watcha playin'

[Spectere]

I dunno if I'd go that far. NVIDIA is pimping the crap out of GameWorks. It's getting hard to find AAA games that don't use it in some way (yes, I'm holding onto my cynicism...GTA4:PC really was that bad of an experience for me).

And yeah, high levels of MSAA is going to be sharper. MSAA essentially samples multiple locations within each pixel. Very high quality but it causes a pretty gnarly performance hit. Based on my understanding of TXAA (which is limited; it's a proprietary technology) it combines MSAA with temporal anti-aliasing. Generally speaking it looks better than low levels of MSAA (we're talking MSAA x2 vs TXAA x2), but MSAA x8 is going to kill it in terms of quality (and turn your GPU into a space heater on heavier games). I look at TXAA being a happy medium between MSAA x2 and x4. TXAA x4 seems pointless to me--too blurry for my tastes.

I generally try to run DSR with no AA or light MSAA where possible. The only problem with DSR is that it makes the Steam overlay virtually unusable since Valve apparently doesn't understand the meaning of "high DPI."

[vladgd]

I...still...play....diablo...

It's a very on and off game. New patch, get hype, play for 1-2 weeks, drop off. Another new patch, new interest, cycle begins again.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/vladgd-1696/hero/3024684

They changed a lot of things, and initially my witchdoctor was weaker due to said changes, but after spending a day to gear properly, i went from greater rift 33, to greater rift 40. This picture shows how significant that is. Torment 6 feels as easy as normal difficulty at my current state. I blanket the screen in darts, and I turned the game into a bullet hell shooter. "every time i shoot a poison dart, all my fetishes do, and i have 23"

[NewF]

I still play D3 as well. Add me up, lets play.
Curnewzack@gmail.com

[vladgd]

Sadly I pretty much only play solo. It's a good play anytime "turn my mind off" type of game. I hit 70 on the season 3 then kinda dropped off, I don't think wizard is for me, even though they are very strong this season.

Either way season 3 would be a bit short lived, mortal kombat x came out, and after a few days, it works on pc. No real strong opinion on it yet, it's a bit too soon to tell, but the overall vibes are positive on it. I have a few nitpicks, like I hate how the mortal kombat games show button inputs. It's a 5 button game, front/back punch, front/back kick, block. What do they say that front punch is? On xbox controllers (im using xbox stick) they don't call it front punch, they call it, X, the default button it's mapped too. Since I use a stick, I had to remap it to work on said stick, so my front punch is on the Y button, but they don't change the icons and shit to compensate for this. So when they tell me to do a move that uses front punch, they tell me to press the X button, when it's mapped on the Y button for me. WHY THEY DONT JUST SAY FRONT PUNCH, OR EVEN A SIMPLE FP, OR HOW THE COMMUNITY JUST SAYS, 1, I DON'T KNOW. I know it's a small issue, and really, it's not a deal breaker, it's just annoying. I know netherrealm listens to the community, so I don't know why they havent picked up the slang for the game. People use tekken terminology when talking about mortal kombat. It's pretty much the same in tekken as mortal kombat, one number for each limb. 1, 2, 3, 4, EASY. So say Jax ground pound, down down B in xbox, down down circle on playstation, or just fuckin down down 4 universally using the tekken terminology. Then you have the playstation version, so what does X even mean when someone is talking about the game to someone else? X is front punch on the xbox version, but X is front kick on the playstation version, it's not universal, and it's dumb.

That aside, it's a damn good looking game, and it looks like netherrealm put a lot of work into it. No idea if I will stick with it, but it's been fun so far. No clue what character I want to stick with, right now im looking at Jax, but Quan Chi is a strong contender.

[Spectere]

Wow, I haven't posted an update on this thread in a while, have I? No, I have not.

Well, for starters, I'm happy to say that the PC port of GTA 5 for PC is perfectly fine. There were some phenomenally stupid bugs in the launch build (like not being able to play if your Windows username had a character that wasn't a Roman glyph or number...I'm sure the people in regions that use Cyrillic or accented characters were pleased), but now that those are a non-issue I ended up taking the plunge and making a purchase. Yes, I am sincerely glad that my cynicism was misplaced.

The first-person mode is surprisingly awesome. I'm honestly amazed at how far they went with it. They could have just tacked it on real quick-like, but instead Rockstar took the time to ensure that you literally see everything. If you do a dodge roll you will literally see your character tumbling in first-person. It certainly makes you feel much more empathy toward your character if you take a nasty spill off of a bike. Woooo boy.

Another thing that impressed me is how well it handles controllers. I prefer to use the keyboard and mouse when running around and shooting (PC master race, yadda yadda) and the controller for driving. It's absolutely seamless in this game. Use the controller, the button prompts change over to Xbox prompts. Use a keyboard, it changes back to keyboard/mouse prompts. I'm not sure if it supports non-XInput controllers, though, so bear that in mind if you want to use a racing wheel or something like that.

