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2021 VIDEO GAME CATCH ALL THREAD


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There's a lot of high level monsters just hanging around in the world, though. And despite it being the third game, you're a level one character at the start.

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I've been using a 13 year old computer that somehow still works well enough to work from home. But deities forbid I try to play even a short video it sounds like it wants to orbit into space. 

So after having enough of it I went and bought a beast of a gaming PC that's coming in 5 days.  I'm looking forward to playing tons of Fire Pro with mods again but not looking forward to my wife and I fighting over playing games on Steam.  All I know is it'll be so nice to get back into it. 

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Finished up Assassin's Creed II on my Xbox Series X (playing the Xbox One Remaster, with the FPS boosted to 60 fps) and it's outstanding.  You can tell it was originally a 360 game, but it looks phenomenal for what it is and AC at a stable 60 fps is buttery smooth.  It's pretty much everything you could ask for from the title.

I don't understand how people can't find anything to play.  I've got too much to play right now.  Lot of back compat titles I want to play or replay.  A lot of my favorite titles are back in the backlog pile because they have an optimization patch.

Starting Nier Replicant tonight.  Want to play RE Village, but..... like I said, already backed up.  Kinda hoping to squeeze in Mass Effect 1 after Replicant, but.... Biomutant.

Really hyped for Biomutant.  I kinda want to hold off a bit until they work out the bugs, but.... I'm more enthusiastic than I usually get.

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22 hours ago, Contentious C said:

You can't say "beast" and then not give specs.  PCs are the only socially acceptable dick-measuring contest left these days.

I'll have to pull up specs when I get a chance. But especially compared to the dinosaur I have anything will seem like a beast by comparison. 

@Contentious CQuick edit but I'm getting an HP Omen.  Specs are here and yeah I consider this a beast for sure.  https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-omen-gaming-desktop-amd-ryzen-5-5600g-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3060-1tb-ssd-jet-black/6454566.p?skuId=6454566

Edited by NikoBaltimore
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2064: Read Only Memories is a nice palate cleanser, much like Wreckfest, when I get frustrated or tired of The Division 2. And @Raziel was right, I don't think I can go back to original game now. This one takes everything they did well in the first and polishes it up, and it just FEELS better.

But anyway, 2064. It's basically a 16 bit "point & click" murder mystery game set in a cyberpunk future. I much rather play it on the Switch, when I had one, but I like getting trophies so I don't know that I could play multi-platform games on anything on than PS5. But, man, this game is just made for a handheld device obviously. It would look better too, since it wouldn't be stretched out like it is on my big ass TV. Much in the same way any other 16 bit games look on current TVs - still "good", but just different. The Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, Cosmic Star Heroine, CrossCode...

Oh, and speaking of that Street Fight collection. That shit is a lot harder than I remember it being when I was little. And I never played the very first game ('87), but holy shit does it suck.

EDIT: I should also mention that Wreckfest is currently bothering me for two reasons: I can't afford to buy new cars for some of the career mode challenges (and I didn't obtain a lawnmower from the very first challenge in Amateur for some reason?) and the online servers are broken. None of them work - you have to browse through the servers to join a match instead of just clicking on Quick Match, Race, etc.

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Yeah, that's pretty good.  Similar to mine if I'd assembled it today instead of 2-3 years ago. 

Witcher 3 is...a really big game.  Jesus.  It might be too big.  Kinda fun so far, but I'm only about level 8.  It seems like leveling is just really, really, really slow.  It's also weird/frustrating that I can't just try to mix things for potions.  I know that'd be rampantly abuse-worthy if you have the recipes from online, but I haven't seen a way of just combining ingredients.  Maybe I'm missing something obvious.

I'm also surprised there isn't a Witcher-specific thread in here.  Maybe it's time to toss him a coin...?

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5 hours ago, Contentious C said:

Yeah, that's pretty good.  Similar to mine if I'd assembled it today instead of 2-3 years ago. 

Witcher 3 is...a really big game.  Jesus.  It might be too big.  Kinda fun so far, but I'm only about level 8.  It seems like leveling is just really, really, really slow.  It's also weird/frustrating that I can't just try to mix things for potions.  I know that'd be rampantly abuse-worthy if you have the recipes from online, but I haven't seen a way of just combining ingredients.  Maybe I'm missing something obvious.

I'm also surprised there isn't a Witcher-specific thread in here.  Maybe it's time to toss him a coin...?

Others and myself have talked about the Witcher quite a bit, but the discussion is never really sustained enough to warrant another thread. What I will say is that your experience is the same as mine when I got started out and I nearly just gave up on the game. In fact, I think I did give up and then I went back to it and re-started since I didn't get far to begin with.

