Computer Games

[Hobbes]

Seeing as their are a few computer gamers here, just wondering what you all play and talk about game's that may not be worth their own thread.  Here are the game's I am playing off and on right now:

World of Warcraft classic

RimWorld

Crusader Kings 3

Stellaris (but haven't played since the last dlc)

Things I want to play:

Cities Skylines 2 (I was a HUGE fan of the first), but it feels like it was released too early, but mods haven't come to Steam yet.

Victoria 3 (still a lot of work to go on this game)

Phantom Liberty (I didn't really play the original)

Northguard (lots of DLC that I am waiting on the Steam fall sale to buy)

Elden Ring

[Tank]

I've basically been in a loop of playing the same few games, and replaying my PS4 favorites with mods now that I am on PC, since covid lockdown. Not sure why, but there just wasn't a lot for me out there. I'm a picky gamer. I like narrative driven sci-fi or horror action RPG 3rd person games. Don't care much for fantasy. This has left me playing these games over and over the last four years:

Fallout 4, Mass Effect (all 4), Control, State of Decay 2, Ghosts of Tsushima, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Last of Us 1&2, and the occasional one off. But I'm downloading Starfield right now...

[Rogue 3]

BG3 is my key focus at the mo. Awesome!

Before that, I finally got round to playing the first Spidey game which was great fun, Jedi Survivor, and Elden Ring - enjoyed both immensely! Plus a bit of polishing up trophy hunting on FF7 Remake.

I have Spidey 2 to play (recent birthday gift), and that should time nicely for FF7 Rebirth coming out in late Feb.

[Tank]

Gotta say, a few hours in, Starfield is astonishingly boring, poorly-written, has last gen graphics, and some of the absolute WORST UI design I have ever seen in a game. And oh yeah, NO MAPS, cause they want you to "explore the world" and yet, locations can be 3-4 minutes apart with nothing to discover between them and your ship can only land in a single place.

[Odine]

Games I'm currently playing,

Baldurs Gate 3 (again) 

Mass Effect 2 LE (on pause cause I got sucked back into BG3)

Chivalry 2 (super super super fun if you just want some quick online first/third person medieval combat laughs with plenty of gory dismemberment and slapstick humour)

Games I have on my system but haven't played in a while:

Crusader Kings 3 with the princes of darkness VTM mod. (I love VTM). 

Cyberpunk 2077 

Stelaris

Fallout 2 

VTM Bloodlines 

I had to finally delete Skyrim cause I felt like 1700 hours was enough 

 

[CoLA]

I play a lot of Fortnite, it's a fun game to play for 10 minutes, 2 hours or whatever.

Finished Spider-Man 2, that was a great game! I'll do another playthrough whenever NG+ comes out.

I've been playing the Guardians of the Galaxy game, it's surprisingly good. It's a bit like Mass Effect in terms of gameplay but much more simplified. The dialogue between the characters is great. I'm not a fan of the little goatee thing they gave Rocket, though....

[Gamevet]

I have 2 gaming PCs. One for the 4K 120Hz OLED in the living room and a 1440p 144hz 27" display on my desktop. I have Game Pass for my PC (so much better than what I get from Net Flix), so I've had the luxury of trying out games like Flight Simulator.

 

I've been playing Forza Motorsports, Starfield and Forza Horizon 5. I play FH4 once in awhile, since it is one of the few games I'd actually bought for my PC lately. Ray Tracing just isn't worth it for Forza Motorsports. It tanks my 10850K and there's no reason for that to happen, other than a bad game engine.

I was attempting to do a second playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077, but I got into a battle that I wasn't equipped to handle and just quit playing. I might be interested in Phantom Liberty soon.

Oh! And I have a long time gaming relationship with Sins of a Solar Empire. I've completed every campaign, including the world expansion pack and even played through the game again with a mod called Sins of a Galactic Empire. I've pretty much put 1,500 hours of playtime into the game. It is the greatest space battle strategy game I've ever played.

