Things have definitely changed in the big patch so my post isn't that relevant anymore. I don't remember the concept of heavies existing when I played in the first week. If any characters were better at combat than any of the others I didn't know it. There definitely weren't any deathclaws either. All you would usually see is raiders or radroaches.
Where are my Satellite Guy's gamers at?
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Things have definitely changed in the big patch so my post isn't that relevant anymore. I don't remember the concept of heavies existing when I played in the first week. If any characters were better at combat than any of the others I didn't know it. There definitely weren't any deathclaws either. All you would usually see is raiders or radroaches.
"Heavies" is just the word I use for my dwellers with beefy skill stats (high strength and endurance and good armor) and who I have carry my best weapons. I think I may have unlocked a really good rare or legendary character that had high stats in one of my free Lunchboxes. I've advanced enough in the game to now put dwellers in the weight room and gym to increase strength (weapon damage) and endurance (health retention) skills. Of course armor found in the Wasteland by explorers also can increase certain skill stats.
I'm hoping Deathclaws come much later. My first dwellers are now mid to high level 20s and I haven't seem them yet. Mole rats were a new development yesterday as some dwellers reached the 20s. I was surprised how deadly they were since they are more of a trifling nuisance in Fallout 3.
Funny article and video on the new Deathclaw component to Fallout Shelter. Seeing the costumes this player had just makes me want to delve deeper, especially since the Deathclaws do appear beatable with better preparation. Thankfully they come in through the front door like Raiders, which is where I position my best fighters:
http://kotaku.com/deathclaws-just-wrecked-my-fallout-shelter-1723942490
http://kotaku.com/deathclaws-just-wrecked-my-fallout-shelter-1723942490
Just finished Episode 4 of Tales from the Borderlands...
It rather annoys me that I have to WAIT until the conclusion comes. Seriously, this is Telltale's best work since The Walking Dead Season 1. Pending a disastrous ending I see this being a shoe-in for GOTY for 2015.
In other games, I picked up ZombiU for $5 so I'll be trying that out, and later in the week I'll be getting Gears of War Remastered, where king3pj and I will be doing the entire campaign co-op. Of course shortly afterwards MGS V arrives, followed closely by Super Mario Maker. Oh it is fun to be in the holiday rush period of gaming.
It rather annoys me that I have to WAIT until the conclusion comes. Seriously, this is Telltale's best work since The Walking Dead Season 1. Pending a disastrous ending I see this being a shoe-in for GOTY for 2015.
In other games, I picked up ZombiU for $5 so I'll be trying that out, and later in the week I'll be getting Gears of War Remastered, where king3pj and I will be doing the entire campaign co-op. Of course shortly afterwards MGS V arrives, followed closely by Super Mario Maker. Oh it is fun to be in the holiday rush period of gaming.
So I just finished the prologue mission of Metal Gear Solid V, and honestly I was so mentally exhausted that as soon as I could save in the first "real" chapter I did and then shut down the game.
That's not to say that the game is bad so far, but as someone who played every MGS game, the intro mission to this seems extremely off and overproduced. I don't really wish to spoil exactly what happens, even though I'm not sure it can be considered a spoiler considering it's within the first hour of gameplay, but without context here's what I experienced/saw in the prologue, which takes place in a hospital and then on the road. There's no real plot spoilers here but just to be safe I'll put it in one:
Traditionally MGS games did a little dabbling with sci-fi/fantasy characters by creating some that you could believe could be made through some sort of genetic tweaking or other modification. But here, the types of characters you deal with not only seem overly fantastical, but they show up less than a half hour into the game. Normally you wouldn't see a character like that until a few missions/hours in. It just seemed like too much too quickly. Coincidentally my cousin got his copy today on his One and amazingly about 5 minutes after I stopped playing, he sent me a message on XBL that said, "I'm finding the beginning of this game so frustratingly slow and overdone." That pretty much summed up my thoughts as well.
Still, it doesn't mean I've been completely turned off. I have to imagine everything gets better considering all the 9s and 10s this game has received. Still, it is a little offputting that this is the worst first impression I've ever had of a MGS game, and that includes MGS 4.
That's not to say that the game is bad so far, but as someone who played every MGS game, the intro mission to this seems extremely off and overproduced. I don't really wish to spoil exactly what happens, even though I'm not sure it can be considered a spoiler considering it's within the first hour of gameplay, but without context here's what I experienced/saw in the prologue, which takes place in a hospital and then on the road. There's no real plot spoilers here but just to be safe I'll put it in one:
A character creation system where the character I created is never actually used
A fellow patient that helps you escape the hospital. This person's face is completely covered in bandages, but they have the exact same voice as you and seems to have all your same skills (you are unable to move completely because you've been in a coma for 9 years, so you basically re-enact the hospital escape scene from Kill Bill Volume 1)
A group of soldiers that wipes out everyone in the hospital
2 fire based "people" that have the ability to fly, throw fire, absorb bullets and fire them back through their skin.
