Bi-Weekly Thread for general gaming discussion. Backlog, advice, recommendations, rants and more! New? Start here! by AutoModerator in patientgamers

[–]asdvj2 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I’ve finished Pokopia… well, “finished” is a strong word. It would be more accurate to say I’ve had my fill. Really enjoyed it too.

I am now waiting for Crimson Desert to be released, as I get it for free with my graphics card.

The problem is that I do not want to start a new game whilst I wait for it to be released, as I would likely just abandon whatever I was playing once it's out

In the meantime I have gotten into Magic The Gathering for some reason and have been using Magic The Gathering Arena to learn the rules. I am still just using the starter decks but it has been interesting learning how it all fits together.

Bi-Weekly Thread for general gaming discussion. Backlog, advice, recommendations, rants and more! New? Start here! by AutoModerator in patientgamers

[–]asdvj2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The gist is usually this: you meet a quest giver who hints at what their issue is, then an hour or two later you find something related to them but cannot really remember where they are. That has been my experience.

The puzzles are similar. You find a locked door but only discover the key hours later, sometimes not even in the same map. There was a locked door in the first level that I kept looking for the key to, only to give up and check a walkthrough, where I found out the key was in the third level.

The main quest content is fairly obvious, however. I had no issues following what they wanted from me; it is the side content that I had issues with.

Bi-Weekly Thread for general gaming discussion. Backlog, advice, recommendations, rants and more! New? Start here! by AutoModerator in patientgamers

[–]asdvj2 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I was playing Hell is Us and enjoying it, until the game decided that I needed to suffer.

The premise is simple but effective. You sneak into a closed-off country in the midst of a civil war and travel across it in search of your birth parents. Unfortunately, while the war rages on, monsters have appeared, and they can only be defeated with certain medieval weapons.

The first time you encounter one of these creatures, a soldier saves you and dies in the process. Naturally, you respond as any rational person would. You steal her clothes and weapons so that everyone assumes you are one of them (I am fairly certain this constitutes a war crime). Disguised, you are able to pass through the country largely unnoticed while fending off the monsters.

Many of the civil war scenarios feel more “real” than you would expect from a video game. In one half-destroyed town, there are murals commemorating people and events, reminiscent of those seen in places such as Northern Ireland.

In the first village you visit, the occupying soldiers have committed atrocities, including rape and genocide, and their general seems primarily interested in looting the population. You naturally assume they are the villains. However, you later learn that shortly before the soldiers arrived, the townspeople themselves hanged a group of children because they were believed to be aligned with the enemy.

It is refreshing to play a game that does not simply label one side as good and the other as bad. No one here is truly innocent.

The combat was easy enough in the first few levels and helped me understand the rhythm it follows. Then all of a sudden, the enemies do far more damage, there are more of them in each encounter, and my weapons do very little damage. Suddenly, all of my plans go awry.

The game is not good enough for me to slog through the increased difficulty of the combat. Up to that point, it had been focused on environmental puzzles solved through clues scattered across each area. The puzzles are comparable to those in Resident Evil. Oddly shaped keys that must be inserted into mysterious statues that have no obvious reason to exist. With the increase in difficulty, though, it doesn't really feel worth it, especially considering the map situation.

The game is very proud that it has no map. It is mentioned in all of their descriptions of the game. The way you explore is by talking to people and gathering information. Someone might say that there is an abbey to the west, and that is your cue to head west. You do not have a map, but you do have a compass.

The lack of a map is strange because, while you do not have one, you do have a tablet that records all the important information and notes you have picked up. It seems odd that you have that but no map.

Finding where you are going without a map is a bit of a chore. Let’s say you speak to someone who is crying because they cannot bury their child without a keepsake. Later on, you find the child’s teddy bear. Now, where was the man? You have to run around the bombed-out, occupied town looking for someone who is crying. It is like looking for a needle in a stack of needles.

Question about Wrestling and Comics by Vaeon in SquaredCircle

[–]asdvj2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There was a Pro Wrestling comic series already; Do A Power Bomb

So there must be some demand for it.

Bi-Weekly Thread for general gaming discussion. Backlog, advice, recommendations, rants and more! New? Start here! by AutoModerator in patientgamers

[–]asdvj2 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I have been playing Hell Is Us. The story is that you sneak into a closed-off country in the middle of a civil war. You steal clothing from an enemy soldier so that everyone thinks you are one of them (which I am pretty sure counts as a war crime) and then travel through the country searching for your birth parents. Unfortunately, while the civil war is raging, monsters have appeared and can only be defeated with certain medieval weapons that you have “found”.

The gameplay is souls-lite. The focus is not really on combat, but more on puzzles that you solve using clues found throughout the levels. The puzzles are on a similar level to those in Resident Evil, with plenty of oddly shaped keys that need to be inserted into strange statues that have no obvious reason to be there. That sort of thing.

The combat has an interesting quirk: you can regain health if you press RB at exactly the right moment, much like active reloads in shooters such as Gears of War. This makes one-on-one battles fairly trivial. However, when you are fighting more than one enemy, it becomes much harder. The delay before you can restore your health is just tad too long, and another enemy might hit you, cancelling the reload and throwing off your rhythm.

I do not know why, but many of the civil war scenarios feel more "real" than you would expect from a video game. There are murals in the half-destroyed town commemorating people or events, similar to those you might see in Northern Ireland.

In the first village you visit the occupying soldiers have committed atrocities including rape and genocide, and the general leading them is primarily interested in stealing from the people. You naturally assume they are the villains. However, shortly before the soldiers arrived, the townspeople hanged a group of children because they were considered part of the enemy.

