love

Author Topic: What are you playing?  (Read 75678 times)

Solid Blake

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 5028
Re: What are you playing? NOW STREAMING 2019!
« Reply #250 on: November 01, 2019, 05:59:55 AM »
Loading/lobby wait times aren’t that bad compared to most games I’ve been playing (PUBG probably paints any game in a better light in this regard); however, the “quick play” playlist goes really fast and the game modes are all randomized, so it’s my preferred mode of play at the moment. Also, I always turn the voice chat sound off in the options screen for every game like this. Unless it’s a real life/trusted online buddy talking to me through party chat, I’m muting everyone else!

In other news, Death Stranding is getting decisively polarized reviews/opinions—something I’d expect from a Kojima joint. I’m stoked to see what the fuss is all about come Friday.

FLYmeatwad

  • An Acronym
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 28785
  • I am trying to impress myself. I have yet to do it
    • Processed Grass
Re: What are you playing? NOW STREAMING 2019!
« Reply #251 on: November 01, 2019, 07:22:21 PM »
Might wait on Death Stranding because I still have a lot of Outer Worlds, and want to play that new game on GamePass from the Oxenfree people, plus Pokemon soon. Also, I'm really scared by the talk about the endurance systems, it sounds like all the things I hated about BotW, but I do like Kojima's stuff more than Zelda mostly. Will wait for Bombcast talk on Tuesday, the Beastcast chatter today was also super split, though I think I'm most in line with Alex, who seemed to like it the most, maybe Vinny did, idk.

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: What are you playing? NOW STREAMING 2019!
« Reply #252 on: November 02, 2019, 02:44:25 AM »
Death Stranding looks like delivery and fetch quest the game with a lot of recycled content. While some are describing it as a true walking simulator in the strict sense of the two words, I'm not sure the tedium of the game sounds like the kind of challenge I'd enjoy. It seems like the game is about mitigating a lot of that as you go on instead of truely mastering systems like you do in most difficult games. In other words, sounds like it's of the grind school of design, which sucks.

Oh, and everyone at GiantBomb seems to be ragging on how dumb the story is which is honestly not surprising given how dumb MGSV was but this sounds possibly dumber.

Solid Blake

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 5028
Re: What are you playing? NOW STREAMING 2019!
« Reply #253 on: November 02, 2019, 08:00:58 AM »
Oh, and everyone at GiantBomb seems to be ragging on how dumb the story is which is honestly not surprising given how dumb MGSV was but this sounds possibly dumber.

It seems like you and I come to Kojima games for different reasons... the dumb factor is what I love about his games. I’m all about the dumb names, the awkward product placements and the overall campiness factor in his storytelling. I mean, arguably the most “serious” Kojima game had a grown man pee himself and a protagonist walking around in cardboard boxes. Dumb = awesome.

Solid Blake

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 5028
Re: What are you playing? NOW STREAMING 2019!
« Reply #254 on: November 04, 2019, 02:17:04 PM »
I finally had an afternoon this weekend where I could sink my teeth into the multiplayer suite of Modern Warfare and, boy, am I impressed. Without much surprise to anyone, the Realism and NVG modes that limit your HUD and have "hardcore" damage ballistics are by far my favorite modes to play. The removal of the HUD and pure focus on your surroundings, really help me feel immersed and it's nice to not be reminded that I was killed by "FortniteBoy69" for the third time in five minutes. The annoying shotgun runners are mitigated by the (equally annoying) claymore mines and the whole flow of the game is a little more methodical, a little slower, and a lot less traditional Call of Duty. I stankin' love it.

On top of all this, the weapon/character progression is a streamlined and slick as ever. I actually care about the MP5 that I'm building up and what each additional perk or attachment does. The presentation with this "gun porn" might not be aimed for people like me, but it's appreciated by this fellow stat-head.

I also checked out Ground War, which is their take on the 64 player "Conquest" modes of the Battlefield games. It was... fine. But it's not what I came here for. Give me hardcore domination, team death-match, and/or search and destroy and I'll be a happy boy.

Bondo

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 23082
Re: What are you playing? NOW STREAMING 2019!
« Reply #255 on: November 04, 2019, 02:54:02 PM »
I started Ring Fit Adventure and it definitely is a legit workout. I did the first three levels which was about 15 minutes of work and was basically dead at the end. I ride my Peloton 3-4 times a week so my cardio fitness is pretty solid, but RFA gets into more body weight "lifting" exercises. Should get better as I open up additional exercises. The World 1 boss fight was long enough that I had to repeat exercises, and that calls in a big fatigue factor on the more difficult ones.