A guy on fire riding a flaming unicorn that is chasing you on a horse where you need to fire shotgun blasts at them to keep them from getting too close and burning you
A fellow patient that helps you escape the hospital. This person's face is completely covered in bandages, but they have the exact same voice as you and seems to have all your same skills (you are unable to move completely because you've been in a coma for 9 years, so you basically re-enact the hospital escape scene from Kill Bill Volume 1)
A group of soldiers that wipes out everyone in the hospital
2 fire based "people" that have the ability to fly, throw fire, absorb bullets and fire them back through their skin.
A guy on fire riding a flaming unicorn that is chasing you on a horse where you need to fire shotgun blasts at them to keep them from getting too close and burning you
Still, it doesn't mean I've been completely turned off. I have to imagine everything gets better considering all the 9s and 10s this game has received. Still, it is a little offputting that this is the worst first impression I've ever had of a MGS game, and that includes MGS 4.
So king3pj recently finished off Gears of War: Ultimate Edition in co-op.
There was a time that I'd probably consider the original GoW one of my favorite games of all time. Although I do hold GoW 2 as the best of the series in terms of pacing, environments, and the nearly flawless Horde mode, GoW was the only one in the series that I played so many times that I actually beat it on insane mode. This time I wasn't such a masochist for punishment and instead jumped into Hardcore mode with King.
As far as the positives go, it's Gears of War, the original classic, but completely rebuilt. Literally, this game used NONE of the original assets and instead rebuilt everything. The actual levels themselves are the same but buildings, textures, etc are all brand new. And the standard cover based shooting is still a lot of fun when it clicks. It's very easy to see how this game was so lauded and fun when it came out.
Unfortunately, this is where the positives end. First off, to go back to the rebuilt graphics, they're not exactly obvious. I didn't know this was not a simple texture bump until I read it on Digital Foundry. This may have been caused by 2 things: First off, the incredibly annoying fact that this isn't a 60 FPS game, and because there was a rather disturbing amount of slowdown. Apparently the original had a lot of slowdown as well, but that could be more understandable given the lesser hardware, and the fact that it was the very first console game to use the Unreal 3 Engine. Gears: UE uses Unreal 3 as well, and UE 4 came out in May 2012. I have to imagine the engine is more optimized and people know how to use it, so why the hell are we getting slowdowns? UE 4 was not utilized because allegedly it would have required rescripting of AI and various procedures. Fair enough I suppose, but then why the hell is this game's AI so goddamn buggy? It's the same scripting as the original so why are there these issues still? There were numerous visual glitches and AI hitches. Oftentimes I would see something really weird and point it out to King, but King wouldn't know what I was talking about because for whatever reason it wasn't showing up on his screen. This was a brought to an interesting head at the very end when we were fighting RAAM. The battle ended up only taking about 10 minutes worth of trying because on our final/successful run, apparently RAAM got his big robe caught on a nail protruding from the box on the train, so he just stood there staring at us menacingly as we took turns shooting with the Torque Bow and Sniper Rifle. It seems as though the game was on to us and what we had done, so as some sort of retaliation it decided to not give us all the achievements we had earned for completing Co-op on Hardcore, which would have yielded us 180 gamerpoints. I'm not exactly a stickler for such things, but it still is a slap in the face and especially confusing since they still gave us the achievement for beating RAAM.
Finally, one of the "selling points" of the game is the inclusion of the 5 chapters exclusive to the Windows version of the original game. While I welcomed the idea of new content to the game, the actual execution left much to be desired. The additional levels aren't particularly interesting or well designed, and led to a major bottleneck at one point for The King and I when we died about 100 times trying to get past a stupid theater section. It culminates on a stupid defeat of a Brumack that somehow brings power to a bridge. I was so happy when we finally got past it and finally got to the damn train.
I wouldn't say that I didn't enjoy playing GoW again, this time for the first time co-op the whole way through (I did a little of it on the original but mainly did it to beat RAAM on insane) but as I watched RAAM get that bullet in the head, I didn't have nearly the same amount of joy that I did the last time I did it. Instead I just thought, "Thank God we pulled this off so I don't leave this hanging over my head" (King had to go away for a few days so it would have been a while before we jumped back into the game.) Beating the game felt more like an obligation as opposed to something I'm doing for enjoyment. I'm sure though that part of it also had to do with the fact that this was the first of 3 games so I knew how futile our efforts were, but really the whole experience came across as just "Meh." I certainly am happier about the fact that I chose to make this a GF rental as opposed to a full purchase, and I am curious to see whether or not I end up getting all 4 originals on the 360 as they've said we will get. Even if we do though, my original plans to go through the entire game with King via Co-op may need some more consideration. I guess if you loved the original you should at least give this a look especially if you liked GoW multiplayer (I did not) but if you're all about the campaign, I guess YMMV but sometimes, it's true when they say that you can't go home again.
Jeff Gerstmann from Giant Bomb's review is pretty in sync with how I feel about the whole thing
Still working on Phantom Pain, and I have Super Mario Maker coming on 9/11.
