PNW

A remaster can sometimes be amazing. Other times it's just like they ran textures through AI upscale and called it a day with little or no regard to art and lighting direction in the original. I'm not saying this was done with GTA because I don't know enough about that remaster, but it doesn't help that the GTA remaster apparently couldn't get the licensing back for the old soundtrack and even had to change that.

Not a fan of taking an old video game and giving it achievements. Like sometimes I want to just revisit it for awhile, not 100% it again. Pass on completing those.

If a studio wanted me to never buy another one of their games, they'd remaster the original Thief with more serious voice acting, senseless RTX, a new soundtrack, as well as some of the worst aspects of modern gaming: mta/lootboxes, and an always-online element with clickwrapped snoopware. And oh by the way you can't get the old version anymore on our service (I also resent that "buy it while it lasts" model, it wasn't cute when Star Wars got its remaster).
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3942
How is Days Gone going? Have you stopped any Zombie attacks by telling them they are taking part in an exploitative relationship? Have you silenced any Zombie voices who were just trying to share their #MeToo experience?
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6994|PNW

I've made no progress since last time, but will revisit this week.
_j5689_
Dreads & Bergers
+364|6939|Riva, MD
I really liked how the patches you can earn in those challenges not only give you a bonus in the rest of the game, but they are also actually shown on your jacket throughout most of the story.  For whatever reason, there's a part later in the game where Deacon gets his jacket back after not having worn it for a while and they stop showing up though, which was kind of disappointing.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3942

_j5689_ wrote:

I really liked how the patches you can earn in those challenges not only give you a bonus in the rest of the game, but they are also actually shown on your jacket throughout most of the story.  For whatever reason, there's a part later in the game where Deacon gets his jacket back after not having worn it for a while and they stop showing up though, which was kind of disappointing.
I like how punk rock and biker people make their own vest.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f2/d4/54/f2d454d80f5abb368fb1f6a93d832ee5.jpg
Never made one or would wear a bunch of band names but I dig the creativity and individuality that goes into making your vest.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6994|PNW

_j5689_ wrote:

I really liked how the patches you can earn in those challenges not only give you a bonus in the rest of the game, but they are also actually shown on your jacket throughout most of the story.  For whatever reason, there's a part later in the game where Deacon gets his jacket back after not having worn it for a while and they stop showing up though, which was kind of disappointing.
I wasn't actually aware of that mechanic. Bit of a Risk of Rain 2 vibe. There, every item pickup is displayed somewhere on your character. This seems like that, just with achievements or whatever.
_j5689_
Dreads & Bergers
+364|6939|Riva, MD

SuperJail Warden wrote:

_j5689_ wrote:

I really liked how the patches you can earn in those challenges not only give you a bonus in the rest of the game, but they are also actually shown on your jacket throughout most of the story.  For whatever reason, there's a part later in the game where Deacon gets his jacket back after not having worn it for a while and they stop showing up though, which was kind of disappointing.
I like how punk rock and biker people make their own vest.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f2/d4/54/f2d454d80f5abb368fb1f6a93d832ee5.jpg
Never made one or would wear a bunch of band names but I dig the creativity and individuality that goes into making your vest.
I agree, I like them when they're nice & organized like that one.  The ones that have every square inch filled up with every little bullshit patch the person could find kind of irk me, but I guess that's less a biker vest thing and more of a music or hipster thing.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

_j5689_ wrote:

I really liked how the patches you can earn in those challenges not only give you a bonus in the rest of the game, but they are also actually shown on your jacket throughout most of the story.  For whatever reason, there's a part later in the game where Deacon gets his jacket back after not having worn it for a while and they stop showing up though, which was kind of disappointing.
I wasn't actually aware of that mechanic. Bit of a Risk of Rain 2 vibe. There, every item pickup is displayed somewhere on your character. This seems like that, just with achievements or whatever.
Yeah, I kind of figured you might not be aware of it.  They advertized the crap out of the feature in the patch notes and on social media once they added it in the early patches, but in the PC release, it was just kind of there already and there wasn't much promotion going on anymore.  Some of them are also really fucking difficult until you've dealt with hordes enough in the story to develop some experience as a player and create some reliable strategies to really work them properly.

