Messages

76

Gaming / Re: Racing Sims

« on: April 08, 2022, 02:19:07 PM »

It's honestly kind of hilarious how batshit insane diehard GT/Forza fans end up getting, especially when you consider that neither title is really considered to be full sim. It's like when Eggman completely lost his shit because I dared to criticize some of the worst elements of GT5 (which. from what I can gather, is considered by fans to be the worst game in the franchise, at least prior to this recent GT7 debacle). Pretty sure his meltdown is documented on this iteration of s.net if you need a laugh one of these days.

Well to be fair Eggman would argue over everything...I had my share of internet nerd arguing with him. Didn't help that I wasn't exactly that mature back then either. I think he was bad mouthing Shadow Complex for not being Super Metroid, and like, it isn't, but doesn't mean it can't still be a great metroidvania (which it IS). Not all games need to be the best ever to be worth playing, and no game is immune from criticism.

I dunno. I love both franchises for different reasons. Not sure why the concept that both games can be flawed in certain ways is controversial, but, y'know, console wars.

Pretty pointless to pledge allegiance to a multi million/billion dollar company who literally doesn't care about you. I do see less of that in our age bracket, so maybe it's an age thing.

If you've ever played Far Cry 3: you remember the bit at the beginning where it showed the pictures of their vacation shenanigans?

I beat the game, but I swear those "friends" were meant to be insufferable? That said, I do have less tolerance for that stuff now a days, I'm not opposed to skipping dialogue/story anymore if it isn't entertaining "cough" inquisition "cough".

I would say that the biggest mechanical issue I’ve run into so far is the dynamic environment system. One of the big features in the game is that the time can transition from day to night (and vice versa) and the weather than change. It looks fantastic and the devs have every right to be proud of it. However, I think they’re a little too proud of it. I know weather can, at times, be unpredictable, but I somewhat doubt that 20% of all races start with a clear, sunny day and end in torrential downpours.

If you eventually get GT7, it also does this. Shorter races are mostly unaffected, but some races start rainy and end dry or vice versa. The final cup has a few VERY VERY DARK races, and on Nurburgring goes from dark to light. Makes racing harder, but also looks really really nice. Not sure to which extreme, but it totally has time transitions, weather, and wind.

Music stuff

I really wish I could change the music in GT7...it isn't horrible, but you have no say over what plays in the menus. AND FRANKLY I DONT WANT MY CAR RACING GAME TO SOUND LIKE A WEDDING, classic stuff is great, but wrong context. Hopefully ps5 version lets me play some chill beats or something, but ps5 is a hoax doesn't exist, what was I talking about?
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Wheel Stand 2.0 + Fanatec Gran Turismo DD Pro.

The Great
-stand is rock solid, ROCK SOLID, very well constructed
-having never experienced a FF wheel, this 5nm wheel has more force than my SUV...literally. I mean it makes sense for a car going 100mph to have, but one is my actual SUV, the other is a videogame. It's an experience.

The Good
-the pedals are better than expected, they kinda look cheap, and foam on the break...PRETTY GOOD. Not outstanding, but well built and nice to use.
-the paddle shifters on the wheel feel VERY nice
-rubber texturing on the wheel also feels very nice

The Bad
-wheel stand is ROCK SOLID...AND HEAVY AS A ROCK. Very stable, but comes at a cost. However would I trade weight for stability? On a cheaper wheel, sure, but on this thing with the power it cranks out, no.
-wheel comes with no screws. all the wheel came with was a few metal brackets you can use to bolt to a stand, but no bolts. wheelstand 2.0 had me covered with the correct bolts/washers/nuts I needed, but ymmv depending on your wheelstand of choice.
-I know for what this is, the price is considered a bargain (at least in the sim racer community) but ohh boy, entry level DD aint cheap no matter how you slice it
-the buttons on the gran turismo wheel feel very cheap. offset by them mostly being only used to menu, and to toggle TCS mid race, but it does make the wheel as a whole feel like a cheap third party controller, despite the nice rubber/paddles.
-wheel is a tad small. Not the end of the world, and you can buy bigger wheels for the stand, but as far as what I'm using on playstation, wish it was a bit bigger.

The Ugly
-my gameplay with this thing. I expected to be slightly better than pad off the bat, what I got was I am SIGNIFICANTLY worse on wheel. I might need to dial in a few settings, but it's VERY hard for me to clean lap even an easy course like monza with this thing. I have no legacy skills with wheels/racing games and doing a little reading, there can be a large adjustment phase. That said, I find turning with 0 TCS to feel a lot more forgiving on wheel than on pad with moderate TCS. While in the now, I'm so bad I can't even race circuits for money...the good is that it will eventually get better than pad.

Conclusion
This is a very expensive toy, but considering it can be used outside of just one game, I think it's worth it. Might not get my moneys worth out of it in a year, but over the years as games come and go I should have enough mileage on the thing to have it be overall worthwhile. In ACC just feeling the grass, through the wheel, it's a level of realism I don't encounter in games. I just need to run easier tracks for the next while until I can get a hang of this thing. Large learning curve.