There was a time that I'd probably consider the original GoW one of my favorite games of all time. Although I do hold GoW 2 as the best of the series in terms of pacing, environments, and the nearly flawless Horde mode, GoW was the only one in the series that I played so many times that I actually beat it on insane mode. This time I wasn't such a masochist for punishment and instead jumped into Hardcore mode with King.
As far as the positives go, it's Gears of War, the original classic, but completely rebuilt. Literally, this game used NONE of the original assets and instead rebuilt everything. The actual levels themselves are the same but buildings, textures, etc are all brand new. And the standard cover based shooting is still a lot of fun when it clicks. It's very easy to see how this game was so lauded and fun when it came out.
Unfortunately, this is where the positives end. First off, to go back to the rebuilt graphics, they're not exactly obvious. I didn't know this was not a simple texture bump until I read it on Digital Foundry. This may have been caused by 2 things: First off, the incredibly annoying fact that this isn't a 60 FPS game, and because there was a rather disturbing amount of slowdown. Apparently the original had a lot of slowdown as well, but that could be more understandable given the lesser hardware, and the fact that it was the very first console game to use the Unreal 3 Engine. Gears: UE uses Unreal 3 as well, and UE 4 came out in May 2012. I have to imagine the engine is more optimized and people know how to use it, so why the hell are we getting slowdowns? UE 4 was not utilized because allegedly it would have required rescripting of AI and various procedures. Fair enough I suppose, but then why the hell is this game's AI so goddamn buggy? It's the same scripting as the original so why are there these issues still? There were numerous visual glitches and AI hitches. Oftentimes I would see something really weird and point it out to King, but King wouldn't know what I was talking about because for whatever reason it wasn't showing up on his screen. This was a brought to an interesting head at the very end when we were fighting RAAM. The battle ended up only taking about 10 minutes worth of trying because on our final/successful run, apparently RAAM got his big robe caught on a nail protruding from the box on the train, so he just stood there staring at us menacingly as we took turns shooting with the Torque Bow and Sniper Rifle. It seems as though the game was on to us and what we had done, so as some sort of retaliation it decided to not give us all the achievements we had earned for completing Co-op on Hardcore, which would have yielded us 180 gamerpoints. I'm not exactly a stickler for such things, but it still is a slap in the face and especially confusing since they still gave us the achievement for beating RAAM.
Finally, one of the "selling points" of the game is the inclusion of the 5 chapters exclusive to the Windows version of the original game. While I welcomed the idea of new content to the game, the actual execution left much to be desired. The additional levels aren't particularly interesting or well designed, and led to a major bottleneck at one point for The King and I when we died about 100 times trying to get past a stupid theater section. It culminates on a stupid defeat of a Brumack that somehow brings power to a bridge. I was so happy when we finally got past it and finally got to the damn train.
I wouldn't say that I didn't enjoy playing GoW again, this time for the first time co-op the whole way through (I did a little of it on the original but mainly did it to beat RAAM on insane) but as I watched RAAM get that bullet in the head, I didn't have nearly the same amount of joy that I did the last time I did it. Instead I just thought, "Thank God we pulled this off so I don't leave this hanging over my head" (King had to go away for a few days so it would have been a while before we jumped back into the game.) Beating the game felt more like an obligation as opposed to something I'm doing for enjoyment. I'm sure though that part of it also had to do with the fact that this was the first of 3 games so I knew how futile our efforts were, but really the whole experience came across as just "Meh." I certainly am happier about the fact that I chose to make this a GF rental as opposed to a full purchase, and I am curious to see whether or not I end up getting all 4 originals on the 360 as they've said we will get. Even if we do though, my original plans to go through the entire game with King via Co-op may need some more consideration. I guess if you loved the original you should at least give this a look especially if you liked GoW multiplayer (I did not) but if you're all about the campaign, I guess YMMV but sometimes, it's true when they say that you can't go home again.
Jeff Gerstmann from Giant Bomb's review is pretty in sync with how I feel about the whole thing
Still working on Phantom Pain, and I have Super Mario Maker coming on 9/11.
yourbeliefs summed up my thoughts on Gears Ultimate pretty well. I did have fun going back to one of my favorite 360 games but there were quite a few bugs and inconsistencies too.
One example that immediately came to mind is the kryll section where you are immediately eaten by piranha bats if you step into the dark. Part of the way through this you have to shoot propane tanks to provide light in sections you couldn't otherwise get through. For whatever reason we died after I had already shot one of these propane tanks bringing us back to our last checkpoint. After we got past all the enemies and back to this propane tank I remember telling yourbeliefs "oh that's weird, this propane tank is still lit from last time we died." I jumped out the window and was immediately eaten by the kryll even though it showed that I was in the light on my screen. Yourbeliefs told me that on his he was just seeing a normal propane tank that wasn't lit yet.
This is just one example of us seeing different things displayed on our TVs even though we were playing together in co-op. It happened a few other times throughout the game.
There were other fun bugs too. At one point snapping to cover wasn't working for yourbeliefs but everything seemed normal to me. He paused the game and when he unpaused the issue was resolved for him but suddenly I couldn't get into cover and I immediately died.