[Tank]

2 hours ago, Gamevet said:

I was attempting to do a second playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077, but I got into a battle that I wasn't equipped to handle and just quit playing. I might be interested in Phantom Liberty soon.

This happens WAY less than it used to with the new 2.0 build.

[Gamevet]

20 hours ago, Tank said:

This happens WAY less than it used to with the new 2.0 build.

It's that stupid mall mission. Those crazy roid freaks gang up on you and it requires owning a really good sword to survive it.

[Tank]

You can stealth/snipe your way through most of it, and hacking the turrets helps too.

Unless you mean the boss fight at the end of it, in which case yeah— that took me forever tries too.

[Odine]

I used the dildo club on sascuatch last time I played and cheesed that fight really easily. I'm sure it's been patched since then to make it more difficult. That was one of my favourite sections of the game, all the Voodoo Boy stuff. Soundtrack was great in that area too 

[Hobbes]

I decided to play Cyberpunk 2077, but I want to finish RDR2 run first. 

The Steam Autumn Sale is today.  Phantom Liberty is not on sale.  Based on what you all said, I will wait until I play through the base game.  Here is what I am thinking about picking up from def buying to probably not.

Northgard (Norse settlement building game)

Valheim (exploration and survival game inspired by Norse mythology.)

They are Billions (base building game against horsed of zombies)

Sea of Thieves

Timberborn (City building game--but your a beaver)

Farthest Frontier

Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord

Starfield (I am hearing mixed reviews including here)
 

The other issue is they are relaunching World of Warcrft original game on Nov 30th but with a bunch of game changes to make it feel new.  Being this is my favorite game of all time, I will probably play this.  Speaking of which--WoW also has Hardcore Servers where there is permadeath which I want to try to. 

 

[Hobbes]

On 11/20/2023 at 6:57 PM, Gamevet said:

I have 2 gaming PCs. One for the 4K 120Hz OLED in the living room and a 1440p 144hz 27" display on my desktop. I have Game Pass for my PC (so much better than what I get from Net Flix), so I've had the luxury of trying out games like Flight Simulator.

 

I've been playing Forza Motorsports, Starfield and Forza Horizon 5. I play FH4 once in awhile, since it is one of the few games I'd actually bought for my PC lately. Ray Tracing just isn't worth it for Forza Motorsports. It tanks my 10850K and there's no reason for that to happen, other than a bad game engine.

I was attempting to do a second playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077, but I got into a battle that I wasn't equipped to handle and just quit playing. I might be interested in Phantom Liberty soon.

Oh! And I have a long time gaming relationship with Sins of a Solar Empire. I've completed every campaign, including the world expansion pack and even played through the game again with a mod called Sins of a Galactic Empire. I've pretty much put 1,500 hours of playtime into the game. It is the greatest space battle strategy game I've ever played.

Have you played Stellaris?

[Gamevet]

I’ve heard of Stellaris, but I’ve never tried it. It tried to get into Galactic Civilizations 2, but I found it to be too clunky.

[Tank]

The Steam sale is pretty decent, I picked up the recent Hitman Trilogy (with all DLCs) for under $30. Also nabbed an old school Lucasarts style point and click graphic adventure I've had my eyes on for awhile, Jedi Survivor, and Last of Us Part 1 (since I only have it on my Ps4).

In the meanwhile, Starfield continues to be average as fuuuuuuuuuuu

[Gamevet]

 Starfield has had its good moments. Like encountering a ship being taken over by pirates and then boarding the ship to take the Pirates out. Those are always entertaining. I also like when I run into a group of ships that have another ship outnumbered and I proceed to pick them off one by one. 

[Hobbes]

On 11/22/2023 at 6:43 PM, Tank said:

The Steam sale is pretty decent, I picked up the recent Hitman Trilogy (with all DLCs) for under $30. Also nabbed an old school Lucasarts style point and click graphic adventure I've had my eyes on for awhile, Jedi Survivor, and Last of Us Part 1 (since I only have it on my Ps4).

