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Stuart Smith



Joined: 13 Jan 2013
Posts: 1298
PostPosted: Fri Nov 21, 2014 4:47 pm Reply with quote
Smash Bros has been fun so far. I only picked up one Amiibo so far to try it out. Waiting to see if the import figures are better

Shadows of Mordor looks like your typical Assassin's Creed game.. so "same thing over and over" again sounds no surprise, and everything I hear about the lore just makes me cringe. I'm a huge fan of the books so I don't think it would work for me.

Dragon Age: Inquistion.. I don't get how a company with a publisher with hundreds of millions of dollars backing them can put out such a bad-looking game. The character models and animations all look really terrible. I also hear they retcon stuff from the first game even if you killed certain people they're back because canon demands it? I never played much of DA 2 because I disliked the dumbing down, but do your choices even matter anymore? You don't play as your Grey Warden in 2 or 3, so what's the point?

-Stuart Smith
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Arsenette



Joined: 02 Jun 2011
Posts: 175
PostPosted: Sat Nov 22, 2014 4:30 am Reply with quote
Yay I'm actually caught up! I like the gamer episodes though I find myself going (nope didn't play that.. or that.. or that..). I did find it interesting to listen to (I listen when I'm crafting while playing an MMO to pass the time). The only Civ I play still is Revolution for the the Xbox 360 (the one that went free that one month if you were a gold subscriber) and that's pretty much it. Civ takes too damn long to play any other way. At least with Revolution the game win conditions are much faster to obtain.

Agree with Zac that the Smash games are party games and I lose interest very quickly.

I dropped Dragon Age with the first one so obviously 2-3 I didn't play (nor want to). I always found that to be the poor man's Mass Effect. Mass Effect did that genre much better than any game so far even with that controversial ending. I still find myself remembering how much fun I had with the 100+ hours I played Mass Effect than the 30 hours I played of Dragon Age Origins. I don't even remember the STORY of Dragon Age.. Kinda reminds me of the same problem with Destiny. I like playing Destiny when I want to blow stuff up after a bad day.. but I'll be damned if I can tell you wtf the story is in that game. Halo.. different story. I can tell you the story on that and storymode coop is what made Halo IMO. Destiny doesn't have that immersiveness and ultimately what kills that game.
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4462
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Sat Nov 22, 2014 11:48 pm Reply with quote
Oh, Zac has a problem with Bayonetta's visuals too?

I mean, I like the character, I like the sense of humor in the game, and I like all the in-jokes referring to classic Sega games like Space Harrier and Out Run, but I simply can't play that game for more than a few minutes at a time because of the hyperkinetic camera giving me vertigo headaches, and I am absolutely not overstating things. It's pretty much the same as the motion-sensitivity headache I get after playing a racing game for around two hours, but much, much quicker. It may be that the "camera" in racing games is usually in a fixed position behind the car (or behind the dashboard for games like Need for Speed: Shift) and the camera in Bayonetta is moving all over the place.

Bayonetta marks the point where videogame graphics got a little too intense for my visual cortex, and, the past few years, I've mostly skulked back to my "happy place" in the sixth generation with the Dreamcast and the PS2 where, durn it, the graphics are good enough for me.

EDIT: I don't have much else to say about anything else in the podcast, practically all of the games I play now are at least half a decade old since I either buy games from thrift stores, flea markets, or EB Games due to lack of money. The last "new" game I've played was Forza Horizon (the first one from 2012). (I do hope to get a 3DS eventually and would be interested in Persona Q.) I just wanted to second the opinion on Sonic Colors, it was a fantastic platformer, at least on the DS (I don't have a Wii) except for some of the boss battles, which I found a little frustrating, but, then again, I often found the boss battles frustrating in the classic Genesis Sonic games.
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Animehermit



Joined: 05 Aug 2007
Posts: 964
Location: The Argama
PostPosted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 10:14 pm Reply with quote
Stuart Smith wrote:
Dragon Age: Inquistion.. I don't get how a company with a publisher with hundreds of millions of dollars backing them can put out such a bad-looking game. The character models and animations all look really terrible.


Playing on PC and this game looks and plays great, even on low settings, texture quality is actually better than a lot of modern releases *cough* Unity *cough*.

Quote:
I also hear they retcon stuff from the first game even if you killed certain people they're back because canon demands it?