The theater section they brought over from the PC version was incredibly frustrating. Yourbeliefs already mentioned this but we spent about an hour dying over and over again at the same checkpoint here before finally giving up for the night. I've never been one to throw and break my $60 controllers out of anger from something in a video game but that night was probably the closest I've ever been. As I predicted right before we quit, we beat it on the very first try when we came back to it a couple days later.
One of the reasons we kept dying is that you kill a seeder in this room and when you do a mini cutscene of him dying displays. Whenever this happened my character would stand up out of cover on his own with 2 guys on turrets shooting at me and 3 wretches that spawn about 2 feet behind my character. Since we were playing on hardcore it only took about one hit from the wretches combined with the turret fire to kill me. Even if we took out the turrets before the seeder the wretches could down me in two hits and they spawned so close that it was difficult to deal with them sometimes.
This brings me to my next point. If the game didn't feel the need to constantly keep splitting us up when we were playing together in co-op the frustration factor from these sections of the game would have been gone. Normally your partner can revive you unless you are killed by something that completely destroys your body. You only have to go back to the previous checkpoint if you are both down at the same time. This did happen from time to time but it at least felt fair. In the frustrating theater section yourbeliefs was sniping from a balcony and I was on the floor below so he couldn't do much to help except for provide some cover fire.
At some points in the game it made sense for us to split up but in other cases it felt arbitrary. In an underground section it makes us choose which side of the glowing river each of us will be on. There is absolutely nothing that needs to be accomplished on either side of the river. It's just there to split us up so we can't revive each other. We can see each other and help out by shooting enemies on the other side but we can't revive until we make it to the end of the river.
It got to the point where I immediately knew it was going to be a pain in the ass every time the game asked us to split up. This obviously would have been easier if we played on normal difficulty instead of hardcore but then all of the parts where we are together would have been a cakewalk.
Finally, as yourbeliefs already said, the big boss fight at the end glitched out for us. I remember dying over and over again at this part when I played the original game back on 360. I think we only died twice here because RAAM got caught on the geometry and couldn't rush us. Then it was just a matter of killing the bullet sponge boss who couldn't fight back. It kind of took the excitement from beating the big bad boss out of the game.
I know it sounds like I'm being overly negative but I was always a Gears fan over Halo. It was THE reason to own a 360 for me. The weapons are still super satisfying to use and the gameplay is still fun for the most part. It was just a little disapointing to see how poorly one of my favorite games has aged in some areas. I had a really good time playing through it again 9 years later except for a few extremely frustrating sections. I think a large part of the reason I liked it is because I was playing through it in co-op for the first time. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it much on my own.
Edit: As yourbeliefs said, we didn't get the achievements for beating every mission in co-op, beating every mission on any difficulty, beating every mission on normal, and beating every mission on hardcore that should have popped when we finished the game even though we played every bit of it together.
I have every achievement that pops when you beat each individual chapter but none of the ones you get for beating all chapters. How does that make sense?
One example that immediately came to mind is the kryll section where you are immediately eaten by piranha bats if you step into the dark. Part of the way through this you have to shoot propane tanks to provide light in sections you couldn't otherwise get through. For whatever reason we died after I had already shot one of these propane tanks bringing us back to our last checkpoint. After we got past all the enemies and back to this propane tank I remember telling yourbeliefs "oh that's weird, this propane tank is still lit from last time we died." I jumped out the window and was immediately eaten by the kryll even though it showed that I was in the light on my screen. Yourbeliefs told me that on his he was just seeing a normal propane tank that wasn't lit yet.
This is just one example of us seeing different things displayed on our TVs even though we were playing together in co-op. It happened a few other times throughout the game.
There were other fun bugs too. At one point snapping to cover wasn't working for yourbeliefs but everything seemed normal to me. He paused the game and when he unpaused the issue was resolved for him but suddenly I couldn't get into cover and I immediately died.
The theater section they brought over from the PC version was incredibly frustrating. Yourbeliefs already mentioned this but we spent about an hour dying over and over again at the same checkpoint here before finally giving up for the night. I've never been one to throw and break my $60 controllers out of anger from something in a video game but that night was probably the closest I've ever been. As I predicted right before we quit, we beat it on the very first try when we came back to it a couple days later.
One of the reasons we kept dying is that you kill a seeder in this room and when you do a mini cutscene of him dying displays. Whenever this happened my character would stand up out of cover on his own with 2 guys on turrets shooting at me and 3 wretches that spawn about 2 feet behind my character. Since we were playing on hardcore it only took about one hit from the wretches combined with the turret fire to kill me. Even if we took out the turrets before the seeder the wretches could down me in two hits and they spawned so close that it was difficult to deal with them sometimes.
This brings me to my next point. If the game didn't feel the need to constantly keep splitting us up when we were playing together in co-op the frustration factor from these sections of the game would have been gone. Normally your partner can revive you unless you are killed by something that completely destroys your body. You only have to go back to the previous checkpoint if you are both down at the same time. This did happen from time to time but it at least felt fair. In the frustrating theater section yourbeliefs was sniping from a balcony and I was on the floor below so he couldn't do much to help except for provide some cover fire.