It's kind of hard for me to really judge how the port performs, but everything seems pretty smooth. I have noticed an increase in framerate drops ever since I upgraded to NVIDIA's GTA-ready driver, oddly enough, so I'm probably going to roll back before I play next time. Before I upgraded to that version the framerate never dropped below 60 with everything except for the additional options maxed out.

Still playing through the Mass Effect trilogy. Currently on the second game, just sort of slowly making my way through it.

My friends and I have been playing Dying Light. Holy shit does the story get stupid. I could have settled for merely cliche, but it's actually kind of painful. Not to mention some of the awful design elements that become more and more glaring as you continue to play through. We're basically killing time until Killing Floor 2 hits early access at this point.

I ended up finally picking up a PS4. Gorgeous console! I've primarily been playing Bloodborne, which I've been having a blast at. I'm surprisingly less bad at it than I thought I'd be. I used the cane when I started my original run, but that really doesn't seem like a very newbie-friendly starting weapon to me (or, at least, it didn't match my play style particularly well). I ended up quickly starting a second game with the axe and I've found that I'm having a much better time with it now. In general I haven't been seeing "YOU DIED" all that often lately. Then again, I've been verging on paranoia whenever I move around, so that probably helps.

I'm still playing Elite: Dangerous off-and-on between all of that. It's pretty much my podcast game at this point. I've primarily been focusing on exploration in order to save up for a combat ship. Just to give you an idea of how ginormous that game is, I'm a filthy casual and was the first person to sell data about certain systems. Yeah.

Also, the Talos Principle. It's sublime. Play it!

Now I just need to stop taking on so much work so that I actually have a hope of finishing one of those games. :s

[Sneaky]

still playin wow.. up to 49 on my worgen hunter.. neat class so far, I like it.

[Sneaky]

Now I'm level 60

FLYING

This is the highest I've ever leveled an Alliance toon.. funny that this game can still bring brand new experiences for me after so long. I'm glad I never got super duper involved in it, because it allows me to continue playing over time without getting that burnt out from it

[Spectere]

"Back in my day ye had to be level 40 just ta get yer first ground mount, laddy. Ye could only fly when ya hit the ol' 7-0, and even then ya couldn't spread yer wings on Azeroth. Damn kids and their silly little 'flyin' permits.' Learn ta walk, boy!"

*cough*

Yeah, even for as long as I've been playing (six years...damn) I still run into new things every now and again. It definitely does peter off, but I haven't really gotten to a point where there was simply nothing to do.

Also, I'm going to have to re-add you on b.net. I kind of did a frenzied purge of my friends list (i.e. disabled and reenabled RealID) on one day because I was tired of getting hassled by people that I used to be in a guild with whom I didn't particularly like in the first place. :| I think Newf is another unfortunate victim.

If you send me a friend request I'll accept it next time I'm on: spectere at gmail dot com

AS FOR THE ACTUAL TOPIC.

I've been playing Destiny (PS4; add me on PSN if you like: Spectere1984). It definitely feels underrated to me at this point. Maybe it's because I got into it after a number of patches or because I haven't beaten the game yet, but it definitely seems like the overwhelming hype was most likely its biggest enemy. It also seems to be in a really awkward position where it doesn't quite please MMO fans or FPS fans (too grindy for an FPS player, loot isn't predictable enough for an MMO), so maybe my time in WoW, EVE, GW2, etc gives me a different perspective than most traditional Bungie fans.

Regardless, the combat feels absolutely incredible, the skill progression is pretty solid. I'm having more fun playing it than I did Halo 3, and that was my favorite game of that particular franchise. Even if the endgame turns out to be meh, I'm probably going to get at least a few dozen hours of gameplay just leveling up my characters and playing co-op. I particularly like that you can get a lot of out just 15-30 minutes of play if your free time happens to be limited. It's pretty rare for story-focused FPS to be structured like that, and that works out great if I have a busy month.

[vladgd]

All I hear about destiny is that it lacks content, but my boss seems to really enjoy it despite that. I have no opinion due to no current gen consoles.

Got my season 3 wizard to paragon 222, and consensus is, I don't like wizard. I think I'll avoid the game until season 4. I guess next week on the 26th the ladder reset for diablo 2 is happening, so it may be an excuse for me to play that again.

Recently got pokemon omega ruby (the only pokemon game i got the "first" version of, prior was like blue, silver, sapphire, pearl, white, ect), it's pretty neat since the last game I invested real time into was pearl. Not sure how long i'll play before I lose interest (im really only 40 minutes in) but if I want to beat the elite 4 on gen 3 (something I haven't done) this is the place to do it I suppose.

Besides that, just been playing more super street fighter 2 turbo recently. Been mucking about with my Zangief, and trying to improve my Dictator play. Every time I land a touch of death combo with Dictator, I just want to practice more and more so it becomes a common thing. I really don't think the game will ever get old or boring to me, i've been playing it since 2009 and I'm still learning new things. Definitely my favorite game of all time at this point. I wish more people were into fightans so I would have a bigger pool of people to play with.