Do I recommend it? If you aren't going to miss $1000 for a game controller, sure. However if given the opportunity, I would try before you buy. I like it, but I am a crazy person and I really have no other wheels to compare it to, so take all of my opinions with a grain of salt. Racing game novice such as myself should have went with a Logitech, but my mind was GO BIG OR GO HOME, so yknow. Definitely something I want to have my friends try, my girlfriend tried this thing and was laughing and smiling, so definitely a cool thing to show to people who are over.

*edit*

Spent so long typing I forgot GT7 got patched.

ALWAYS ONLINE...ain't going anywhere. They've said nothing, but GTSport far as I read did the same thing, so fact of life. I myself don't like it, but I played diablo 3 world of warcraft, persona 5 with a dlc (GOD FORBID I HAVE A DLC MAKING IT SO I CAN'T PLAY OFFLINE SONY!), sucks but that's just how a lot of games are. Not defending it, but if my choice is not playing a game, and playing the game, I'm going to play it.

But they added a bunch of stuff.

Biggest thing to me is the circuit experience. Basically most tracks in the game have a mode where you can play through each sector with a specific car, and you can go for bronze silver gold like the license tests. Then you have a one lap challenge, and this is for almost every track. Some tracks like the small oval just have the one lap, since it's so small. The BIG oval special course X or whatever doesn't have any due to it being like a 16 mile long oval which is mostly driving straight, good for testing top speed. But they added monetary awards for getting all bronze, and another for all gold. AND it's retroactive...so getting all gold on everything? Is about 47 million credits...in total. You can't repeat the awards, but if you wanted to go into a track and go for all gold, you can get typically around 800k-1.2 million on average. Now I am too horrible at the game to do gold...but this is a great change. I did all bronze on Spa pre patch, all I had to to was go to circuit experience for the track then exit, and I was awarded my all bronze money. Honestly imo, if circuit experience was the only content in the game, it would be $60 worth of content, in my opinion. It's a great mode to play when learning a track, because it makes you do each sector, then you do a full lap made easier with the practice you got from doing the sectors.

They also added a few more races, tweaked money on other stuff. Some physics changes, so actual gameplay stuff.

It's a good start, and in a place where I'd be happy to recommend the game...again...

Here's hoping they continue, because I know there's more work to be done to the game. But it seems pretty good right now.

77

Gaming / Re: 2022 The Backloggening

« on: April 03, 2022, 02:07:34 PM »

When Origins was launching the company was so proud they were making a modern day Balders Gate style game. They would brag how hard the game was by destroying games journalists in demos of the game, and go off on how oldschool the game is.

For the most part they succeeded, it was an amazing and very hard game (didnt help my party composition was GARBAGE and made the game way harder).

Then 2 happened...and while I enjoyed it, we aren't talking about it for reasons obvious to anyone who played that game. But it went farther away from the original less "tactical" little bit more action.

Then inquisition where trying to do the tactical thing is so cumbersome that I just don't bother. The combat is so slow and boring it doesn't just feel like an mmo, but an old mmo where battles take longer than they need to. Minus the multiplayer part which turns games that are kinda bad (mmos without people) into something ok. I don't buy the people who play games for story argument that it'll make up for bad gameplay, because it doesn't. I don't want to slog through more slow boring mush, to see the next story bit I no longer care about due to the gameplay being so bad.  Curious how dragon age 4 keeps pulling the game in the polar opposite direction of the original vision. Light at the end of the tunnel was dragon age was biowares answer to balders gate, like mass effect was their original IP to not need the star wars license. Inquisition left a bad enough taste in my mouth to be highly critical of the 4th game...but a different company is working on balders gate 3, and seems to have some positive feedback of the work they have finished so far. We have gone full circle.

On ToR, that game was pretty fun. I only made it to Taris, but what I played was pretty cool...for a single player mmo...

I give it props for being different, I played the rogue subclass that's actually a healer, and had a tank NPC companion. Doing dps from flanking the back, while healing my npc tank in front, and having stealth and whatnot. PRETTY COOL, but as mmo's do the grind got to me and couldn't see the rest of the story due to not having the juice to continue. Enjoyed it, but bioware, it did not replace kotor.

78

Gaming / Re: 2022 The Backloggening

« on: April 02, 2022, 01:15:01 PM »

6. Dragon Age Inquisition

So something I'm going to start doing more is not letting the game win. I put over 30 hours into this sucker, got about ~70% of the way through, and I just can't do it anymore. Uninstalled, no cute image of the game, not recommending this game.

In my honest opinion, this is the worst modern bioware rpg made from kotor to current. Not counting the destiny clone they made because I knew from the start it wasn't worth my time. When you hear from people "single player mmo" usually people are exaggerating, but after a while this game really feels like one, and by all means is it a negative connotation.