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: What are you playing? NOW STREAMING 2019!
« Reply #256 on: November 04, 2019, 06:06:20 PM »
Finished The Outer Worlds this afternoon. I played through as a dumb character and it was fun to have the dumb dialogue options and the game even has a couple of cool dumb endings, one of which I love for being just the right level of dumb. If nothing else, I'm glad this game exists for letting me play a dumb character again. I can only remember it being in the first two Fallout games and Arcanum.

As far as the rest of the game goes, it's decent, I guess. The combat plays great with a lot of mobility and a good variety of weapons, but the actual role-playing doesn't feel as satisfying here for some reason. I'm still trying to tease out in my brain why that's the case. On paper, this has multiple routes and ways to tackle quests and you at least sort of have to build your character in a direction.

I will say character design doesn't feel as robust as the Fallout games where the perks really helped hone in your character to a particular playstyle. Here they're a bit too generic and none of them feel as awesome or as character-defining as they do in Fallout. Getting more damage on headshots or moving faster or having companions have more health feel like very mathy considerations instead of role-playing ones. In fact, by the end of the game I had a hard time picking perks that even felt useful.

There is some great world reactivity here. I made a choice early on that doubled back onto me later in the game and basically forced me into a situation I was hoping to avoid. In the moment I hated feeling restricted, but it was a great gotcha moment that made me realize the decisions I made weren't as isolated from each other as they initially appeared to be.

All in all, I'd say if you're itching for a RPG in the vein of Bethesda's work with much better combat, this will scratch some of that itch. I liked it more than Oblivion and Fallout 3 but the titans of Morrowind and New Vegas still stand as the great experiences for me when it comes to this kind of game. Honestly, I would have probably been better off replaying New Vegas and getting to the two DLCs I never got the chance to play.



From here I'm planning on playing Prey since it's on Xbox Game Pass and I've also been playing some original Fallout as a dumb character after getting a taste of the fun in The Outer Worlds.

FLYmeatwad

  • An Acronym
  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 28785
  • I am trying to impress myself. I have yet to do it
    • Processed Grass
Re: What are you playing? NOW STREAMING 2019!
« Reply #257 on: November 04, 2019, 07:26:27 PM »
I started Ring Fit Adventure and it definitely is a legit workout. I did the first three levels which was about 15 minutes of work and was basically dead at the end. I ride my Peloton 3-4 times a week so my cardio fitness is pretty solid, but RFA gets into more body weight "lifting" exercises. Should get better as I open up additional exercises. The World 1 boss fight was long enough that I had to repeat exercises, and that calls in a big fatigue factor on the more difficult ones.

I've been wondering about this, as most people I've heard who use it either don't do a lot of exercise or what they do is more cardio than anything. Definitely really want to pick it up for off days (though feel like if it's a cartridge I'll be bummed having to switch it out with Pokemon, which I'm probably getting physical) so I can get quick ones in, but cardio is by far what I don't do a lot of, so I'm not sure I'll get as much out of it if it's just slight resistance based body weight exercises when I've been pretty focused on progressive overload for the past year.

Been really liking Outer Worlds as well, but I'm just getting to the point where it pretty much blocks me from doing anything else until I go see this guy holed up somewhere on Monarch, so maybe I haven't gotten to the point where choices come back to me, hopefully they hit. The two things I've found with the game, and I think this does kind of go along with the generic aspects you're talking about, Sam, are that factions don't really seem to rub up against each other, at least not early, aside from missions where you literally have to kill other things if your stats aren't high enough to hack or whatever (though hopefully/maybe this changes, whereas in New Vegas it felt like those tensions surfaced earlier and were a bit higher), and then there's the fact that I put SO MANY hours in to those PS3/360 era Fallout games I kind of feel like, even though it's all new and I'm loving the writing/playing/characters (Team Felix), it does feel like going through the motions.

But I like the motions, and want to play a dumb character. Tbh I maxed my intelligence to see what that end of the scale was, and it seems useless. Next run I'm doing a corporate shill who is as dumb as a rock but has Perception maxed out because that seems to be the real dialogue player's option. At least it's where I'm hitting the most walls.

Sam the Cinema Snob

  • Objectively Awesome
  • ******
  • Posts: 26795
Re: What are you playing? NOW STREAMING 2019!
« Reply #258 on: November 06, 2019, 11:36:12 AM »
Traded in my PS4 for credit as there are no future games on the system that feel like must haves for me. I got $150 and bought $100 of Nintendo eShop credit and $50 of Steam credit. Will probably wait for Black Friday sales before getting anything. In the meantime I'll be working through Prey.

Solid Blake

  • Godfather
  • *****
  • Posts: 5028
Re: What are you playing? NOW STREAMING 2019!
« Reply #259 on: November 07, 2019, 09:36:56 AM »
Traded in my PS4 for credit as there are no future games on the system that feel like must haves for me.

The Last of Us Part II, Ghost Of Tsushima and Dreams BEG TO DIFFER.