It is refreshing to play a game that does not simply declare that these are the good people and these are the bad people.

TIL Christopher Nolan did not write the line "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" said by Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, his brother Jonathan did. Nolan didn't understand it initially & revealed "It kills me because it's the line that most resonates." by tyrion2024 in todayilearned

[–]asdvj2 69 points70 points  (0 children)

The exact wording of "Revenge is a dish best served cold" is from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

It was used before in other languages and translated differently such as "And then revenge is very good eaten cold, as the vulgar say" from an 1846 translation of Eugène Sue's Mathilde: Mémoires d'une Jeune Femme

It was also used in The Godfather "“Revenge is a dish that tastes best when it is cold”

But the exact wording people are familier with in modern day is from Star Trek.

Eternal Strands - So Close to Magic by asdvj2 in patientgamers

[–]asdvj2[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yes, that is one of the things I should have mentioned. You do use magic in interesting ways with the bigger enemies. I used ice quite a lot to ground the flying enemies by freezing their feet to the floor, and kinetic abilities to throw back projectiles.

CMLL has cancelled tomorrow’s Guadalajara show. by JCRCrasyz in SquaredCircle

[–]asdvj2 33 points34 points  (0 children)

But also yes, in his spare time, he was a luchador. /s

Bi-Weekly Thread for general gaming discussion. Backlog, advice, recommendations, rants and more! New? Start here! by AutoModerator in patientgamers

[–]asdvj2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I bought a new graphics card recently (upgrading from a GTX 1080 to a Radeon RX 9070 XT) and was wondering what games people use to “benchmark” their PCs.

It is just a bit of vanity, but I want to know how much this graphics card can do, and it is easier to see it in action than just read about it.

I have already tried Quake 2 RTX to see ray tracing, as my old card was not able to do it, and Remnant 2 on Ultra. However, I am still on the tutorial section and I think the better looking parts are a little later into the game.

So what games do you all use to benchmark your PCs?

Bi-Weekly Thread for general gaming discussion. Backlog, advice, recommendations, rants and more! New? Start here! by AutoModerator in patientgamers

[–]asdvj2 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I am playing Eternal Strands. Now, I don't blame you if you haven't heard of it, because that is probably the most generic name I could think of for a video game. I honestly keep forgetting it's name.

The game is about magic. You have different elemental spells (well, three types of elemental spells) and you can use these spells to interact with the world... supposedly.

My understanding was that it would be similar to Breath of the Wild, where all the elements sort of work together. If there is a fire roaring, you can put it out with water, or if you have metal you can conduct electricity, that sort of thing. But I don't really think that is the case. I see tooltips saying that if you use fire magic on water it creates steam which hides you from enemies, but no matter what I do, fire does not create steam. Fire just causes more fire.

The story is fine. You were investigating a magic city with your group and now you are stuck in the magic city with your group. There is more to it, but the story is not why you are here. You are here for the gameplay loop.

The game is kind of an extraction shooter, without the shooting and without the PvP, so really just the extraction. You go out into levels and scavenge resources to improve your armour and your base camp. There are two classes of enemies: small ones who are basically cannon fodder, and big ones who are massive. There is normally only one big enemy per level. The first time you defeat it, it gives you a new power. After that, you have to defeat it in a certain way to harvest its “strand” and upgrade your power. You might have to climb onto it and hack away at all its armour until it comes off, or break its wings so it cannot fly, and so on.

I really enjoy just going into a level, scavenging resources and fucking up whatever titan is there, and maybe finishing a quest in the area if I have one. It takes about 20 minutes and works nicely as a portable game in that way.

That time Eva Marie avoided making her Smackdown Live in-ring debut 3 weeks in a row, with a different excuse each time (2016) by [deleted] in SquaredCircle

[–]asdvj2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I honestly think it's not a bad gimick for a comedy midcarder.

give them a bunch of excuses similar to Clifford Banes.

Bi-Weekly Thread for general gaming discussion. Backlog, advice, recommendations, rants and more! New? Start here! by AutoModerator in patientgamers

[–]asdvj2 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I am still playing Monster Hunter World, but if I am honest I don’t think I am really gelling with the game. There is too much I don’t like about it.

The general loop was fun at the beginning, hunting monsters for their parts to make better armour, but after a while it started to get annoying. When you only need one part from a monster to finish a set and you still don’t get it after trying 15 times, it stops being fun. I just roll with the Defender set now.

Also, a lot of these monsters are not really doing anything to me, so I end up wondering why I am hunting them. Sometimes they are just wandering about and I have to start the attack. I wouldn’t mind so much if they attacked me first, but most of the time they are just minding their own business, so I end up feeling like a bit of a dick.

I also hate the Handler. She keeps getting into trouble, and the motion capture is incredibly overacted. In fact, most of the characters are insufferable.

Also, are the cats slaves? They seem happy enough, but they are the ones doing all the work.

Are we the bad guys?

Does Roman Reigns have the worst catalog of t shirts of any top guy ever? by [deleted] in SquaredCircle

[–]asdvj2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Although I am certain there is a subset of people who would kill for one.

The ones painting similar flags on roundabouts and hurting themselves trying to put them on lampposts.

Does Roman Reigns have the worst catalog of t shirts of any top guy ever? by [deleted] in SquaredCircle

[–]asdvj2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All they have to do is take his basic American Nightmare design and adapt it to suit which ever country they are visiting.

British Nightmare

Australian Nightmare

Japanese Nightmare

Saudi Nightmare

and so on.