You know like in Cyberpunk how the game is like...fun? It has about 10 hours worth of main story beats, but I managed to get 90 hours of playtime out of it, ONLY stopping because I ran out of stuff, not because I wanted to stop playing. This game is like the opposite, it has about 10 hours of story beats, and...I've heard up to 200+ hours of nonsense to do. It's all run around, pick up resources, do trivial tasks, and it NEVER EVER ENDS. This is a bioware game for fuck sake and I'm SKIPPING ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL THE DIALOGUE, that was my red flag right there.

By all means as a bioware fan, I should be biased to unreasonable means. I unironically ENJOYED Andromeda AND Dragon Age 2. I enjoyed Dragon Age 2 enough to play through it a second time...and that game was an unfinished half ass mess of a game, but it still had that little something that bioware rpgs have that other rpgs don't. This game just feels like they forgot the soul, and that's just sad. This game is all bloat and no fun.

NOT RECOMMENDED, instead of finishing it, im going to use my time playing something worthy of my time.

79

Gaming / Re: Racing Sims

« on: March 30, 2022, 05:08:21 PM »

I pretty much only know Forza stuff based on what the GT people say. Hearing about the roulette wheel for cars as it's only? Source of getting cars sounds kinda bad...Like the money situation in GT7 is ass, but given a few hours of playing, you CAN get one of 95% of cars in the game. So like I wanted to play through most of the asia pacific races in a nissan GT-R of some flavor, I can just focus my money on that thing and get it. I don't think the problem is getting any car you want (sans the 3 million+ cars, of which are not the majority), because you can...it's just in a game about collecting cars in volume, attaining that volume would take like 1000 hours.

Not gonna say roulette is "bad" but I think the gameplay loop of playing races to earn money to buy stuff is a good one...assuming it's executed properly. That said I've earned about 150,000 as I've been typing this due to...the script...Game seems to patch thursdays so I figured fuck it, I'll give it a try. Breaks after the race and I can't get it to loop properly, but at least I can multi task. Others getting it to loop properly, but whatever, if they increase money to a fun level this won't be needed.

Funny how like outside of the sim circle I thought Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo, and that other series that almost got me into burning rubber Project Cars were the hardcore sim racing game. Now I see the first two (no idea on Project Cars) are sim racers but...a step below an assetto corsa or iunno iracing? Horizon is just like an arcade racer like need for speed or burnout aint it? Nothing wrong with that, I liked Blur and F-Zero, but having that Forza in the name could confuse people I'd suspect? On Forza, any news on FM8? I've heard nothing, and all sim racer youtube (recommended to me) is right now is GT7, assetto corsa, and beam ng.

And uhh, I bought the fanatec gran turismo DD pro...5nm version because that's plenty expensive enough, and you can upgrade to 8nm later if need be. Haven't purchased the wheel base yet because...with tax/shipping $770...so ouch wallet. Mostly got it to stop nagging myself about it, I'll figure out the rest later. Assetto Corsa Competzione (what a mouthfull) was on sale on steam so I snagged that for the future...If I don't end up being that into the vroom vroom on the wheel, I doubt reselling a very popular wheel will be that difficult. When I have a desire to spend money when I shouldn't be spending money (unemployed...uhh...) I FIND A WAY. Don't be me Also hunting down a ps5 disc version(almost went digital, but that loses you money in the long run)...just don't be financially irresponsible like I am...probably for the best...to my credit I HAVE the money, but yknow, could just...hold on to it. I expect longer shipping due to how the world is these days so updates sometime eventually.

*edit*

Assetto Corsa actually runs on this machine cooler than Mass Effect...somehow? This'll be great when I get my wheel!

80

Gaming / Re: Racing Sims

« on: March 25, 2022, 03:34:05 PM »

Seems like Polyphony got the message? Now here's hoping they follow up on it.

Latest patch with some standard fixes, however, they promise re-balancing of earned credits("as much as 100% more") early April + adding more races and whatnot. On top of that a 1,000,000 credit voucher for anyone to redeem before April 25. This is all good news, still don't want to play the game in it's current state. Again, the game is great, but time invested towards making $$$ now is pointless when it'll be buffed later with hopefully a more enjoyable "endgame" gameplay loop. Before that the cafe is perfectly fine, but I've already completed that and I'm at the "collect cars and dick around with whatever I want" part of the game, being able to race what I want to race WHILE earning credits is worth waiting for.

We shall see how it pans out, people still mad about the always online requirement. I do feel that sentiment, and winning a race to have the server go down for a bit...for that race not to have counted...kinda sucks. ONLY HAPPENED ONCE...but it shouldn't happen...ever...in single player yknow. But the big thing for me was the in game economy. If they wanna do micros they should do it with dlc cars, or "expansion packs" type of content, not "ruin the base game to make room to spend $$$" style of micro.

I'm plenty happy to spend more money in a game I want more of, and this game has plenty of content for it's $60/$70 pricetag, the economy was just the glue to hold it all together, and it was tainted. With skyrim, a game I purchased on 360, pc, ps4, and switch...and beat the game on all 4 platforms, you bet your ass I would buy another dlc. Make a game good enough and players will fork over cash for meaningful content, and GT7 is good enough not to need IRL money for in game money to be a thing.