[Zephlar]

My GF has been playing ORAS over the last few months. Those are really great Pokemon games it seems. Is Smash Bros good for DS? I imagine it's just as it is on consoles yeah?

I dunno why but I've been hoooked on Virtua Tennis 4 (no longer available on Steam, but I have two extra copies for trade) for a while now. It's how I get my quick competitive fix I guess because the online community is fairly large and quite active.

I'm waiting for GTA V to drop in price before I buy it I decided.

[Spectere]

I beat Metroid: Other M the other day because I've made it my life's mission to play all of the Metroid games and, preferably, beat them. Holy fuck, that game is beyond awful. Even if you look past the awful voice "acting," horrendous dialogue, and the fact that they managed to make Samus a bloody wimp, what's left is still garbage. I can't even begin to fathom the amount of pole polishing it took for that game to get the relatively high marks that it did.

Aside from that, I just completed Mass Effect 2 and am moving on to ME3 after the long delay caused by that Sony-made distraction that I ended up getting. I really like ME3 so far! It undoes some of the dummying down that BioWare did in ME2 yet keeps a lot of the quality of life additions.

I also started playing StepMania a bit more recently. I can't quite do Salieri Strikes Back again, but it turns out I can still do quite a few keyboard charts. I think I need to start playing windowed or using smaller arrows/receptors. I have my gaming rig hooked up to a TV now, so keeping SM in fullscreen is a bit overwhelming and makes things surprisingly hard to read. Aside from that, playing on my current keyboard (Logitech G710+) is absolutely wonderful. Mechanical keyboards are incredible.

[vladgd]

I don't know if I would call what bioware did to mass effect 2, as "dumbing down", do you mean the stat/skill system?

In mass effect 1, you can put a point into shotguns, THIS ONE POINT ADDS LIKE 1% DAMAGE TO SHOTGUNS...yay? More like fucking boring, at least in 2, each point feels more significant with the final point being even more important. Plus all different versions of a weapon type are the exact same, in 2, and 3, there are different shotguns that FEEL DIFFERENT, in 1, they just have different damage values. If anything they made acquiring new weapons and leveling up more exciting in 2 and 3. Before you say I am biased against 1, 1 is my favorite game in the trilolgy, and one of my favorite games of all time, but it is a flawed game and I can't deny that. Excuse me if I implied what you said incorrectly though, but that's typically what people mean when they say bioware dumbed down the later games...

...as for mass effect 3, if you want to ignore some of the stupid things they did to the story, it has BY FAR the best most enjoyable combat in the trilogy. I probably put over 240 hours into the online multiplayer alone. It's a lot more active of a game, where me2 you were a lot more rooted to cover. I look forward to what they do to the multiplayer in the next mass effect game, because, it was enough of a success to where it will be in the next mass effect game.

For my pokeymans action, im closing in on the 4th gym. The last time I enjoyed a pokemon game as I am now was like...pokemon silver on the gbc...long time ago.

[Spectere]

No, I'm mostly fine with the skill system in ME2. The main two things that I'm referring to are the removal of weapon mods in ME2, as well as the ability to completely regenerate your health bar. The way that ME3 handles weapon mods is about as good as you can get with the removal of the inventory system (which I kind of miss...I feel that it should have been better organized, not more or less axed outright) and I find tiered health regeneration systems (i.e. health regenerates in 20% increments) to be far more fair than non-regenerating health and less silly than full regenerating health. The skill/stat system in ME3 blows both games away. I do feel that they scaled back ME2's skill system a bit too much (though at least it's more focused than ME1's) and had some really silly design decisions (like having to pick up incendiary ammo before you could get disruptor ammo...I mean, what?), but ME3's skill system just feels perfect to me.

I don't know about late game ME3, but the early game story is pretty phenomenal so far. The dread and foreboding is really kind of stifling in a way, though I doubt that'll last. Jennifer Hale's performance is certainly helping, too. I don't know about DudebroShep, but I like how she manages to sound both weary and optimistic if you take the paragon dialogue choices. Just awesome.

That being said, I did make the mistake of playing through the Omega DLC. Ugh. Fuck that shit. Never again.

[Sneaky]

Just started playing thru bioshock 1 again (PC this time). Will go thru the whole series. love love love love this game. Also made me aware and fall in love with Art Deco styling.

[vladgd]

There's a lot of issues with the story in mass effect 3, but the thing that annoys me the most is that damn kid. You play as commander Shepard, you have murdered thousands of people, and watched thousands more die, how is the death of one random kid mean any more than the other 10,000? It's just kind of pointless and shouldn't be in there.

Plus like yknow...the ending...maybe you don't know, but you will...it's just...yeah...

Multiplayer was great though, im going to defend that bitch forever. It's just a silly mode that doesn't need to adhere to story, since you can play as pretty much most of the races in the mass effect universe.

Want to be a collector? GO AHEAD! I would totally play more if I didn't need to put down more money for xbox live gold, I have it on pc, but frankly I hate the controls on pc and all of my unlocks are on 360 anyway.