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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   2236 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 6, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Vidya thread

Im back to playing Starship Troopers. Still thoroughly enjoy the game. Only downside is low player counts. One of the recent additions that has made a dramatic atmospheric improvance is that corpses do not automatically despawn. And corpses can be climbed over. So you end up with situations like in the movies when stacks of bugs outside of the walls form a smooth ramp up to your poor troopers. Flamethrowers are more important for cleanup now.

I got In Sound Mind as a free giveaway from Epic Games ages ago. I was hesitant about playing it because I was concerned it was one of these games that markets itself as a survival horror but is really just a walking simulator with periodic jump scares. The other night I started playing it around 11-11:30 and found it so absorbing that it was 1:30 before I stopped. Pleased to find it's emphatically not a walking simulator, but a real game with real mechanics. The pleasingly goofy premise is you play as a therapist who has sessions with his disturbed patients, and in order to resolve their traumas (and get to the bottom of the mysterious conspiracy at their root) you enter into surreal dreamscapes and defeat a boss. A bit like Psychonauts crossed with Silent Hill (or perhaps Alan Wake).

After spending several months trying to beat X-COM 2 on Classic difficulty, this is just the kind of game I'm in the mood for: enough of a challenge to be satisfying but forgiving enough not to be tense or stressful; spookily atmospheric but rarely actually "scary" (I've completed three dungeons and only the first one ever made me feel any degree of fright); puzzles which I don't require a walkthrough to solve 90% of the time; story which is well-written enough to be entertaining but which doesn't seem to take itself terribly seriously, like a 2000s psychological thriller (Secret Window, Identity) which is sort of aware of how silly its conceit is without fully lapsing into self-parody. The only criticisms I have of In Sound Mind so far are that the dungeons seem a bit padded with samey areas it's too easy to get lost in, and the inclusion of a stealth mechanic seems a bit half-baked and largely useless.

On XCOM 2 (well, Long War, but for both XCOM I never really played anything else), I found the opposite, if played well the stealth mechanic is extremely substantial (though I preferred the first XCOM). But I also used a whole bunch of mods, including one that made timers freeze until stealth is broken (bc that just seemed stupid except for very few exceptions).

Oh sorry for the confusion, I was referring to the stealth mechanic in In Sound Mind, not XCOM 2.

In vanilla XCOM 2, I agreed with Zero Punctuation that it's annoying that breaking concealment instantly makes every enemy on the map aware of your location until the end of the mission. It would have been nice if killing one group of enemies before another group arrives on the scene restored concealment.

including one that made timers freeze until stealth is broken

Agreed, this is one aspect of the base game that makes absolutely no sense and is blatantly a contrivance for gameplay's sake. That being said, it's hardly the only such aspect.

I'm pretty sure I had some way of restoring concealment, but it might have been from a mod as well. In general XCOM2 is imo one of those games substantially improved with mods.

I've been mostly playing old fighting games these days (with some forays back into deckbuilders like Slay the Spire and Balatro once in a while). I'm hyping myself up for the release of the MvC Collection on thursday. And building up the hype for the Fighting Collection 2 next year.

Honestly I don't know why I'm so excited about this; I could play MvC2 or CvS2 other ways at any time, for free. But there's something about having the game legally that's exciting and that I can't explain.

I finally finished Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, starting it (and its previous prequel to Deus Ex, Human Revolution) from scratch after putting them down many years ago.

Gameplay-wise, they try to stay faithful to the original Deus Ex, except for the common modern concessions (a distinct cover system, which I liked, lack of body-part-specific health, which I disliked, and health regeneration, which I despise). Playing at "Give Me Deus Ex" difficulty was too easy, apparently because the difference in damage taken vs "Give Me a Story" difficulty is only 21%, not a full 300%. One of my fondest memories of the original Deus Ex showing its colors was 10 minutes into the game, getting killed for the first time, thinking "What is wrong with this game, that I can die from a single pistol shot to the head?", then thinking "What is wrong with every game I've played before, that I don't expect to die from a pistol shot to the head?" The level of nonlinearity (lots at the tactical level, a little at the strategic level) was on-par with the original, in both good ways (many different combat/stealth/hacking alternatives, a few major story beats that can be changed, hub levels with a lot of non-combat interactions, side quests that are intriguing but not overbearing, revisiting of old locations under new conditions and with new goals) and bad (the stereotypical Die Hard Ventilation Shafts are as common in little apartment complexes as they are in big office buildings, and their routing is obviously extradiagetic everywhere). Mankind Divided also completely backed away from the biggest complaint about Human Revolution (dumb boss fights pawned off on a subcontractor or something for development); there's now only one "boss" in the entire game, the cutscene before that fight doesn't hand you an idiot ball, and the fight itself leaves you a great number of tactical alternatives (including simply finding a way out and fleeing, I'm reading).