Final note, while I "logged on" to get my wellfare 1,000,000 check, I did my daily workout (race 26 or more miles across anything in the game within the day, get a roulette ticket), got a ticket...tickets contain 5 things, and "randomly" land on one.

-invitation (if you don't have millions stockpiled, which you don't, these are worthless. limited time offer to buy a car unavalible outside of an invitation, and the car is always over 1-2+ million it seems)
-engine swap (people seem to like these, im too new to understand why, however they are locked behind raffle tickets, I have never earned one in my time playing)
-5 gold bars (each gold bar = 100,000cr, 5 = 500,000cr)
-NEW CAR!
-car parts for a specific car (probably more useless than the invite, with over 400 cars in the game, who's to say you need a new muffler for your Bugatti you don't have or even want because those cars are hideous)

The selection is always random, but usually has a 5000 credit gold pile, and 9/10 times you'll land on that 5000 credit pile. In a game where 50,000 can't buy tires on some cars, 5k is so little it's not even worth the time to go through the animation of opening the ticket, literally.

But I landed on the 5 gold bars, so, either really lucky, or maybe some hidden re calculations of the rewards? I'll take it either way.

I'd say on a positive note, the huge backlash wouldn't exist if the game itself wasn't good enough to warrant the effort in making a fuss over it. Whenever they patch the new economy in the game I'll give it a test drive (pun semi intended?) and see how the game feels. It would be nice to put my Nissan GT-R to work!

81

Gaming / Re: Racing Sims

« on: March 22, 2022, 08:20:47 PM »

It's a shame really. GT7 is a fantastic game otherwise. One of those things where it's not "DO NOT BUY" but rather "wait for them to "hopefully" re-balance the game to a reasonable state". Not asking for riches here, but like...



That's what, 12 million earned across 48 hours?

There's two cars in the legendary car market (can only buy for a limited amount of time), that cost 18 million...EACH. They expect people to play over 100 hours within a week to buy two cars? No thanks!

Easy fix would just be to have a flat credits earned/minute raced across all races, then you could play whatever you want. With race car restrictions it would promote tuning different cars to use on different races...yknow, the thing I thought Gran Turismo was in the first place.

The internet is throwing a huge baby fit over it, so maybe something gets done in the next few patches? Time will tell I suppose. At this rate I've heard so much good things about Gran Turismo 4 that I kind of want to play that...and yknow...I mighta bought it(it's cheaper than lunch, easy impulse buy)...but it probably plays better on emulator with analogue break/accelleration...

On snowrunner, I reading steam reviews before I bought it...around time I was addicted to death stranding. (check out death stranding it's really good and original)



Pretty much immediately bought it at that point. HAVE YET TO PLAY IT THOUGH...maybe soonish, but I'll have to suffice with mouse/keyboard for now.

*edit*

Booted up Snowrunner for a trial run, played about an hour. It is pretty neat, controls fine on mouse/keyboard, but doesn't feel like a "sim" game, so unsure how getting it working on a proper wheel would go. I do see the Death Stranding comparison though, just getting from point A to B seems to be what the game is all about. Will definitely have to put more time into the game later, but works on my laptop just fine.

82

Gaming / Re: Racing Sims

« on: March 17, 2022, 02:52:31 PM »

I'm gonna have to chime in again about GT7. Since it's a "live service game" any given patch can just fuck the game up, and they did just that. I was interested with forza 4, but not enough to take the plunge and difficulty scared me away. Again with whatever forza was first on xbox one, but heard how dirty the micro transactions were, same with gt6, so I noped out of both of em.

GT7 had a few races you could do for money, and the rest of the game gave you practically nothing, now the few races you could use are nerfed to not being worth doing.

If they don't adjust credits earned across the board, I'd pass on this title.

It's a blast to play, the cars feel great, but...$60 ps4 $70 ps5 game with a "f2p" feeling business model is unacceptable.

There is A LOT of cars in the 700,000+ range, most seem to be around 1 million credits.

https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10000956

$20 for 2 million...and it took about an hour to earn a million with the old method if you were good, longer if you werent. Now, what, 5+ hours to earn a million? I got my moneys worth out the game, but I wanted to play more, now I just feel like I gotta stop.

Still want a wheel doe, to play Snowrunner on pc, but my desktop setup isn't here, and my laptop setup is just couch, so not a great environment for a wheel right now.

Maybe down the road, the seeds have been planted. However stay away from GT7 unless they balance the credits issue. It's just sad to see a game that IS REALLY REALLY GOOD AND REALLY REALLY FUN be tarnished by corporate greed. I know videogames companies are making videogames to make money, but like, iunno, that's why I paid 60 fuckin dollars to play the game. Am I being entitled?