At some points in the game it made sense for us to split up but in other cases it felt arbitrary. In an underground section it makes us choose which side of the glowing river each of us will be on. There is absolutely nothing that needs to be accomplished on either side of the river. It's just there to split us up so we can't revive each other. We can see each other and help out by shooting enemies on the other side but we can't revive until we make it to the end of the river.
It got to the point where I immediately knew it was going to be a pain in the ass every time the game asked us to split up. This obviously would have been easier if we played on normal difficulty instead of hardcore but then all of the parts where we are together would have been a cakewalk.
Finally, as yourbeliefs already said, the big boss fight at the end glitched out for us. I remember dying over and over again at this part when I played the original game back on 360. I think we only died twice here because RAAM got caught on the geometry and couldn't rush us. Then it was just a matter of killing the bullet sponge boss who couldn't fight back. It kind of took the excitement from beating the big bad boss out of the game.
I know it sounds like I'm being overly negative but I was always a Gears fan over Halo. It was THE reason to own a 360 for me. The weapons are still super satisfying to use and the gameplay is still fun for the most part. It was just a little disapointing to see how poorly one of my favorite games has aged in some areas. I had a really good time playing through it again 9 years later except for a few extremely frustrating sections. I think a large part of the reason I liked it is because I was playing through it in co-op for the first time. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it much on my own.
Edit: As yourbeliefs said, we didn't get the achievements for beating every mission in co-op, beating every mission on any difficulty, beating every mission on normal, and beating every mission on hardcore that should have popped when we finished the game even though we played every bit of it together.
I have every achievement that pops when you beat each individual chapter but none of the ones you get for beating all chapters. How does that make sense?
I've read that apparently this is a Xbox bug itself, or at least that's what some things I'm finding have said. I may see if I can do it on my own by reloading my last save. HOPEFULLY they didn't wipe out the entire Episode's progress, because if the game thinks I'm playing the whole thing on my own they can keep waiting on me to do so while they sit en route back to Pittsburgh..
Let me know how it goes. I'm not looking forward to trying to take out Raam on hardcore by myself. Even if you get the rest of the achievements by killing him by yourself again it seems like the one for doing everything in co-op would still be stuck. I'm wondering if it is some weird bug where you have to sit through the credits before it pops because I know we both backed out before they were done.
Just to follow up in case anyone was wondering, king3pj and I went back and beat the game again because my save point was still at the boss fight. Again, RAAM seemed to glitch out a bit and we took him out rather quickly because we just kept sniping his face. And sadly again, no achievements. And what was more insulting was that we sat through the 20 minute credit sequence just to see if that was the cause and it wasn't. Boo.
It was well worth it. We got to hear that Cole rap song like 6 or 7 times.
"Whooo! Bring it on Sucka.... This my kind of sh*t."
6 or 7? I think it had to be at least 10 times between the 360 credits and then the One credits. Like I said back then, too bad it wasn't Mad World..
Random fact: There was a Wii game called Mad World, and John Dimaggio was the voice of an announcer in it. In that game though he was channeling more of his Bender persona.
Well I think I'm done with The Phantom Pain... but to quote the great George Costanza, "It's not you; it's me."
For whatever reason I couldn't really get into TPP. I had to literally force myself and psyche myself up to play the game. I kept finding myself playing other stuff instead of it. Hell I made much more progress in my 2nd runthrough of Rayman: Legends than my first play of TPP. What doesn't help is the newer play style. I'm not normally a big stealth fan. The only way it works for me is if A: There's an easy "Get out of f*ck up" mechanism, a'la the Arkham games, or B: Death is quick and you spawn close to where you died, a'la Mark of the Ninja. TPP doesn't really have either. In the case of "A" and you get spotted, you BETTER make sure you contain what happens, because guys will swarm on you like SJWs swarm on a celebrity who tweets an off-color joke. Even if you aren't spotted but you someone finds a body, then you have to wait an ETERNITY for things to die down before you can progress. And if the enemies are on high alert that can prevent you from completing various objectives. One time I found my target but I couldn't proceed because the enemies were on high alert, even though they didn't know where I was. So in order to proceed I had to hunt them and gun them down so that the high alert would go away by killing all the guards, something the game discourages. And unlike other MGS games, there's NO sort of timer to let you know when things will go back to normal. Yeah it's more "realistic," but doesn't make the game more fun. Regarding "B", in TPP death can be slow and monotonous. If you're spotted and guys swarm you're best bet is to just get gunned down, because fighting your way out often doesn't work, and if it does you're low on ammo and may bleed out. And the game is very stingy with checkpoints. It's not like the old days of MGS where you could save on demand in different rooms/scenes. So I was constantly hitting a scenario where I'd slowly sneak through the enemy lines, get right near the target only to be spotted by ONE GUY that I missed who alerts everyone else, and then get gunned down and then be thrown outside the base to start all over again, meaning I could be playing 20-30 minutes on one life and then have nothing to show for it in the end because I died right before the checkpoint. It was hard to get excited to play a game like this where it was likely I would play for an hour and make NO progress. This was made even worse by the fact that some nights I have just about 1 hour available to play games. However, I don't necessarily fault the game's design for this. I fault myself for not being big into stealth games, and for being particularly bad at them. I'll try and delve back into the game next year once things slow down and there's less new games out, but between my Rayman playthrough, Super Mario Maker, and potentially going through Halo 1 co-op with king3pj I just see no real time being put into TPP.