Story-wise ... it doesn't fit as well as it should, I think because they painted themselves into a corner with the first prequel. In Deus Ex you met maybe a half dozen mechanically-augmented characters. They're in a strained position in between "superhuman abilities" and "becoming obsolete due to nano-augmentation", which is interesting, but they're mostly economic elites or their elite enforcers, and it's clear that they should have been superhuman and rare back in their day. Human Revolution did "superhuman", but to do a "baseline-vs-augs" story they gave up on "rare"; they're now common and you meet dozens of them. Mankind Divided uses the ending of Human Revolution to flip the script the rest of the way, with mechanically-augmented people still common and treated as subhuman due to the prior conflict. Even tonally in its own context this doesn't always work; the dialogue and situations mostly pattern-match the kind of bigotry you see against underperforming subpopulations, not against overperforming-but-hated ones. The ending gives some closure, albeit not as much as it should. This is clearly part of a trilogy that was never finished, but it does stand well enough on its own that I don't feel cheated.

Graphics-wise ... did we just hit "good enough" a decade ago? I'm reminded of a comparison I saw of the 2013 vs 2018 Tomb Raider video games, where the main character's hair was more flowing and realistic in the latter, and that was about it. I'm sure kids these days could find a lot to complain about before I chase them off my lawn, but after living through an era where every year felt like a completely new paradigm, it's nice to be able to just treat even decade-old AAA graphics as a solved problem, and focus on gameplay and story.

I have a lot to say about Black Myth: Wukong, a game that surprised me at every turn and left me thinking for days about its themes, story, and just... general existence, but I need more time to put my thoughts in order. It's incredible that the thing exists at all.

Space Marine 2 next week so I can engage in the practice of adult male pillowforting, even if the game design is questionable compared to the first game's.

I'd definitely be interested to hear about black myth wukong.

Played some Kerbal Space Program 1 with mods. Had fun, but it's clunky.

Other than that, still entirely on Nebulous: Fleet Command. I'm not good at it, but I do have fun.

I'm trying to play RDR 2... I'm just so bored. The scenes are so long. I'm still in like the intro town and man every time I fk up a mission I have to repeat so much.

Kind of annoying, but I've heard such great things I'm trying to slog into it at least a bit.

The scenes are so long. I'm still in like the intro town

Skip the side missions and only focus on the story.

every time I fk up a mission I have to repeat so much.

Save after every mission.

It’s not really like most other games. It’s an immersive experience, like a form of interactive theater. It only works if you forget about game stuff like “what’s the fastest way to the next mission” and instead devote yourself wholly to thinking “what would Arthur do next?”. When it gets dark, set up camp and cook some food over the fire; in the morning brew some coffee and drink it as the fog clears, then saddle up and keep going. When you stop at a town, get a drink at the saloon, play a game of poker, overhear some conversations. Get distracted. Hunt if you spot rare game, then bring the skin back to town for sale. In between, pursue the story missions, upgrade camp as you find things, explore the towns and cities organically. Don’t obsessively overloot; looting is deliberately slow to discourage this. Your horse is fragile, you have to look after it, you can’t treat it like a ‘mount’ in other games. Speak to everyone whenever you can, your camp followers and friends have almost unimaginable amounts of incidental dialogue and there are countless little side stories, some of which you’ll miss and some you’ll be there for. Fish at sunset. Stalk a deer in a rainstorm. Read every newspaper, watching how they change as you complete quests bf meet new characters. If there’s a party in camp, do what Arthur would do; get a drink, talk to people, socialize. More than any other game of its type, Red Dead Redemption 2 needs you to buy in fully, or it will seem slow and boring. But do this and eventually every other open game of a similar type will seem like a crude facsimile of a world, a gamified, simplified, fake-feeling funfair compared to the Wild West in a setting with the industry’s best sense of time and place.