83

Gaming / Re: 2022 The Backloggening

« on: March 12, 2022, 09:23:32 PM »

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic



This doesn't count because it's the third time I beat it. First was light side melee, second was dark side force, this one was dark side melee.

FELT PRETTY DAMN OP NEAR THE END

This is one of the best rpgs ever made, they ported it to switch so I snagged it, got around to finishing it about a week ago. Decided to try out some new characters this time because the jedi party members are usually what everyone picks. Canderous and HK47, with a dark side melee build. Not much healing...but you can just swap to jolie or something to get some heals in in most places so it wasn't too bad. Canderous starts out garbage, and I always thought he was bad...now I think he's one of the best party members. He starts out kitted out for guns, when the man was made to be a melee powerhouse, he gets a feat all but like 2 levels, so by level 12 or so he's more or less immortal. HK is just kinda ass, till endgame you blow your money on infinite use stun and flamethrower, but by that point it ain't needed. He's just good for the banter, and worth keeping on a dark side for that alone, game isn't that hard to warrant min maxing party members. Opinion hasn't changed now as it did then, one of the GOAT rpgs, give it a play.

*edit*

DO TARIS AT LEVEL 2, it's very min maxey, gives you 18 levels of jedi, and it's not that hard if you just ignore the main character and use the wookee to shrek everything. HOWEVER, the arena at level 2 with what, 20 hp? KINDA HARD. Hit and run, use energy shields, and for the last two guys energy shield, concussion grenade, frag/plasma, conc, frag, ect. May take a few attempts but killing the final arena bounty is very doable at level 2, abuse grenades and you'll be fine. Game doesn't require min maxing, but, it's pretty fun getting through taris at level 2, then when you become a jedi you got a ton of power creep and it just feels satisfying.

5. Gran Turismo 7



I'm be honest, I didn't know you could beat a Gran Turismo, nor did I even expect to invest any time paying attention to this game. I play rpgs, I don't play racing games LET ALONE sim racing games. For reasons unknown I started getting into racing and whatnot, kinda like my random interests in basketball, baseball, boxing, this is the next thing to catch my attention.

And HOOOOOOOOOOOOLY SHET, it's hard to put down. I can't really compare it to it's contemporaries because I haven't played anything since sega gt on the og xbox...so...iunno...

I like this game, a lot, and I don't know why. It's got some issues like the diablo 3 "always online, no playing this game allowed offline or during server maintenance silly!"...not a fan of...and the music is mostly miss....with some good tracks that I only heard watching the credits, so more of a podcast game imo. But damn if there isn't something satisfying about driving a machine and if I go off that track, I know it's because of ME, not because of the game. Again I haven't played other games in this genre, so IVE HEARD people complain about lack of content, which MAY be true...but as a newbie with this as his first game...there's a lot here.

Let's see just after credits rolled, my playtime is 37 hours 43 minutes. I completed the cafe which is the main "story" mode of this game, as well as getting up to my S licence, A is required to beat the game, but I did the S. Which is not a trivial task. On top of the story and the licenses, there's 6 sets of 8 missions which all have different tasks, passing, drifting, drag racing, fuel economy, it's pretty varied. Then there's just racing for money, collecting cars, tuning said cars, online, it's a pretty full package from my PoV. Apparently earlier entries have even more content...but I mean, it's far from bare bones.

Runs fine on a stock normal ps4. Only issues are menus take a little bit to load, and loading into a race is like 45 or so seconds, but besides that, no regrets playing it on ps4. The game is pretty unbalanced with money distribution, rewarding doing the same course OVER AND OVER AND OVER for superior income over just playing other races and getting rewarded appropriately. To be fair, SO FAR, that dirt course is fun as fuck and I still can't win it 100% of the time, so it's not too bad...yet... Would be nice to race whatever I wanted knowing it was a fair balance of time invested and credits awarded, because the last championship I did was like 1.5 hours long over 5 races. I took first and got 150,000, which is a good chunk of change...but I can earn that in 7 minutes on the dirt track...not very cool imo.

NOT AN RPG, SHOCK AND AWE! Ima get back to driving my ford focus group b rally car and get me some more credits...

84

Gaming / Racing Sims

« on: March 08, 2022, 06:49:33 PM »

So I was hoping I wouldn't make this thread, but my random spark of interest in trying a racing sim HAPPENS to be a few weeks before GRAN TURISMO 7 came out, and Gran Turismo isn't a series to make new games very often.

It's the first time in my life where I am interested "enough" in racing to actually have fun. So I bought it on ps4 because the benefits of ps5 didn't outweigh...not playing the game at all because nobody can buy ps5's right now. Besides loading into a race(quite a long load time, but not long enough to be ridiculous), the game runs pretty good and looks outstanding (I mean pretty much ALL car games look good...but..still...) so I don't think ps5 is mandatory.

I've only played like 8 hours (there's another...release I am playing that came out the same day...) and I've never had this much fun with a sim racer before. No real experience with sim racing outside of...sega gt on the original xbox if that counts? I can't even really say it's good as much as what I once thought to be boring, is now interesting. So don't use me as a source to gauge how much better GT7 is compared to the competition, no idea.