I'm also working on Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. I don't want to give impressions because I'm 80% through the game so I'd rather just wait and give the full review later.
For whatever reason I couldn't really get into TPP. I had to literally force myself and psyche myself up to play the game. I kept finding myself playing other stuff instead of it. Hell I made much more progress in my 2nd runthrough of Rayman: Legends than my first play of TPP. What doesn't help is the newer play style. I'm not normally a big stealth fan. The only way it works for me is if A: There's an easy "Get out of f*ck up" mechanism, a'la the Arkham games, or B: Death is quick and you spawn close to where you died, a'la Mark of the Ninja. TPP doesn't really have either. In the case of "A" and you get spotted, you BETTER make sure you contain what happens, because guys will swarm on you like SJWs swarm on a celebrity who tweets an off-color joke. Even if you aren't spotted but you someone finds a body, then you have to wait an ETERNITY for things to die down before you can progress. And if the enemies are on high alert that can prevent you from completing various objectives. One time I found my target but I couldn't proceed because the enemies were on high alert, even though they didn't know where I was. So in order to proceed I had to hunt them and gun them down so that the high alert would go away by killing all the guards, something the game discourages. And unlike other MGS games, there's NO sort of timer to let you know when things will go back to normal. Yeah it's more "realistic," but doesn't make the game more fun. Regarding "B", in TPP death can be slow and monotonous. If you're spotted and guys swarm you're best bet is to just get gunned down, because fighting your way out often doesn't work, and if it does you're low on ammo and may bleed out. And the game is very stingy with checkpoints. It's not like the old days of MGS where you could save on demand in different rooms/scenes. So I was constantly hitting a scenario where I'd slowly sneak through the enemy lines, get right near the target only to be spotted by ONE GUY that I missed who alerts everyone else, and then get gunned down and then be thrown outside the base to start all over again, meaning I could be playing 20-30 minutes on one life and then have nothing to show for it in the end because I died right before the checkpoint. It was hard to get excited to play a game like this where it was likely I would play for an hour and make NO progress. This was made even worse by the fact that some nights I have just about 1 hour available to play games. However, I don't necessarily fault the game's design for this. I fault myself for not being big into stealth games, and for being particularly bad at them. I'll try and delve back into the game next year once things slow down and there's less new games out, but between my Rayman playthrough, Super Mario Maker, and potentially going through Halo 1 co-op with king3pj I just see no real time being put into TPP.
I'm also working on Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. I don't want to give impressions because I'm 80% through the game so I'd rather just wait and give the full review later.
Wow! Almost everything I have heard about this game has been universal praise and since you liked the other games in the series I thought you would probably love this one. The hype has been strong enough to make me consider playing it even though I had almost no interest before launch.
I guess we all have those games we just can't get into even if we can see that they are clearly a quality product.
As for Call of Juarez, I mentioned previously that I thought it was a really cool game. I like the western feel and story telling style. I never actually finished the game though.
Halo 1 co-op can happen in between other games. I tend to start my gaming time a little earlier than you and keep it going a little later so I can still squeeze it in between the other games I'm trying to play. Currently that's mostly Destiny and Arkham Knight.
Well the main issue is that while it is undeniably a MGS game, it's very different from the others. While the other games were linear and typically in small, confined spaces, this is open world with many possibilities. It does feel like a true evolution of the series, but it's one that I'm having a hard time adjusting to. In the other MGS games it's pretty easy to get out of mess ups, and also the game helped you by giving you radar and showed you the line of sight of the enemies. None of that here in V. Again, not BAD changes, but if you're like me and not very good at pure stealth then you're going to have issues. I also had similar issues with Ground Zeroes. GZ is really a good barometer for how you will enjoy TPP. If you do well/enjoy the gameplay, you'll like TPP because it's just a LOT more of that with some more tweaks and perks thrown in. If you are like me and don't do very well with GZ, then your inadequacies will be amplified with TPP.
The other big way the game is different is the game is not very story focused, which is one of the main complaints I've heard from fans of the series. To be fair, MGS games have been criticized for their overlong and complicated cutscenes and story information, but this one is very sparse. And again to be fair I didn't play a lot of the game, but even at this point I barely know what's going on. The plot seems to be "Build up an army because our last one was destroyed and get those guys back that did it" Okay.. then what? I suppose this is revealed more later, but I miss the old games where you at least have some real point from the onset even if the plot changes drastically as time goes on. Apparently this is due to cuts that had to be made to the game by Konami, so it may not be Kojima's fault, but it's still an issue nonetheless.
As I said before, I don't fault the game for my issues with not getting into it like I did with Final Fantasy XIII, Brutal Legend, etc. I really do want to play through the entire game at some point, but at this point I'm just not feeling the game, and if the time never comes I may just go and watch all the story stuff on YouTube. Hopefully it won't come to that.