I haven't noticed it. You'd have to make sure you use Dragon Age Keep to save your world state and make sure all your decisions from the first 2 games are imported properly.

There's not a lot of returning characters though.

Quote:
I never played much of DA 2 because I disliked the dumbing down, but do your choices even matter anymore? You don't play as your Grey Warden in 2 or 3, so what's the point?


Yes, they do matter. If you romanced Lelianna in DAO she will mention it in Inquisition. Varric's dialog changes depending on your relationship with Hawke in DA2. There's a lot of small changes too, but most of it effects certain dialogue options. I would imagine that it's because the game takes notes from the previous games, but isn't as tied into them as say the mass effect sequels were.

Grey Wardens, by the way, are only really good at fighting the blight, and since the blight ended in DAO there's little need for wardens. DA2 chronicles Hawke from penniless immigrant, to becoming Champion of Kirkwall. DAI is about forming an organization to help save the word from powers that would destroy it. The Wardens have a place in the game, but they aren't the focus, and it makes perfect sense that they aren't.
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Fedora-san



Joined: 12 Aug 2014
Posts: 464
PostPosted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 11:22 pm Reply with quote
Tenchi wrote:
I just wanted to second the opinion on Sonic Colors, it was a fantastic platformer, at least on the DS (I don't have a Wii) except for some of the boss battles, which I found a little frustrating, but, then again, I often found the boss battles frustrating in the classic Genesis Sonic games.


Sonic Colors was a fine game, the problem is Sonic keeps going through reboot after reboot it's hard to really care anymore if nothing is going to come out of it. That's why my favorites are the Genesis games and the Adventure Series. Everything after that is just.. there. I mean, generations was cool, but then nothing comes out of it. Colors was fine, but again, they seem to drop that continuity. Again with Lost World and now Sonic Boom. I'd probably care more about modern Sonic if they tried to give it some kind of set universe and continuity to grow and expand upon.. also if the games weren't broken and buggy.

Animehermit wrote:
I haven't noticed it. You'd have to make sure you use Dragon Age Keep to save your world state and make sure all your decisions from the first 2 games are imported properly.


It wouldn't be the first time. As far as DA2 is concerned, even if you kill Lelianna in the first game she comes back in DA2, and sounds like she's in 3 too. Someone asked Bioware about this and they replied with some quippy "Did you check her pulse after you killed her?" response. After the guy pointed out he decapitated her, the thread was locked and discussion was banned. Kind of why I don't care for games that tote "choice" as a feature. It's almost the illusion of choice they promise, not actual choice. ME3's ending showed us this. I kinda miss old Bioware. They're the only western company who does RPGs anymore, but it's like ever since ME/DA they went downhill. Or maybe it's more accurate to say ever since EA acquired them.
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Tenchi



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 4462
Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer.
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2014 12:24 am Reply with quote
^ The thing is, I really only play the handheld Sonic games anymore, since I prefer the lower-tech 2D flat plane platform style of gameplay with Sonic. With the exception of having rented Shadow the Hedgehog once, I haven't played a single console Sonic game since Dreamcast, though I'd probably get Sonic Heroes for PS2 or Gamecube if I saw it at a thrift store for below $5.
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Animehermit



Joined: 05 Aug 2007
Posts: 964
Location: The Argama
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2014 10:17 am Reply with quote
Fedora-san wrote:
It wouldn't be the first time. As far as DA2 is concerned, even if you kill Lelianna in the first game she comes back in DA2, and sounds like she's in 3 too. Someone asked Bioware about this and they replied with some quippy "Did you check her pulse after you killed her?" response. After the guy pointed out he decapitated her, the thread was locked and discussion was banned. Kind of why I don't care for games that tote "choice" as a feature. It's almost the illusion of choice they promise, not actual choice. ME3's ending showed us this. I kinda miss old Bioware. They're the only western company who does RPGs anymore, but it's like ever since ME/DA they went downhill. Or maybe it's more accurate to say ever since EA acquired them.


That's really the only thing I can think of that's been retconned though. Even then, if you didn't kill Lelianna in the first game you won't notice it. There's been no other retcons from my end anyway. DAI feels like, in many ways, Bioware's return to form.

It's actually a really great game, one of Bioware's best in fact.
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Stuart Smith



Joined: 13 Jan 2013
Posts: 1298
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2014 7:46 pm Reply with quote
Animehermit wrote:
Playing on PC and this game looks and plays great, even on low settings, texture quality is actually better than a lot of modern releases *cough* Unity *cough*.