Two things of note though.

What I remember of sim racing styled games, they are fucking hard. They ain't jam the accelerator and win. Seeing people talk about the difficulty of GT7 as "fair to easy" and when I try some of the stuff they call easy, and can't even see second place as remotely attainable...there is a learning curve. This is not a problem, but with no legacy skill, it'll be a while before I am comfortable.

Which brings me to...racing wheels...ps4 controller is fine but...yknow...what if I had...THIS!

Yeah...I really want a proper wheel, but...dropping a grand to play pretend racecar at home? OHH BOY. There's also other games that would be fun with the wheel, I hear assetto corsa is good, I got some game called snowrunners that would look fun with a wheel, dirt rally...there's a lot of games that would be great on a wheel. To convince my girlfriend my unemployed ass is gonna build a sim rig...might not be possible even though I have the dough.

I do recall you mister spectere talking up one of the old forza games (3, 4?) back in the day, you still into the vroom vroom game? I did think about GT vs Forza, and consensus among the sim people is GT is more authentic, and I have a ps4, so that kinda solved that.

85

Random Chat / Re: The Lamest Topic Ever Conceived

« on: March 08, 2022, 06:15:22 PM »

Water cooling + problems = SCAREY

Something I understand why people do, but when I think about it...I ain't a tenth the enthusiast that would be into even a tiny risk of a leak.

86

Gaming / Re: 2022 The Backloggening

« on: February 21, 2022, 02:40:28 AM »

4. Trials of Mana



First off lemme say this came out of nowhere. On a whim "ohh I own that, lemme give it a...shot..."

Few years back square was going to release a bundle called collection of mana, gameboy game, snes game, and special snes game. The special snes game was seiken densetsu 3, japan only release, in english for the first time. I waited a bit, and they announced some game called Trials of Mana, which is a remake of seiken densetsu 3...so I waited for the remake...then waited more for a sale...then waited a year ontop of that.

Not the longest of games, but a damn fine grand adventure. 24 hours played, game complete, postgame complete. I couldn't stop playing, its really good, like REALLY good. I typically view action rpgs as "lesser" to turn based, but combat aside, this game feels like a dragon quest or something in terms of scale. Many towns, many locals, world map. It's got all the tropes, the story fits that "save the world against evil", not reinventing the wheel, but also it's a game from 1995 with a fresh very nice looking coat of paint.

Unlike your typical jrpg, this one has 6 characters, you pick 3, and you pick 1 to be the main character. So my playthrough had the mage as the main character, with spear woman and beast man as sidekicks. I could have had beast man be the main character and have a different antagonist for the story, it's pretty cool, especially for 1995.

I think I was complaining earlier about the whole world calling this the easiest videogame known to man...it is not. It IS AN EASY GAME, but it do have some rough patches. Several bosses are outright horseshit, and being action combat with 2 other AI who like to die...well just say those certain bosses aren't the majority of the game. Near endgame though my worthless deadweight mage I picked for a main character, and used the beast man instead when controlling combat...became pretty much cheating easy mode. Talk about a power spike, she goes from the first HALF OF THE GODDAMN GAME NOT BEING ABLE TO CAST A SINGLE SPELL to nuclear apocalypse everything.

I knew people talked up seiken densetsu 3 as a good game, but these weird non final fantasy jrpgs I am encountering make me think how I stayed so "only final fantasy" for so long, because this game is head and shoulders above all but 3 ff games in my honest opinion.

You wanna play an epic dragon quest styled game with fun action rpg combat, and a unique "pick your own character" flavor? Give this game a shot, it's a bonafied classic in my book. I put this in that list of "greatest rpgs I've ever played" Many pros, very few cons.

Now are the other mana games any good? Story for another time!

87

Gaming / Re: 2022 The Backloggening

« on: February 17, 2022, 04:19:26 AM »

3. Bayonetta 2



So...I've been meaning to play this since the day I seen it was a Wii U exclusive and NOPED it along with captain toad treasure tracker. Both games are now on switch, and I snagged this one used like a year ago.

It's uhh, Bayonetta, but...yknow, a sequel. It's still silly, but feels more serious than the first game. Great combat, maybe a bit too button mashey, but still fun. You mentioned Nier earlier, and one of the reasons I couldn't get into that game which had "similar" combat, the psuedo rpg psuedo open world stuff, really really didn't like their execution of that. Bayonetta is just an action game with levels, you wanna go back to a level to farm money, you have access to the level select from the very start. This is what I personally prefer, I mean if I wanna get specific...Doom Eternal does it RIGHT, but no shade on a barebones level select.

Not too much to say other than I remember the first Bayonetta being fairly challenging, maybe on the "hard" end of the difficulty scale. Iunno if I got better in 10 years since I played that game, but I didn't even use a single healing item till the final boss, and at that point I was using items because I could, not because I needed to. Not the easiest game ever, but the normal difficulty is pretty easy overall. That said, it's more Bayonetta, it's not super different from the first one, but the first one was great, so more of that isn't something I'm going to complain about.

