[coding101]

WZ2 6/10

 

[SilverEars]

Been playing Forspoken, and it's actually not as bad as critics are making it out to be. It's better than expected. I actually like the gameplay and the open world. This may change, but the game seem promising so far. There's a lot of abilities you can aquire, and it feels like Metroidvania in a way due to different abilities to access areas you can't without those abilities.



The game does feel unfinished, but if it were to be fine tuned, it would have been much better received. So much potential.

 

[SilverEars]

Playing the hyped Baldur's Gate 3. I'm not sure if I would rate it as highly as the scores I see on metacritic. There seems to be a lot of hype behind this one. I do like that the game is faster paced than Divinity: Original Sin 2, which I thought was too slow to get going.

It's basically an old school D&D rpg, so it's not really new fundamentally in terms of gameplay. Just improved graphics. It just has the real western RPG feel and gameplay. It's very classical style, like old bioware games like Neverwinter Nights or Icewind Dale. This game probably caters to those into the old school western rpgs, I don't fit into such demographic since I wasn't much into these types of rpgs.

I don't think it's as great as it's hyped up to be, to be honest.

 

[Svperstar]

Playing the hyped Baldur's Gate 3. I'm not sure if I would rate it as highly as the scores I see on metacritic. There seems to be a lot of hype behind this one. I do like that the game is faster paced than Divinity: Original Sin 2, which I thought was too slow to get going.

It's basically an old school D&D rpg, so it's not really new fundamentally in terms of gameplay. Just improved graphics. It just has the real western RPG feel and gameplay. It's very classical style, like old bioware games like Neverwinter Nights or Icewind Dale. This game probably caters to those into the old school western rpgs, I don't fit into such demographic since I wasn't much into these types of rpgs.

I don't think it's as great as it's hyped up to be, to be honest.

It has big shoes to fill, there are many older gamers who still see Baldurs Gate 2 as the greatest RPG of all time, if not the best game ever. I've tried to finish BG2 twice, both times I had hardware failures and lost all of my progression and couldn't force myself to play it again. Has 6 acts, middle of Act 3 I already had 50-60 hours. Extremely dense game, every building on the map teleported you to some quest.

 

[Kukuk]

Playing Baldur's Gate 3, I have some mixed feelings about it, but I generally really like it.

I played the early access, despite it being silly to only play a portion of a story-driven game. That, too, I really liked, but my memory is a little foggy on the balancing of the game. My main qualm with the game in its current state is the combat accuracy. It's really killing my enjoyment of the combat, that is otherwise well balanced. I don't know what kind of math the game is doing, but 80% accuracy is not actually 80% accuracy. It's more like 10-20%. I'm finding myself having to savescum on basically every character's turn just to get a reasonable number of hits in, and it usually takes me 4-5 loads to land a hit rated at 80%. The game is obviously calculating something after the fact, that leads me to wonder why a: it gives you an accuracy rating at all, or b: it doesn't give you a proper accuracy rating, with all variables accounted for.

It's so bad, that if I were to accept the accuracy it was giving me, and just roll through a battle without loading saves, even just low-level trash would wipe the floor with me without them being touched.

I ended up lowering the difficulty to easy, or whatever it calls it, and while it didn't fix the accuracy issue, I can get away with some missed hits and not suffer too badly for it. More importantly, it smooths up the flow of the game so I don't feel like I'm just playing a save/load screen simulator.

The things I'm really liking about the game, though, are the story and all the ways you can nudge it. It doesn't seem like there's anything super transformative, but I like that there's lots of dialogue checks based on class, race, specialization, etc. Playing as a paladin, you can basically act as a judge, and people will defer to your judgement. Goes a long way in making your character feel like they are actually their class.

I'm also a little frustrated by the developers focusing on the sexual degeneracy of the game in the pre-release marketing. It's a very serious game, with nice character moments, and a lot of what people were looking for in a game. They didn't need to stoop so low.

If the accuracy issue could be fixed, this would easily be a 9/10 or so. As it is now, I think I'm more like 7.5/10.

It's also worth really driving home how good the graphics are, despite being what is basically just a top-down RPG. Some really impressive character models in particular.

It's also super-easy to run. Getting locked 120FPS on maxed settings on a 3080ti.

 

[SilverEars]

Certain things feels cheap about cRPGs, the save scumming, trial and error like experience. Just feels so dated. I guess if you didn't have save scumming, game would be unfair, because there are traps at times. Also, at times, it feels cheap to win combat in certain way because it would be too difficult otherwise. Like the fight against the skeletons, I stayed in the small room to lure them inside to kill them one by one, and it just feel like cheesing the AI. I knew if I played fairly by not using such tactic, I would be done for. Those are things I don't feel the designers take consideration when it comes to balance. It seems more of a trial and error like experience (doesn't feel tactical), and you keep reloading saves.