I've started playing it before our newborn came (hadn't had the chance to play it again), but my biggest problem was the immersion break on missions when suddenly dozens of mooks show up and die one after another while Arthur's crew just cuts through them like hot butter. The rest of the game is made so realistic and immersive, why did the choose to make these fighting scenes so over-the-top ridiculous like most other action games? I don't mind it as much for other action games because there it's just the way the entire world works, but for RDR2 it just seems so bizarrely out-of-place.

It only works if you forget about game stuff like “what’s the fastest way to the next mission”

I wish I could have done that, but it felt like at least early on, a lot of stuff is locked behind those missions.

Hmmm I guess I will try more to get into it, sounds like I need to dedicate some time to getting into the experience.

Idk I've never been one to get immersed in video games, any tips for getting into this mindset? Or like questions to think about as I play?

Cool! I might hop back in with you. Are there new game modes and such? I think I got tired of how stale the same old thing got after a bit.

I think two new game modes since you last played. A horde mode, and a hive extermination. I don't think I like either of those very much. I've drifted towards liking advance and secure. Because it is time limited and slightly less insane than the other game modes.

There is supposed to be a single player campaign in a month or so when the game releases.

The progression system has been changed up, 6 classes instead of 3.

Weapon progression is a thing.

I'm still trying to figure out which class I like best.

6 classes? hOLY CRAP! THAT'S A LOT

Nice man I'll check it out

Sarcasm?

From memory:

  1. Guardian (defense)
  2. Engineer (building)
  3. Ranger (scout short range)
  4. Sniper (scout long range)
  5. Medic
  6. Demolition (explosives)

Ive played all but the engineer and ranger. Different game modes fit best for each one. Medic is what I play if no one else has jumped into the match yet, or if there are less than three medics already.

nah not sarcasm. I'm just a genuine boi

New HoMM has been announced and it looks like it's being made by grognards for grognards: it's basically 3 with newer graphics and skills and other minor improvements from 5.

New HoMM has been announced and it looks like it's being made by grognards for grognards

A team of grognards already did that with Songs of Conquest.

That one has too many questionable decisions to count.

The new Necropolis look is just straight from some YA book.

/images/1725741795564061.webp

There are other art styles I would prefer but that looks tolerable to me. It could probably be improved a good bit just by improving the lighting.

Im getting Warcraft 3 vibes from that, and I'm absolutely cool with it.

Yeah, I am not a big fan of the new town screens.

That sounds great, I only ever see people playing 3 on YouTube.
There's a few franchises that had a definitive version that nothing can replace, like aoe2 and advance wars

It's kinda.. basic though. And also Rampart's special building (bank) is really nuts. I played them all but although Homm V was the best, mechanically at least.

The best 4x fantasy strategy game I ever played was Age of Wonders 2. They fucked it up with 3, they made it boring somehow. No idea how.

It's kind of like Homm except there's no stacking of units, the magical system is way more fun with domains and domain spells.

I’m still playing Star Wars Outlaws, primarily out of inertia in the hour a day between finishing with the laundry / dinner / clean-up / other chores and sleeping, and while my SO writes. The thing about Ubisoft games is they’re not exciting enough to keep you awake, but they’re stimulating enough to gently calm you down. Kind of like a mediocre drug, like microdosing shrooms or consuming low-THC weed, except possibly healthier (this is I assume debatable).

I am very much looking forward to the new Dragon Age. I have been waiting for 10 years and will likely enjoy myself immensely even if it is bad. Because I now have actual responsibilities and a social life I am even considering taking a couple of days off to play it, but I will wait for the reviews first in case it’s very buggy.

What makes you think you'll enjoy it?

I’m a sucker for the lore and know literally everything about it. It’s probably the only fictional setting I really know everything about.

And other than Andromeda I’ve enjoyed pretty much every BioWare game to some extent, so I doubt it will be so bad as to be no fun at all.

I don't get the 'knowing about the universe' part at all. Some of the SW games and media are cool- i really liked Dark Forces game and also Tie Fighter, the one game where you could play for the right side, but the closer you look the worse it gets. I used to read the wiki they had to see the lore but it's really ..dire.

These days if I want a decent skiffy game I just play Stellaris some. Real future is just too horrific to contemplate.

But wouldn't that make you even less interested?

Bioware has not released a passable game in over 10 years, all the original or even senior writers have either left or been fired, the game has been rebooted twice with the leads fired, with EA taking more or less full control as well as cleaning house of experienced people after the lastest reboot and the trailers look atrocious.

This game being decent seems like it would be one of the greatest upsets and comebacks in gaming history.

The gameplay footage released over the last week looks pretty good to me.

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