General Gaming Discussion Thread

Mave

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General Gaming Discussion Thread

Discuss, recommend, not-recommend, ask about, look forward to,.. everything gaming related basically.

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So I never played the Far Cry series. I do like open world games though (JC2, GTA to name a few).
Is this game anything like Just Cause? If it is, I might give it a try soon.
 
Never played FC myself, but according to Wikipedia, it has a open world. FC3 appearently has 50 km² of map available. It's smaller than JC2 (I think), but still impressive.



I finished Remember Me a few days ago. It's a fun game, but could have been better.

(note, I got carried away and made a detailed review about it. Scroll down to just above the screenshots to see the [TL;DR])

[Plot]
The plot is that in a dystopian near future, everyone has digitalized their memories using the Sensen, created and provided by the monopoly company called M3morize,
run by the main character's parents. Because they rule over everyones memories, governments are merely puppets, and the CEO's run everything.

You wake up after your memories are wiped, and you manage to escape, to join the Errorist movement (just imagine a 'T' in front of the name, you know what kind of movement it is). Your goal is to overthrow M3morize, and get your memories back to figure out what the story of your life is.

[Combat]
You can get to that goal with the aid of 3 weapons, which doesn't seem like much, but every one has a huge element attached to it:
  • Your fists. You have four combos available, but you get 4 different effects. And you can select which effect you want for each button in each combo. You can get the simple 3-button combo to do massive damage for fast spamming, and use the longer 5-button combo to heal yourself. Or combine the effects and let the 8-button combo deal massive damage while healing you. If you perform it correctly though.
    You also get 5 special attacks that need to be charged to use, and deal special damage to a single target, or especially to robots, or drop a bomb.
    Evading is made easy (almost too easy), by simply hitting a button. Enemies get a huge red "!" above them right before they attack, which makes it a bit of a walk in the park.
  • A gun-like glove. You use it to stun opponents, hit far off enemies, or hit structural weaknesses. But that's not all. You can move objects with it (unlocked halfway in the game), hack locks with it, and generally use it to solve the puzzles.
  • Your glove. Your glove is tailored for you, and allows you to get inside peoples Sensens (memory storage) and alter their memories. This causes a waterfall effect that changes their present day behavior. It's storyline driven, and only happens four times, sadly. The modding of the memory is done by a minigame, which lets you watch the memory first, and then sends you back to alter it. You can rewind or fast forward, and at several points you can alter a small thing, a "glitch", with big effect. Red herrings are strewn throughout, however, and selecting the right "glitches" is a combination of logic thinking and trial and error. For example,
    you have to make a person think they caused an accident. You do this by altering the memory to remove the cupholder, which causes the coffee to fall over, which causes a cellphone to fry, which causes the person to lose attention, which causes the accident. However, you can also select to crack the windshield and unbuckle the passenger, which does nothing. It does feel a bit cold though, as the changes you make in the target's memory aren't real in the world. Another example is when
    you have to alter a memory and make a officer believe he killed his girlfriend in a drunken fight. So, when you are finished, he shoots himself in the head because of the false guilt. Right before the woman in case comes back in to make up with him.
[Setting]
The world is linear, which each level consisting of a single wriggling line cutting through the city. That being said, sometimes it's difficult to find the correct path to the goal though, forcing you to use your brains (sometimes!).
The setting is Paris, 2084, and the Sensen creates a huge HUD over the entire world. This makes everything look futuristic, yet combined with classical Parisian buildings.
And I like it. A lot. It looks fitting, everything in the world feels right. Combining old and new isn't easy, but Remember Me manages it. (In my opinion, at least)

[Gameplay]
The big downside, however, is the maneuvering through the world. You have to climb, Assassin's Creed style, buildings using windowsills, pipes, and ledges, jump across roofs, smash through windows, and so on. Now, normally, I would applaud this choice. I liked Mirror's Edge, and this reminds me a bit about it, but everything you can use to climb is marked by a big yellow arrow. The story is that your Sensen advices you, but it just gives away a lot of puzzles which could have been much more challenging. I know Mirror's Edge did the same thing with bright red colors, but that yellow arrow feels like cheating. Same thing with collectibles and secrets. Whenever you are near one, a big screen pop ups in the world, showing you the pack from a different angle than your PoV. Some are still difficult to find, but others are made incredibly easy with the screens, while they would have been manageable without.
To amp up the difficulty of the puzzles, the devs put in two (literally two) riddles that you have to solve to continue. Even still, I solved both in under a minute each.

[Story]
The storyline is short (seven chapters, I blew through it on medium difficulty in under 4 days), but could have been written by M. Night Shyamalamadingdong Shyamalan. Three plot twists,
two concerning your parents and history, one the CEO's of M3morize being your parents, and the other you causing the accident that made your father look into memory alterations, to erase your painful memories. Basically, you are the entire reason everyone has a Sensen and your parents are now dictators over the world. The third twist is a twist about the final boss, which I'm not going to spoil even with spoiler tags. The twists are a bit obvious after a while though, and even after hefty revelations, you coldly and almost diabolically continue your quests to end M3morize.

[Graphics]
Graphics are not that top of the line. I'm playing Last of Us right now, and the difference is incredible. LoU looks amazing and realistic, while Remember Me looks like, well, a game. It's not bad, but if it was produced 2 or 3 years ago the graphics would have been amazing. However, graphics are not the most important things about a game, and I still think it looks good.