Bayonetta 3 should be out this year? Wanted to knock this one out for a while, so now it looks like im ready for that release assuming I have the spare cash at that time. Pretty good time, recommended. I do play the occasional NON RPG every now and then, see!



SEE SEE A FIGHTING GAME IN THERE and uhh...mountain blade is a game where you are a mountain that fights using a blade! yeah!....yeah...

88

Gaming / Re: wut specturr'z playing

« on: February 17, 2022, 03:58:57 AM »

I have been considering "in the future" getting one of those "new" consoles. Hard to justify with limited library, but I'd assume the xbox has enough backwards compatibility to make it pretty seamless? I ain't there yet, and I ain't sure I'll even get there at all, but I've been looking at driving sims...both consoles have their "one of those"...so...been considering it.

There is a degree of convenience consoles have that pc's just don't "yet" have. Even having this fairly compitent laptop, it's still less effort for me to play something on switch.

89

Gaming / Re: 2022 The Backloggening

« on: February 10, 2022, 05:40:28 PM »

Edit: I snagged Arceus this past weekend and yeah! I like it. I think the tutorial issue was a bit overstated, as they don't feel nearly as heavy handed as previous mainline installments (Sun/Moon absolutely smothers you, while Arceus still gives you plenty of room to breathe between training exercises).

When I originally read that I thought to myself "what tutorial?" If he meant the beginning of the game...I mean games typically have a starting period and I don't really see much wrong with Arceus.

Graphics are generally fine, but the higher you go the less fine they get. Still, the complaints are a bit overstated, especially considering the game is on the freaking Switch. I'd much rather the game play smoothly (and it does!) than to have Age of Calamity graphics and all of its associated framerate canyons. Either way, they're serviceable. Plus, it has the best animations I've seen in any Pokémon game to date.

Are there plenty of examples of Nintendo games that look better than Arceus? Yes. Do the game look like booty? ELL NAW. The way people are talking make the game sound like it looks horrible, it's still a good looking game...it's just not a GREAT looking game. People need to lay off the damn weed.

I think one complaint that I have from a gameplay perspective is the way the Alpha battles are tuned. It seems kind of obvious that they should be powerful, but the issue that I have is that Pokémon's battle system already has an extremely low time to live (I mean, level 3 mons can quick attack a level 13 mon to unconsciousness in 3 turns). When you crank the attack values up to the point where an Alpha that's a half dozen levels under you can one-shot your mon with single non-crit quick attack, all it does is exacerbate that problem. To me it feels like it's less a question of strategy and more a question of raw numbers and brute force. Still, it's not really all that bad as long as you don't have to face more than one at a time. I dunno. We'll see how I feel as I get further in.

That said, it's weirdly refreshing to see enemies that can actually knock out my mons. You don't see that often in the mainline games.

The battle system is still not that good imo, but it does it's job in an inoffensive enough way to not ruin the good stuff imo. One thing to note, if you don't sneak on an enemy, even if they're 60 levels below you, they usually can act first. This is fine because it just rewards you for sneaking around and getting back attacks and whatnot. It's still silly to see one of those beginning bird enemies move before my level 92 garchomp however.

Speaking of mainline games, I wouldn't be at all opposed to the gameplay style of Arceus expanded upon and becoming the primary gameplay style. Having the player character get directly involved in the world makes you feel as though you're controlling an actual character rather than just a dot on the map.

I'd be more surprised if they DIDN'T adapt the new gameplay systems introduced in Arceus to the mainline games. While the game feels complete, it also very obviously feels like a "this is the first time we've tried this stuff" kind of way that you could see a lot of refining happening in future games. Maybe more trainer interaction mid battle besides run away, use item, etc? It's a good start though. I've been lukewarm/negative on pokemon since the original gen 3, and this is the first game I REALLY enjoyed out of the series since gen 2, so I'm pretty optimistic to what they have in store for the future.

Mass Effect (Legendary Edition)(insanity difficulty)



Remembered I bought this during the time where I started living at my gf's place more, away from the desktop. Have the laptop so decided to polish this off. Not counting this for the count since I had beat the original like 18 times already, but out of the 3 they remastered, this one had the most changes.

Originally upset because they nerfed stuff...like seriously? The immunity power got nerfed into the ground, so the way I used to play the game can't be done anymore. They changed a lot of stuff, nerfed pistols, made weapons work differently, the UI is totally different, they totally "rebalanced" insanity difficulty. TLDR when one strategy becomes invalid, another one appears in it's place. I went infiltrator sniper and cleaned house in the "much easier" insanity difficulty...like...nerf the good shit from the original, then nerf the difficulty of the hardest difficulty? I don't see the point, but whatever, single player game needs balancing I guess. Rockets typically don't one shot you anymore, snipers still do so save often. Besides snipers and just playing smart, it wasn't all that bad to get through. They made the final boss a lot harder, instead of just the boss, who was always really annoying and not fun...it's the final boss + waves of geth ontop of him! So a fight that was already really annoying, even more annoying! YEAH!