Also, I see the point about statistics in the game. I had a character that had 20% chance to hit, but he would hit more often than a character with higher chances. I don't like mechanics in which you roll a dice, and that determines the outcome. It doesn't feel like outcome is under my control. That process of stats has no skills tied to it. If I play an action game, I make a mistake the outcome unfavorable, and if I improve, the outcome is favorable. I want that kind of control, which makes me feel like I'm playing a game. Rolling a dice doesn't replace that experience, it feels too artificial and doesn't feel like I'm actually doing something.

I guess Tactics Ogre was about stats too, but I didn't mind it on that game for some reason.

In some ways, it does feel like a semi tactical game, since it's turn based and you have action points. But, it seems the experience is more weighted on the story and dialog options. I get a feeling that those into adventure games would be more into cRPGs. I've never been an adventure game type of person.

Lots of people say the characters are too sexy. lol. Definitely better design than FFXI. I couldn't stand the designs in the that game. This character designs feel more natural in this game.

 

[SilverEars]

I got into Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.

I got it awhile back for PS5, and couldn't get into it because the beginning stages seamed so generic, and then I gave it a 2nd try on the PC, and it's a lot more engaging once you progress further.

A lot of the game features are a bunch of gimmics. The weapons variety seems forced, and a lot of the weapons are just novelties without much distinction between them. Majority of the weapons seems pretty useless. they force you to use them because they limit the ammo on the weapons so you have to switch over.

There's really nothing original about the Ratchet & Clank series, and I've never been interested due to it looking like a standard platformer. However, the installment for the PS5 is a different story due to how it shows off the visual aesthetics that was achieved using the PS5 hardware. Visually, it's a great looking game, but the gameplay isn't really that original. The saving grace of the gameplay are the boss battles. Boss battles arn't bad, and challenging, that keep you on your toes. The game seams easy at first until you get to the bosses that challenges you, and that's when you respect the gameplay.

At first the characters seems a bit what you'd expect from an American CG animation, but as you progress, this game intrudes some new characters and they becomes quite interesting.

I never really liked Rachet and Clank very much because they seem so generic, but the new characters Revit and Kit are pretty interesting. Kit's dialog is pretty good, and quite cute, and Kit brings in interesting dynamics to the relationship with Ratchet. Revit is the female version of Ratchet, and she seem to have more interesting charcter than Ratchet. Revit and Clank works well together, and same for Ratchet and Kit.

The visuals and the new characters makes this game worth playing right now.

Revit, seems to be a well made character


This is when Ratchet meets kit for the first time. Their dialog turned out quite interesting. That helps the experience. Kit's dialog helps a lot.

 

[SilverEars]

BG3 is doing really well

 

[SilverEars]

played some Armored Core 6, and I'm not liking the mech gameplay style. I was hoping it would be something more than the typical AC games from the past. Not sure if it gets better or gets more engaging as you play. I expected more from FromSoft based on all the Soulslikes I've played.

I've been playing Asterigos after the game got patched a bit, and I enjoy it. It's a souls-like and I generally like souls-like gameplay if done decently enough. Game isn't bad, it can be improved by better enemy attack patterns.


Souls-like just feels like comfort food to me. Running around getting lost, getting one shotted by enemies, and looting just feel very engaging to me. BG3 is not enough action for me. lol I need to control every action.

I heard Immortals Fenyx Rising is similar to this game, so I will check it out.

 

[SilverEars]

I've been playing Asterigos after the game got patched a bit, and I enjoy it. It's a souls-like and I generally like souls-like gameplay if done decently enough. Game isn't bad, it can be improved by better enemy attack patterns.

I made a big mistake in this game. When you level up, make sure to put points to hp. I barely put any points to hp, and I was getting one shotted a lot, and I realized importance of hp when I fought the Titan boss. Also, make sure to kill the mimics, so that you can get elemental resistance trinket upgrades. This makes bosses much easier since they use elemental attacks. I really recommend this game if you're into Souls-likes.

 

[Kukuk]

Playing Starfield. Don't have much to say about it so far. I like it, but I'm definitely going to have to tweak some settings. This is how this area runs on an RTX 4090 with 75% resolution scaling with FSR...

 

[SilverEars]

Playing Starfield. Don't have much to say about it so far. I like it, but I'm definitely going to have to tweak some settings. This is how this area runs on an RTX 4090 with 75% resolution scaling with FSR...

I heard there's a mod to get DLSS. I get a feeling I won't like this game.

 

[ThanatosVI]

Playing Starfield. Don't have much to say about it so far. I like it, but I'm definitely going to have to tweak some settings. This is how this area runs on an RTX 4090 with 75% resolution scaling with FSR...

The first game that made me consider getting an XBox

 

[SilverEars]

The first game that made me consider getting an XBox

No PC?

 

[ThanatosVI]

No PC?

Only my Notebook for work.
I'm playing Videogames exclusively on console for nearly a decade now