In the meanwhile, Starfield continues to be average as fuuuuuuuuuuu

 

2 hours ago, Gamevet said:

 Starfield has had its good moments. Like encountering a ship being taken over by pirates and then boarding the ship to take the Pirates out. Those are always entertaining. I also like when I run into a group of ships that have another ship outnumbered and I proceed to pick them off one by one. 

What do you think is the disconnect between critics scores and player scores?  On Steam reviews are mixed for it.

A game that is super cheap on the sale and super fun is Frostpunk.  Imagine a  survival, dystopian game that is on Hoth. 

[Tank]

People who love Starfield will give the blanket defense of WELP IT'S A BATHESDA GAME! Like their goal is to give you a massive open world with a ton of different factions, a loose story to get you going to learn mechanics, but otherwise, you have to figure out not only how to really game it, but also find your own way of playing it.

In theory that is great. I will admit that Fallout 4 was my first Bethesda game, and my first play I missed a lot because I didn't explore, I didn't get deep into the rug mechanics, and I stuck to the main storyline. After I got a better idea of things, my second play through was fun. But most of all, Fallout 4 had such an amazing style and vibe to it. But also, there is very much a psychology to game design when it comes to an open world. I can't find the video now, but I watched this clip on youTube that talked about it, but the idea is, if you are roaming an open world you don't actually go more than a minute without seeing something new. Fallout 4's map is huge,. and even in the most remote places, there's things to find, strange tableaus that tell a story, something to loot, or a location you haven't discovered. 

Starfield's planets have 1-5 key locations. Your ship can only usually land in one place. You have to WALK to the other locales and there is nothing but procedurally generated landscape between them. It's also insanely easy to become over-encumbered for a game that relies on looting and nabbing resources. The locations tend to recycle the same modular parts so it just comes off as the juice not being worth the squeeze.

The hub worlds are packed and well art directed-- but they don't give you maps. AN OPEN WORLD GAME WITH NO MAPS. They say they want you to explore to know the world, but again, everything is miles apart. 

The dialog is very basic, and your player character isn't voiced. There are no performances what so ever, just animated faces (of which Bethesda has only a handful) saying flat line readings to you. 

There's also a lot of what people call "Bethesda jank." Glitchy faces, weird bugs, graphics that doesn't always load. The other night I lifted off from a spaceport and a member of the ground crew got connected to my ship and was still walking around under my ship mid-air doing his ground crew thing. Graphics clipping is everywhere, and the action is extremely stiff and not-dynamic. There's no cover system, you can't dodge, you can barely jump. The UI is one of the worst I've ever seen. I could go on.

Basically, Bethesda wants to make RPG computer games from the 90s, but feel inclined to do the bare minimum possible to stay relevant as a AAA studio. And again, their fans will tell you this is exactly their goal and you should know it if you play their games. I guess I just call BS on that and have a hard time thinking this mediocrity was done on purpose as opposed to just being a failure of some sort and them regressing to what they know works to make a ship date.

Mostly I'm just mad because it feels like a backwards step from Fallout 4, which I loved.

[Tank]

Okay, here's an example... I just played for a bit since my last post. Here's what went down...

1. I've landed on a frontier planet town, it has an old west in space vibe. I've seen this vibe done to death, and they aren't bringing anything new to it. The town is expansive. Tons of shops and people. NONE of it is interesting enough to suck me in. By comparison, the new vendor area added to Cyberpunk in Phantom Liberty was one of the coolest environments I've ever seen in a sci-fi game. It was familiar, but also really unique. This is not.

2. This is a desert-ish planet so when you are outside, there is a forced reshade filter that just reduces the contrast of everything and tints it slightly brown. It's supposed to be a feel, but it looks like a monitor mistake.

3. Every other person you pass basically has dementia. Get within a few feet and they jump you into whatever is on their mind. THINGS JUST HAVEN'T BEEN THE SAME AROUND HERE SINCE OUR WATER PLANT STOPPED WORKING. And of course, this now shows up as a mission for you. Most of the missions in my game journal are from snippets of conversation I walk by. Fix the air pump. Investigate the distress call. I'm not confident they lead to interesting stories, and are likely simple task quests to grind XP.