[TL;DR]
Overall, it's a great game. It's great to look at (even though the graphics aren't that up to date), the fights are properly spaced (you get time to recover and recollect before the next fight), the story is intriguing and the gameplay is fluid. The Combo Lab is a nice touch, giving you control over how you play the game. Fast spammer-style gamers can finish the game, but it is easier when you finish longer combos with more effects. This almost forces you to think about how to tackle fights and enemies. The remixing of memories is a nice change of pace, and I really enjoyed it, even though it can get obvious. (well duh,
removing the safety from a gun is an important change when the objective is to make someone drunkenly kill his girlfriend)

However, the climbing and moving is made too easy, and even the secret collectibles are almost fed to you by spoon. The fighting is nice, but the easy evading and big red "!" over attacking units makes this, albeit with perfect timing, a game you can technically play without taking damage. It must be said that I played on the medium difficulty, and on hard it may be a lot more difficult to time properly. However, I think that my girlfriend, with no gaming skill whatsoever, can finish it on "easy" though.

I realize I make it sound bad, saying it's too easy and doesn't offer any real challenges, but I did have occasional bouts of frustration when a fight gets difficult.

Shorter said, it's fun to play, but some things have been made too easy.
If you're doubting playing it, imagine the freerunning of Mirrors Edge combined with the combat of Assassin's Creed, set in a Mass Effect style world, all put in a blender with some special herbs and spices to alter it and make it unique.

My score:
7,5/10
Because it's fun, but not that challenging. I enjoyed it, even though it didn't take me long to reach the credits.

[Screenshots]
The combo lab, where you can modify your combos:
combo-lab.jpg


The combos in action:
RM_TGS_screenshot02.png


"Remixing" a memory:
gaming_remember_me_screenshot_3.jpg


The world, with HUD elements (the advertisement in the distance, for example):
remember-me-pc-ps3-xbox-360-screenshots-2.jpg


The big yellow arrow pointing at a fairly obvious ladder, and the screen showing where the collectible is (note: on this small screenshot it's difficult to see, but in full screen it gets obvious).
448863174.jpg


(credits to the original uploaders, I played it on the PS3, and can't take screenshots)
 
Far Cry 3 was the best game i have played so far this year and would recommend
 
Far Cry 1 is nothing like Far Cry 2 and 3. It can best be compared to Crysis 1. Far Cry 2 and 3 don't really have the same gameplay as Just Cause 2, though they are both open world.
 
Appearantly, Crysis is a spinoff from Far Cry, which is probably why they are comparable
 
Downloading Assassin's Creed III to re play it before Black Flag comes out :)
 
Damn, I really should play AC3 as well, but I just can't be arsed. Maybe after GTA V.
 
I'm guessing Watchdogs was delayed on purpose, to wait after the GTAV hype.
 
I love Bastion so much. The artstyle is incredible, the music, the narration, everything is top notch. Probably my favorite indie game, right on par (or maybe a little better?) with Cave Story.
If you haven't played it, GET IT. It's 14 bucks on steam.
 
Bump.

Finished LEGO Lord of the Rings yesterday. It's a surprisingly fun game.
It's a kids game, so don't expect a really challenging game. Puzzles are simple, fights are easy, and dying has literally no effect except some loss of coins, which can be recollected immediately.
However, it's fun to play, the cut scenes are nicely done and slightly humorous (Aragorn smiling like a Fabio when Arwen comes along), and the huge open world amps up the playtime.
HOWEVER. It has problems. Lots of problems. The open world is great, but you can't turn the camera. Which is a bitch, since in the open world there are over 200 collectibles to be found. Almost all of them in places only reachable by jumping puzzles. But not being able to turn the camera, those puzzles often lead you to jump into a blind spot. Which causes you to fail the puzzle, and having to start all over again. After 10-15 times failing because you can't see shit, it gets annoying. After 40 times, you're ready to throw your keyboard/controller out of the window.
On top of that, some puzzles are just plain bugged. Like a puzzle where you have to jump from pole to pole, but you can't jump far enough. Or you have to grab a hanging rope, but your character just jumps through the rope.
Like other LEGO games, you have an abundance of characters available. I must admit, it's pretty funny to beat up Orcs as Sauron, and switching over to Saruman and shoot down other Orcs with magic bolts.

Score: 6/10. It's a surprisingly fun game, great to spend some time, but its numerous small errors and bugged puzzles make it a bitch sometimes.
 
On the note of Lego currently downloading lego marvel and can't wait
 
I try my hardest not to take more than one look at the list of sales. That "one look" becomes a dozen hundred thousand and the strongest need for a game I probably wouldn't actually play.
The magic of Gaben is compelling and repelling at the same time. It's like the force of a large household magnet unleashed upon my HDD-brain.
 
Mave said:
For those who haven't noticed yet: Steam Sales are live!
Not much interesting (that I haven't got yet) on sale.

Just finished Singularity. It's an older game (2010), and it shows a bit. The graphics are dated, compared to modern games from 2012/2013. However, it's still nice to look at. I think. I've downloaded an illegal version, and sometimes the textures wouldn't load properly. But that may be because it's pirated, I don't know.
Gameplay is nice, you gain a weapon that allows you to send certain objects (including enemies!) back and forward in time. This caused great effects, as you can simply turn an enemy to dust, and send another back to it's larvae state. Some of the puzzles include this, as you have to break down a bridge to gain access to something behind it, and then rebuild the stairs to climb them.
You have a wide array of guns, including a revolver, assault rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle (the logical ones), but also more impressive ones, like a railgun, a chaingun, granadelauncher with controllable rolling granades. Favorite is the heavy gun that allows you to slow down time, and gives you control over the bullet. Just duck in cover, shoot, and guide the bullet to the head of an enemy soldier. All guns are upgradable, and the time travel device can be upgraded as well.
Story line was great too, as you can understand, time travel and the butterfly effect changes the entire outlook on the world. Suddenly, the world is ruled by an evil Russian Soviet overlord, whom you've accidentally saved.
All in all, I give it a 9/10.
It's great fun to play, scary in a good way, and turning your enemies into dust? Amazing.
 
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