Video Game Thread 2.0

[chad sexington]

Saves aren't corrupted - I can start a new game and can't even save that half the time.  I've even gone and deleted all my old savegames, and that didn't help 

[Søren]

No mans sky is just as boring as I expected it to be.

Its 80 bucks for aesthetics and exploration

[Cloud3514]

The more I see about No Man's Sky, the less interested I am in it. I hate Minecraft. Why would I want to play Minecraft IN SPACE?

[Askold]

You know, Minecraft is actually a pretty good comparison, but these "you have been stranded in a strange environment and must build a base for yourself" games are starting to look like a genre now. I tried to buy that one game from GOG where you are trapped on a floating island with anthropomorphic animals and build mechasuits out of rocks and wood and whatnot, then there's Subnautica in which you are a survivor from a spaceship that crashes into an ocean and build underwater bases and submarines.

I think I could like the genre if there was less micromanagement or the scale was kept low. It's like, Sims is ok if you only try to handle one character, if you had Sims level details in a Simcity then managing the city would be impossible. These basebuilding games start with just the player character and maybe a hut or something but as you keep building bigger and bigger base the scale of the game does not change, that's the problem. (They should try something like the Spore had when the game changes from controlling a single organism into controlling planets and scaling up all the while.)

[RavynousHunter]

When you fail to compete with vanilla Minecraft, you have more or less failed as a developer.

[Eiki-mun]

*puts admiral hat on*

Summer 2016, here I come.

[RavynousHunter]

Literally a month to the day after my upcoming birthday, Xenoverse 2 will come out.  MY BODY IS READY.

[Sigmaleph]

When you fail to compete with vanilla Minecraft, you have more or less failed as a developer.

...I'm not sure what this means. Most games fail to compete with minecraft.

[RavynousHunter]

Er, rather, compete mechanically, not in terms of sales or anything.  Vanilla Minecraft is a very simple game with some neat content, but in the grand scheme of things, there's little to actually do after a certain point except just mine and build more.  When your game doesn't even have that level of appeal, you've done something wrong.  Though, who knows, maybe No Man's Sky will get a nice modding culture like Minecraft did that will add a massive amount of interesting content, especially if its got the tools for it already pre-packaged.

[Askold]

They lied about multiplayer. Because there is none. Two people playing the same game cannot interact with each other, even if they stand in same place they cannot see each other as the game has no multiplayer function despite the developers claiming that it does.
...kinda stupid thing to lie about.

[Eiki-mun]

*puts admiral hat on*

Summer 2016, here I come.

Fucking hell, the new Brit looks stereotypical as all hell

And the new Italian sucks so bad for no reason as far as I can tell. God damn it, Devs, the Regia Marina wasn't this incapable.

[Art Vandelay]

Doing a second playthrough of Dishonored, this time a high chaos (or in simpler terms, kill anything that moves) run. I have to say, it's so much more fun when you can actually play with all of your toys. When you go non-lethal stealth, all of those grenades, spring traps, incendiary crossbow bolts and plain old bullets just sit there collecting dust. Don't get me wrong, there's something to be said for sneaking around, quietly knocking out guards with tranqs or a quick chokehold, but it's nice to be able to just kill them in a variety of rather creative ways.

Come to think of it, that seems to be a running theme with stealth games. They'll give you many different ways of killing your foes (many of which are an absolute barrel of fun to use), then tell you can't ever use them if you want the best ending or score.

[Askold]

That's a good point. I for one like playing the nice guy and going non-lethal if it is available (and viable) but usually there's something like 1/6 non-lethal options for every lethal option.

And in the case of games like Fallout: New Vegas the non-lethal methods simply aren't as good. Also, there are plenty of enemies that "deserve" death. It's one thing to sympathize with some activists in Deus Ex or to avoid killing civilians who might pull the alarm but when your enemies are goons who would kill their grandmother for a penny it seems unfair that their deaths are seen as bad as the dead of the receptionist who didn't harm a soul but got in your way.

[Art Vandelay]

The noxious fan base has died off enough that I can now give the Mass Effect games a go without feeling dirty. I have to say, it's been a bit of a weak start. It used the old "idyllic farming village gets fucked in every hole by raiders" cliche to kick things off (though now it's an idyllic farming space colony, so I guess that makes it different) and there's a minor spoiler on the level up screen.

Still, early days yet, so hopefully it'll get a little more interesting as time goes on.

[Askold]

It does get more interesting. I always did like the story and the setting in Mass Effect games. The later ones will also reduce much of the micromanaging that the first game has: You will no longer have to arm and equip every single team member, the team members will only carry the weapons that they have the training for (no idea why they thought that a character who only knows how to use a pistol would need to lug an assault rifle and sniper rifle as well) and instead of buying every single weapon for the team you will get weapon upgrades (find or buy them) and the entire team will benefit from the upgrades. ...Because it's not like it's Shepard's job to attach new gadgets to their pistols and shit.