4. The mission I AM on is to help this boring ass guy I've got as a temp companion get some maps from his family that will lead to an alien artifact that the main mission faction is collecting. Get this, alien artifacts that give you a vision... which I have literally seen in so many stories, especially Mass Effect, which I just replayed.

5. Oops, can't get to the bank vault where the maps are because there's some bank robbers. Talk to the Marshal, he decides to let you handle it. Sneak in like a clever person, and try to stealth it (cause I paid into a stealth skill option) and do silent kills... but (and this happened in Fallout 4 constantly) my companion is immediately seen and starts shooting. So we kill everyone, fine. Hostages are in the vault. Before I let them out, I decide to pick the locks on a desktop safe. The bank manager, in the vault, is close enough to me that he is triggered to have the "you stole a thing prepare to get flagged as an enemy" reaction. My first thought is-- how does he see me steal if he's in the vault? The game says "oh don't worry, we'll just spawn him next to you so he DOES see." But then THAT triggers the mission response of "thank heavens you saved us and set us free" dialogue. So he's literally saying both things to me at the same time.

6. It seems to disable enemy status, so I go down to the vault to find the maps-- but nope. Have to go outside and talk to the Marshal and complete that mission first. Get the XP, and he offers to have me join his faction. Now I can talk to my idiot companion, go back into the bank and back down to the vault to get the maps. They aren't there. Find a note for him, that in theory I have to add to my inventory, then open and navigate through FOUR menus to read. But I think, it's for him, so I'll give it to him. As soon as I try to talk to him though, he immediately responded as if I have already read the note (because the game doesn't flag the difference between me having it AND reading it as two different events.)

7. So now we have to go see his dad who has the maps-- only idiot companion doesn't want to. I have to go through four very VERY on the nose dialogue choices to play therapist and get him to talk to his dad, and again remember the PC is not voiced, so all the "character" I have is broken into four dialog options. An overly supportive/positive reply, a snarky asshole reply, a non sequitur, or saying you don't care about what is happening. (This is a pretty common range for the game thus far).

8. We walk to the far side of town to find his dad, they argue, and I am given the choice of talking to dad myself even though he clearly hates me, telling idiot companion to distract him while I try to find and steal the maps, or go back to my ship where idiot companion's daughter is hanging out and ask her to schmooze her grandpa for the maps because they like each other. For the record, idiot companion has decided to keep them separate, which I can appreciate as having a toxic parent and a child... but also, what kind if space adventurer drags his kid along to his home planet but then makes her stay on the ship? I figured talking to dad myself would involve doing persuasion checks, which I haven't put enough points into and keep failing, and the game made me bring the kid, so that was likely the way to go. (Sidebar, persuasion convos are ridiculous. The game basically tells you "you have to guess what to say to people who knows how they'll respond... which is their of saying it is random, because if you follow logic, it doesn't lead you to a win. You just have a choices of things to say that cost points, and your skill "discounts" those points... but you are still playing a guessing game."

9. We walk all the way back across town to the spaceport to get the kid. Walk all the way back to the house so she and grandpa can reunite, and we get the maps.

10. Maps lead to a cave we (again) have to walk to in the wilderness teeming with rando animal attacks that wastes all my ammo. This is thankfully one of the shorter walks I have had in this game. I check progress on occasion with a long range scope I have-- but when I use it, it seems to want to lock in on something specific. I have to zoom in and out several times. I fix it by pointing upon into the sky... and see half a dozen rocks that have rendered up there instead of on the ground. Anyway, no ammo, so when we get to the location and it is full of all the surviving gang members of the dudes I shot down at the bank, I realize I need to go stealth and melee until I can pick up my bullets. I clumsily jetpack up to a bluff (because clumsily is the only way you can move in this game) to get the lay of the land and sneak in. This time I tell idiot companion to hold position so he doesn't trigger combat.