Last edited by _j5689_ (2022-04-27 15:33:03)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6994|PNW

Yeah, there's probably an optimal path for that stuff. Hopefully it's obvious which ones you should go for first. I hate it when a game is wiki top-heavy.
_j5689_
Dreads & Bergers
+364|6939|Riva, MD
The easiest one by far is the golf cart taxi challenge, it kind of reminded of Midnight Club in a small way.  Honestly I just had to fail at a few most of the challenges and feel it out for myself in the beginning to figure out which ones were more easily attainable, and then reattempt the harder ones later when I felt my skills were up to the task.  There were still three or four even by the end of the game that I could never even attain a bronze medal in, which is the minimum for obtaining the patch and its relevant bonus.

I will say that the challenges with actual, non-zombified humans were much easier for me than the horde elimination & survival ones, and throughout the story itself, I generally had a lot of fun whenever I ran into live humans.  Intelligent prey gives you more stealth options to add into your strategy, and fighting humans in this game overall kind of feels like a simplified form of the human combat from Last of Us if that makes sense.  That being said, there's a unique excitement that comes from being one man alone, confronting a massive angry, hungry horde of zombies.  You're just running all over the place trying to get some distance or outmaneuver them, and every so often, you have enough distance to turn around and let off some shotgun blasts or assault rifle bursts into the horde, maybe even chuck some molotovs into them, or watch 50 of them fly into the air when you set off your remote explosives at a chokepoint while 150 more climb over their corpses to keep coming at you.  And then you finally drop that last straggler in the horde with a well placed headshot or a knife to the neck, the game instantly informs you that you eliminated that horde before the body even hits the ground, and it's a huge sense of relief & accomplishment.  Plus you won't run into those fuckers later at a gas station anymore when you're just trying to mind your own business.
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3942
The auto save mechanic is awful in Days Gone. The whole restarting a mission from the start thing makes me not want to play. "It is to increase the difficulty and realism". Dude, I don't have the time for this shit.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
_j5689_
Dreads & Bergers
+364|6939|Riva, MD
Does manually saving at your bike not work during missions?  Or are you on one of the missions where you don't have access to it?
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6994|PNW

I love it when game developers use "realism" as an excuse to make their game more aggravating.

"We got rid of the food meter because in real life, you don't have a HUD." Bruh, in real life you can tell when you're hungry, put the HUD back in.

"A lot" (two or three) "of people on our" (private) "forum" (where any post that disagrees with the developers gets deleted) "wanted this other tweak." OK then put it in as a toggle. Why is that always such a difficult compromise? Blah blah blah and so on.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2022-05-11 01:45:25)

_j5689_
Dreads & Bergers
+364|6939|Riva, MD
Finally beat Death Stranding, man what a fucking weird & depressing game.  It's a lot of fun to build stuff in the world that other people can use though, I made a pretty comprehensive zipline network throughout the mountainous areas.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6994|PNW

What may be the perfect pokemon game.

Spoiler (highlight to read):
happy music
sweatshop
happy music
deathmatch


SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+640|3942
This looks so dope

https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6994|PNW

I found your ultimate game, Dilbert.

https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1332010/header.jpg?t=1654615958
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1332010/Stray/
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6994|PNW

I would have been moderately excited for a game like Untitled FPS this in the 2000s when Half-Life 2's destructible crates and pallets were making gaming news. This one looks like slow motion matrix chaos in fragments so far, though I don't know if it will have building damage.



more: https://www.youtube.com/user/vreski/videos

Instead, it's depressing to watch. I can't imagine why I feel over a lot of shootout games lately … /s

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