I'm not so sure. Everything I've seen about the game around the internet looks unappealing, especially the character models. For a dating simulator game, one would think that designing good characters would be a high priority in development. It just strikes me as odd that lesser funded studios do a far better job than someone with millions behind their name. Perhaps EA focused more on the unnecessary multiplayer mode like they seem to be pushing in all their games these days?

-Stuart Smith
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Animehermit



Joined: 05 Aug 2007
Posts: 964
Location: The Argama
PostPosted: Mon Nov 24, 2014 8:16 pm Reply with quote
Stuart Smith wrote:


I'm not so sure. Everything I've seen about the game around the internet looks unappealing, especially the character models. For a dating simulator game, one would think that designing good characters would be a high priority in development. It just strikes me as odd that lesser funded studios do a far better job than someone with millions behind their name. Perhaps EA focused more on the unnecessary multiplayer mode like they seem to be pushing in all their games these days?



The problem stems from, unlike most indie games or dating sims, there's actually a lot more going on here than just the character models. Things like voice acting, combat and even stuff like environments are massive undertaking.

So While yes that looks a little wonky, it's not the norm. Also, good characters aren't just how they look.

This game looks really good, one of the years best, to say otherwise kind of mind-boggling.
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14746
PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 12:12 am Reply with quote
From friends who are already deep playing it and reception from RPG sites, the overall consensus seems to be positive that's back to form. Best way to evaluate is just to play it as it's more than the sum of its parts.
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lostrune



Joined: 09 Jun 2012
Posts: 313
PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 1:11 am Reply with quote
enurtsol wrote:
From friends who are already deep playing it and reception from RPG sites, the overall consensus seems to be positive that's back to form. Best way to evaluate is just to play it as it's more than the sum of its parts.


It's got a 5.4 meta critic rating user score as of this post. Could be another case of Dragon Age 2 where it got generally good reviews but lots of negative feedback from actual gamers. Reviews are most likely slanted due to publisher tactics like we saw with Shadows of Mordor. Should always be wary of taking sites words at face value Wink
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Shenl742



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
Posts: 1524
PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 1:37 am Reply with quote
^Well then it's a good thing that Enurtsol* is also getting feedback from people he knows and trusts, and hell, maybe even REVIEW SITES he trusts because honestly not all website reviews are an automatic den of lies and corruption.

*and I have to ask, is the fact that your username is an exact reverse of Enurtsol's a huge coincidence or is something going on here?
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14746
PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 6:30 am Reply with quote
lostrune wrote:
enurtsol wrote:

From friends who are already deep playing it and reception from RPG sites, the overall consensus seems to be positive that's back to form. Best way to evaluate is just to play it as it's more than the sum of its parts.

It's got a 5.4 meta critic rating user score as of this post. Could be another case of Dragon Age 2 where it got generally good reviews but lots of negative feedback from actual gamers. Reviews are most likely slanted due to publisher tactics like we saw with Shadows of Mordor. Should always be wary of taking sites words at face value Wink


We usually get our info from RPG forums and sites like RPG.net and RPGamer.
(Besides, we don't sometimes eye-level with Metacritic, such as recently Akiba's Trip. But of course, trust friends more; I'm just a few hours in.)
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Animehermit



Joined: 05 Aug 2007
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 25, 2014 7:14 am Reply with quote
DAI was the subject of a review brigade over on Metacritic. Most of those negative scores are zero and on the day of release.

I have roughly 40 hours logged in as of right now and I can say for sure that I don't think this is a bad game in any sense of the word.
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Guile



Joined: 18 Jun 2013
Posts: 595
PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 9:53 pm Reply with quote
Stuart Smith wrote:
Everything I've seen about the game around the internet looks unappealing, especially the character models.


I think that's intentional. I believe I read somewhere Bioware made the females ugly on purpose, but I forget the reason why. I don't think western developers desire to make attractive females in games. I think they're afraid of being called sexist, or it might just be engine limitations. Frostbite engine isn't that well received for character models and animations and most triple A games emphasize realism over aesthetically pleasing, and it can lead to uncanny valley or just flat out ugly models on a lot of characters. It becomes a big problem when a lot of games use the same generalized engine like Frostbite or Unreal. I wish more games used their own engine or tried something different at least. Too many games look the same these days.
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