11. I start stealthing my way down. I get close to an enemy and trigger them being on alert. The way the AI works is that each enemy has a field of perception. Once you enter it, they will go on to alert and look around. If they see you, combat is triggered and any enemy in the area can now also see you regardless of where they are. I have a mid-level stealth skill, which nerfs down that area of perception. I also have a concealment skill so if I am crouched behind something, if the enemy is on alert, they have a slightly lower chance of seeing me. Rumor has it, even maxed out, you can still be seen and attacked by people even outside line of sight. That said, I manage to get pretty close. I alert a guard, but he doesn't see me. You get a little active progress bar that shows them cooling down back to being unaware. So I sit in hiding, watching it go down... and then idiot companion respawns next to me and starts shooting.

12. I take down the first guy and he has ammo I can use, so we clear out most of the enemies. I sneak up to objective building, and even though we just had a giant firefight with explosions and screams, the guys just inside have not been triggered because they have things to say about the bank mission I am supposed to hear... but I get a little too close, they go into combat mode... and they are fighting and saying combat dialog and the same time as the story dialog.

I paid $80 for this shit so I want to get some play out of it-- the moment I have motivation to break bad I will do it.

 

[Odine]

I don't think I'll play starfield unless it's on sale for £10 but even then, time is more valuable than money to me and I don't really have time for a mediocre game anymore. I won't listen to music that is anything less than a 4/5 so why bother with a game that is anything less than excellent? Time is too valuable when you got a 4 year old and a happy marriage. 

The first thing that bothered me about starfield was the aesthetic and total lack of atmosphere. Skyrim ticked all my boxes because it drew heavily on Nordic myth and culture and stylised design, at the time when there was very little Norse inspired media, and it had atmosphere in spades. It was a relaxing almost languid pace of game but jam packed full of content too, where reading some old dusty book of lore next to crackling firelight in a dungeon somewhere was as engaging (somehow) as decapitating an orc destruction mage with my greats word. 

Starfield on the other hand just looks so goddamn dry. Zero atmosphere, when space is atmosphere personified (for lack of a better word). It has the design sensibility of a guy who wears blue jeans, jogging shoes, and a faded red/pink tucked in polo shirt. No offence but it feels very Midwestern US. I don't mean to be disparaging of people who dress in this manner or live in the Midwest, I just lack any other way to describe it. You don't want your design team to lack aesthetic sensibility. I feel like Todd Howard was the art director on this game which would be tragic. Dude probably wears square toed dress shoes. Nothing looks cool to me. If my character in an RPG can't look cool or hot while doing stuff what is the point? 

then the reviews came in. No flying your ship. Forced fast travel through loading screens. No maps. The mechanics, lackluster narrative, uncompelling characters.... 

so yeah. No time for mediocre anymore.

particularly in a post BG3 world... That game is a fucking masterpiece and should be played by everyone with an interest in game design. 

[Tank]

This is perfectly put and accurate. Re-reading my rambling from 2am last night it occurred to me that it was pretty amazing what I COULD do in some ways. I thought back to games I was playing as a kid and wishing I could explore more and wasn’t looking at static background. That I could go anywhere and do anything. If this game came back in time and I was able to play it at 15 I would think it was the best thing ever.

But to play this now— after Mass Effect, after Last of Us, after GTA 5, or even after F04, and it seems like such a miss. It feels unfinished and basic.

It’s like making and expecting people to watch a super basic 3 camera laugh track sitcom in a post Breaking Bad world. It’s like buying a Honda Civic from 1994 when you can get afford a Lexus.

For the record, you CAN fly your ship— but only for combat and docking with other ships/stations in orbit. To travel to other systems, take off, or land it has to be done through menu commands that trigger cut scenes.

I’m not sure why I am still playing it. I guess I am hoping I’ll have epiphany with it like I did Fallout. I did just find the lair and gear of The Mantis, which is their version of Batman with a bit of Dread Pirate Roberts. So I may now try the path of leaving the main story and becoming a space vigilante and see if that’s fun… but not holding my breath.

[Hobbes]

Thanks all--I am passing on Starfield.  I am just curious why it is such a hit with critics.