So I finished up Call of Juarez: Gunslinger this morning, and I have to say it's quite good.
Not to be confused with the train wreck that was Call of Juarez: The Cartel, Gunslinger is a small downloadable game (the standard $15 fare) that is a revenge story. You are a gunslinger that comes into a bar and tells the locals the story of your exploits and journey for revenge, the whole time dropping names like Billy the Kid, Starsky & Hutch, Jesse James, etc that come into the story as well. Of course, some of these claims are questioned by the listeners and there's a cool undertone the whole time that it's quite possible that your character is just full of sh*t and making this up as he goes on in an effort to keep the free alcohol flowing.
Gameplay wise it's running and gunning FPS in a Western setting, and it pulls this off surprisingly well, especially considering the game only gives you 5 weapons to use (not counting upgraded weapons.) The action is furious and the cover based shooting still keeps things tense. Interspersed are one-on-one gunfights where you need to control your aim with your mouse while keeping your hand near your gun with the keyboard. This is actually harder than it sounds but adds a nice change of pace to the usual boss battle where you're basically fighting a bullet sponge. The visual style is similar to Borderlands (although not as over the top) and the voice acting is very good as well.
Still, the game isn't perfect. As I said, you only have 5 weapons, but odds are you'll just get weapons based on your play style, so I had the ranger pistol and rifle for 95% of the game because I prefer to pick guys off from a distance rather than using close action shotguns. Also, if you're looking for a long adventure you won't find it here. It took me about 6-7 hours to beat, but I suppose that's not too bad because it's better than overstaying your welcome. Finally, there can be some real difficulty spikes, where you're just thrown into onslaughts of enemies and your headshot ability better be at the top of its game. Oh, I almost forgot, there's 2 separate endings to the game. I don't wish to give away what they are, but if I can give a recommendation, it would be to pick the ending on the left first (You'll see what I mean when you get to it) because you get some additional gameplay with it. I chose the one on the right. I was going to go and reload my last save, assuming it was saved on the finale, but instead it brought me back to the last gameplay mission, which is rather difficult, so instead I looked it up on YouTube and was disappointed that I missed out. So pick the ending on the left, then you can see the ending on the right on YT, because it just shows an ending with no more player participation.
At the end of the day these are small complaints for what is at the end of the day a fun, old fashioned (pun intended) shooter. I had fun with it. So much in fact that I plan on picking up Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood once it goes on sale. I also recommend everyone add Gunslinger to their wishlist because this will definitely be discounted at the next sale.
Going to try and get Policenauts up and running. Still playing Super Mario Maker (will have a review of that soon.)
Not to be confused with the train wreck that was Call of Juarez: The Cartel, Gunslinger is a small downloadable game (the standard $15 fare) that is a revenge story. You are a gunslinger that comes into a bar and tells the locals the story of your exploits and journey for revenge, the whole time dropping names like Billy the Kid, Starsky & Hutch, Jesse James, etc that come into the story as well. Of course, some of these claims are questioned by the listeners and there's a cool undertone the whole time that it's quite possible that your character is just full of sh*t and making this up as he goes on in an effort to keep the free alcohol flowing.
Gameplay wise it's running and gunning FPS in a Western setting, and it pulls this off surprisingly well, especially considering the game only gives you 5 weapons to use (not counting upgraded weapons.) The action is furious and the cover based shooting still keeps things tense. Interspersed are one-on-one gunfights where you need to control your aim with your mouse while keeping your hand near your gun with the keyboard. This is actually harder than it sounds but adds a nice change of pace to the usual boss battle where you're basically fighting a bullet sponge. The visual style is similar to Borderlands (although not as over the top) and the voice acting is very good as well.
Still, the game isn't perfect. As I said, you only have 5 weapons, but odds are you'll just get weapons based on your play style, so I had the ranger pistol and rifle for 95% of the game because I prefer to pick guys off from a distance rather than using close action shotguns. Also, if you're looking for a long adventure you won't find it here. It took me about 6-7 hours to beat, but I suppose that's not too bad because it's better than overstaying your welcome. Finally, there can be some real difficulty spikes, where you're just thrown into onslaughts of enemies and your headshot ability better be at the top of its game. Oh, I almost forgot, there's 2 separate endings to the game. I don't wish to give away what they are, but if I can give a recommendation, it would be to pick the ending on the left first (You'll see what I mean when you get to it) because you get some additional gameplay with it. I chose the one on the right. I was going to go and reload my last save, assuming it was saved on the finale, but instead it brought me back to the last gameplay mission, which is rather difficult, so instead I looked it up on YouTube and was disappointed that I missed out. So pick the ending on the left, then you can see the ending on the right on YT, because it just shows an ending with no more player participation.
At the end of the day these are small complaints for what is at the end of the day a fun, old fashioned (pun intended) shooter. I had fun with it. So much in fact that I plan on picking up Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood once it goes on sale. I also recommend everyone add Gunslinger to their wishlist because this will definitely be discounted at the next sale.