If you already beat the originals and aren't a megafan like I am, would not highly recommend. I also had to re do the final fight...because my game crashed on the cutscene that plays half way through it...a more annoying fight made more annoying...then even more annoying...

The new graphics look great however, but also makes my laptop sound like a vacuum. COULD BE MY LAPTOP...but guilty gear strive, a new modern fighting game with AMAZING visuals, don't even tickle my machine in the 40 or so hours I've put into that. So IUNNO. Mass Effect 2 from what little I've played (insanity is very very hard in that game and I may not pursue doing the trilogy on insanity...again...) so I'm guessing it's mostly all the retooling they did on ME1.

It's not a terrible remaster, the best part is controller support (albeit kind of spotty and tricky to get working), which the original pc port didn't have. So worst cast scenario I have mass effect on pc with controller support, which is fine. I wish there was a few toggles, to say keep the new UI/graphics, but use the old balancing. If you want the original experience, or want to see how good pistols used to be, it would be nice to experience that in the remaster. It would be like if they remastered the original halo game, and you want to remember how awesome the magnum was...except they decided to nerf it for some reason. It just isn't in spirit of the original to do that, at least without an option to toggle it off, imo. I AM nitpicking, and I know this, but...it's enough to where I am annoyed enough to talk about it.

*honorable mention

I do remember in the original trilogy ON PC importing saves was kind of awkward, I think I recall some external bioware tool thing being used or something? Either way I remember it not being seamless. Booting up ME2 to import my ME1 save, it was just there, no fuss, it just worked, like the xbox 360 versions. Probably the best way to play through the trilogy for convenience alone...even though I would personally still prefer playing on 360, it's just way less convenient now a days.

90

Gaming / Re: 2022 The Backloggening

« on: February 02, 2022, 03:23:09 PM »

Well before Crysis came out, people would be in the mindset of "my pc is so good it can play Oblivion!". Which I recall playing on pc fine enough, on lower settings. Most TES games the side chains are better than the main one, but I just wanted to get through the game. The setting/music/story isn't my gripe as much as I just don't like how the game plays at all. I gave it over 100 hours across 3 different attempts, it ain't for me. What is for me doe...

2. Pokémon Legends: Arceus



First off, I need to stop reading Reddit. Every time, entitled crybabies. Then on the game specific subreddit, it's 80% "hey look at my shiny", which is better than straight 50page light novel about how nintendo touched inappropriately. However, it isn't really productive discussion about the game.

That out of the way, a few things to preface. This game doesn't look like trash because breath of the wild looks better. It's probably the best looking pokemon game of all time...but that is admittedly a low bar. Second, this is not the game for you if you want online battles, or a lot of trainer battles for the main game.

This game is all about the pokedex, and the main story is pretty small in comparison to that...like a lot of "open world" style games. Bee line the story, pretty short, take your time doing pokedex, plenty of girth here. To be blunt I think the combat in pokemon is bad, and has always been bad. The good parts of pokemon have always to me been the stuff outside of the combat, the exploration and catching 'mons and whatnot. Nothing much different here, one shot opponent or get one shot is still the deal...to a higher extent since the turn order is different. I've had the opponent go 3 times in a row before, and that's just guaranteed death even if your defense is high and you have a type advantage + 20 levels, you 'gon die.

Pokedex is more intricate than "catch pikachu, pikachu is done!".



Every pokemon in the game has this list, you need to complete 10 objectives to "complete" a pokemon. Entries with red arrows count for 2 points, so the screenshot would be like completing 14. Tasks beyond this still give you points, these points level your trainer rank or whatever, and more rank gets you access to higher pokeballs, new items, new areas, etc.  So only 10 required to complete a pokemon, and if you want to complete ALL the tasks, you get a "perfect" which aside from more points, doesn't get you anything other than something to do, so it's optional.

It's a pretty good system, I kinda hope other jrpgs which lack random battles in the future have "some" kind of system besides money/exp to motivate you to fight various enemies. Like if SMTV had random rewards for iunno, successfully negotiating with a certain monster 5 times, it's more of a reason to get into a battle over just ignoring everything.

This is pretty much the pokemon game I always wanted as a kid, you can sneak around and catch pokemon without needing to get into a battle most of the time. In terms of nailing the fantasy of being a pokemon trainer, this game does that very well. It's fun, pretty hard to put down. I made it to the postgame where you get to the pokemon in the title and...you get a message...which basically means "complete the entire pokedex". Which is cool, but I might pass...But in the 42 hours it took me to get there, had a good time.

Gonna have to give this one a big fat RECOMMENDED. Literally the most fun ive had playing a pokemon game since red/blue/gold/silver when I was a young boy. Breath of fresh air in a franchise that has done nothing but the same thing it's entire existence.