I ended up buying Foundation (medieval city builder), Farthest Fronteit (medieval survival rts city builder), They Are Billions (zombie apocalypse rts city builder), Timberborn (city builder but your a society of beavers), Northgard (Norse rts city builder), Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord  (medieval your a knight in a mass army RPG).

I can't decide what to play so I am booting up World of Warcraft!

[Odine]

Starfield I think averaged about a 7/10 from the places I frequent for reviews. PC gamer and IGN. Because yeah it's a blockbuster. The production value is high and it is the most "polished" a Bethesda game has ever been. So it would be unfair to give it a 5. Angry Joe (who I love cause he's such a nerd) gave it a 6 which seems fair to me. I'm sure there are some legit moment to moment good times... Just no magic as it were 

 

[Gamevet]

20 hours ago, Tank said:

People who love Starfield will give the blanket defense of WELP IT'S A BATHESDA GAME! Like their goal is to give you a massive open world with a ton of different factions, a loose story to get you going to learn mechanics, but otherwise, you have to figure out not only how to really game it, but also find your own way of playing it.

In theory that is great. I will admit that Fallout 4 was my first Bethesda game, and my first play I missed a lot because I didn't explore, I didn't get deep into the rug mechanics, and I stuck to the main storyline. After I got a better idea of things, my second play through was fun. But most of all, Fallout 4 had such an amazing style and vibe to it. But also, there is very much a psychology to game design when it comes to an open world. I can't find the video now, but I watched this clip on youTube that talked about it, but the idea is, if you are roaming an open world you don't actually go more than a minute without seeing something new. Fallout 4's map is huge,. and even in the most remote places, there's things to find, strange tableaus that tell a story, something to loot, or a location you haven't discovered. 

Starfield's planets have 1-5 key locations. Your ship can only usually land in one place. You have to WALK to the other locales and there is nothing but procedurally generated landscape between them. It's also insanely easy to become over-encumbered for a game that relies on looting and nabbing resources. The locations tend to recycle the same modular parts so it just comes off as the juice not being worth the squeeze.

The hub worlds are packed and well art directed-- but they don't give you maps. AN OPEN WORLD GAME WITH NO MAPS. They say they want you to explore to know the world, but again, everything is miles apart. 

The dialog is very basic, and your player character isn't voiced. There are no performances what so ever, just animated faces (of which Bethesda has only a handful) saying flat line readings to you. 

There's also a lot of what people call "Bethesda jank." Glitchy faces, weird bugs, graphics that doesn't always load. The other night I lifted off from a spaceport and a member of the ground crew got connected to my ship and was still walking around under my ship mid-air doing his ground crew thing. Graphics clipping is everywhere, and the action is extremely stiff and not-dynamic. There's no cover system, you can't dodge, you can barely jump. The UI is one of the worst I've ever seen. I could go on.

Basically, Bethesda wants to make RPG computer games from the 90s, but feel inclined to do the bare minimum possible to stay relevant as a AAA studio. And again, their fans will tell you this is exactly their goal and you should know it if you play their games. I guess I just call BS on that and have a hard time thinking this mediocrity was done on purpose as opposed to just being a failure of some sort and them regressing to what they know works to make a ship date.

Mostly I'm just mad because it feels like a backwards step from Fallout 4, which I loved.

 Bethesda is famous for their huge open world games glitching out. Neither Skyrim or Fallout 3 could escape it. And I feel like those 2 are the best games they've ever made and might be in my top 10 of all-time. I've actually completed Fallout 3 twice; Once on the Xbox 360 and again on PC.

The moment when Constellation approached my character, felt very much when the Thieves Guild approached my character in Skyrim. I was pretty much doing odd jobs until they had arrived.

 Ya'll should try out Obsidian's The Outer Worlds. It too is a game about exploring distant planets, while trying to tie together the main storyline. I gave up on that game at around 10 hours. It was waaaay worse than anything people can complain about with Starfield. 

[Tank]

I actually played Outer Worlds and liked how quirky it was. If it had been any longer though I would have gotten annoyed with it for sure.