Going to try and get Policenauts up and running. Still playing Super Mario Maker (will have a review of that soon.)
I liked Gunslinger even though I never actually finished it too. I was having a good time with it and I liked the story telling but some other game came along and took my attention. You are right about looking for it on sale too. I just did a quick search and it looks like I bought it for $3.74 in the Steam Summer Sale in 2014. I have seen it discounted quite a few times.
You really should go back and finish it. The ending is really satisfying and the last level, while hard, feels really good to conquer. And I picked it up last week at 75% off and another store is having a Ubisoft sale this week so if they put it up I'll post it here
I guess I'll check in with Destiny since that still what I'm playing most.
Taken King is a huge improvement over the original game. There is an actual story with cutscenes before and after every mission now. They are putting their impressive list of TV/Movie actors to work now too. Nathan Fillion, especially, steals the show.
I hit the new level cap of 40 on my first night of play but the whole idea that XP replaced light levels was kind of a myth. Before your character level decided how much damage you gave and received from enemies. If they were more than a couple levels higher than you, you could barely put a dent in their health bar and they would take you out with one or two hits. All your character level really decides now is what level gear you can wear. You need to be level 40 to use the best gear.
Light level is still what is really important. Missions even have a recommended light level now instead of a character level like they used to. Things have still improved greatly though. In the old system you basically had to wear your armor that had the most light whether you liked the way it looked or the perks you got from wearing it. This was the only way to max out your character level and if you didn't do that the game would be much harder for you. Weapons had no effect on your light level.
Now your light level is determined by the weapons, armor, artifact, and ghost you have equipped. The higher your total defense and attack is the higher your light level is.
That sounds like it would end up creating the same system as before but they have added a thing called infusion that prevents that. Now if you find a helmet you love that unlocks a bonus class skill so you can have two at once or restores all of your health every time you cast a super you can use it even if it doesn't have the highest defense level. You basically take another helmet with higher defense and feed it to the one you like better. This brings the defense of the helmet you prefer up and your total light level along with it.
The same thing works with weapons. You can feed a weapon that has higher attack to a weapon you like better to bring the attack of the weapon you prefer up, again bringing your total light level up. They have created a system where every piece of gear you pick up can be a viable option.
They have also changed the way loot works. In the end game content of the base game I wasn't even looking at green (uncommon) or blue (rare) items before I dismantled them for parts. If it wasn't purple (legendary) or gold (exotic) it was going to have terrible attack and defense stats and no light.
In Taken King it's common to get rare drops that have higher attack/defense than legendaries or exotics. This means they also provide you with more light. The thing that makes legendaries and exotics special is all the bonus perks. For example the Red Death pulse rifle restores health to you when you kill enemies but a rare primary might do more damage with every bullet. You still are going to end up using the exotics and legendaries over the rares because you can infuse them to bring the attack/defense levels up and still get the perks.
Taken King is a huge improvement over the original game. There is an actual story with cutscenes before and after every mission now. They are putting their impressive list of TV/Movie actors to work now too. Nathan Fillion, especially, steals the show.
I hit the new level cap of 40 on my first night of play but the whole idea that XP replaced light levels was kind of a myth. Before your character level decided how much damage you gave and received from enemies. If they were more than a couple levels higher than you, you could barely put a dent in their health bar and they would take you out with one or two hits. All your character level really decides now is what level gear you can wear. You need to be level 40 to use the best gear.
Light level is still what is really important. Missions even have a recommended light level now instead of a character level like they used to. Things have still improved greatly though. In the old system you basically had to wear your armor that had the most light whether you liked the way it looked or the perks you got from wearing it. This was the only way to max out your character level and if you didn't do that the game would be much harder for you. Weapons had no effect on your light level.
Now your light level is determined by the weapons, armor, artifact, and ghost you have equipped. The higher your total defense and attack is the higher your light level is.
That sounds like it would end up creating the same system as before but they have added a thing called infusion that prevents that. Now if you find a helmet you love that unlocks a bonus class skill so you can have two at once or restores all of your health every time you cast a super you can use it even if it doesn't have the highest defense level. You basically take another helmet with higher defense and feed it to the one you like better. This brings the defense of the helmet you prefer up and your total light level along with it.
The same thing works with weapons. You can feed a weapon that has higher attack to a weapon you like better to bring the attack of the weapon you prefer up, again bringing your total light level up. They have created a system where every piece of gear you pick up can be a viable option.
They have also changed the way loot works. In the end game content of the base game I wasn't even looking at green (uncommon) or blue (rare) items before I dismantled them for parts. If it wasn't purple (legendary) or gold (exotic) it was going to have terrible attack and defense stats and no light.
In Taken King it's common to get rare drops that have higher attack/defense than legendaries or exotics. This means they also provide you with more light. The thing that makes legendaries and exotics special is all the bonus perks. For example the Red Death pulse rifle restores health to you when you kill enemies but a rare primary might do more damage with every bullet. You still are going to end up using the exotics and legendaries over the rares because you can infuse them to bring the attack/defense levels up and still get the perks.