But after spending, shit, 60 or 70 or 80 hours with the Witcher 3, I think it's one of the best games ever. It is indeed HUGE. One of the problems with it is that there are so many systems (crafting, leveling, repairing, augmenting, selling, combining, recipes, potions, etc.) that you get hit with out the gate and it feels very intimidating. The other problem is that the opening area is very small and takes awhile to dig into and get through. Then, once you're done with that, the area opens up in such a huge way. You basically go from small area to giant area and it makes you feel a little lost. That leads to you stumbling into areas you're underleveled for and the game winds up feeling like Dark Souls with how much you can one or two shotted.

And you're only level 8. I'm not even done with the game and I'm level 40 or something I think. The level cap with the expansions is 100! You really start getting into a flow of things around level 10 or 15. You'll start to figure systems out some more, you'll learn the best way to make money, you'll get a little more powerful, and you'll get a better feel for where you should and shouldn't go.

Part of the reason why I've put in so many hours without coming close to finishing the game is that I'm totally enthralled with all of side stories/quests and I love wandering the environment and monster hunting. It's so fucking fun. I don't want to give anything away, but there's a storyline you go through that takes a long time with Triss Merigold. That storyline left me fucking bummed in a "It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday" type of way to completely elated. That itself could have been the main story and I would have been totally happy to be done there. Eventually I'm going to install this on my PS5 and transfer my save over.

Just stick with it. I think @Jijiand others lamented the combat system and yeah, combat can be a little janky at times, but after enough time I found myself liking it. The best feeling is encountering a giant fucking monster and using enough potions and tricks to escape by the skin of your teeth. In that way, it feels like Fallout or Skyrim in that you're making your own stories for yourself and it doesn't matter what storyline the game gives you. You're forging your own legacy and legend and that feels great.

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Yeah, I love that game despite not loving the combat mechanics. They're not bad but just more floaty/lacking a weightiness I prefer with my action games. My big hope is for the developers to go back back to Witcher as fast as possible to make some money after the shit show that was Cyberpunk 2077. Would love to play a remaster of the first two and a new game.

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Having never played the Witcher 1 or 2, I would be down for playing remasters of those. Although, I could just get them off the Steam store now if I wanted to, but my PC tends to be used more for Valorant or Dota 2.

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On 5/9/2021 at 6:10 PM, Eoae said:

I don't understand how people can't find anything to play.  I've got too much to play right now.  Lot of back compat titles I want to play or replay.  A lot of my favorite titles are back in the backlog pile because they have an optimization patch.

I owned a PS3 & PS4 but didn't play them much during their heyday.  I bought a Switch when the pandemic started, and that led to me playing more frequently and buying a PS5 and Xbox Series X after New Year's.  I'm somewhat intimidated by the number of games available through back compatibility and the number of games that come out each week for various platforms.  I'm putting together a want list for the three major consoles, but it's probably going to be unrealistically long.  Maybe 1,000 titles or more.  I know everyone's tastes are different, but I can't imagine not being able to find something to play.

Someone I follow on Twitter mentioned that he reviewed 100 games last year and was asked by a friend - who only plays triple-A games - if there were even 100 games released per year (the number has to be well over 1,000, right?)

As for what I'm playing, I finished NieR Replicant a few night ago.  Great stuff.  Highly recommended.  i started Octopath Traveler last night after realizing it was ported to Xbox in April.   Bought RE Village and Returnal, but I dunno when I'll have time to play them.  Probably playing Mass Effect 1 and Biomutant after I finish Octopath Traveler.  June looks stacked too. 

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51 minutes ago, Mark said:

Someone I follow on Twitter mentioned that he reviewed 100 games last year and was asked by a friend - who only plays triple-A games - if there were even 100 games released per year (the number has to be well over 1,000, right?)

 

Going by Wiki, just for the games that got pages: 2020: 306, 2019: 399, 2018: 425...

 

So yeah, there are a LOT of games that get released in a year.

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1 hour ago, Raziel said:

Going by Wiki, just for the games that got pages: 2020: 306, 2019: 399, 2018: 425...

 

So yeah, there are a LOT of games that get released in a year.

That's probably a very low estimate.  There were a thousand games or so released for the Switch in 2020.  If you sort Wiki's list of Switch titles by North American release date, you get about 1,025 titles released in 2020.  That sounds about right.  The Switch e-store has almost 5,400 games listed (since March 2017).

Add in all the titles that are released for Xbox, PlayStation, PC, and mobile (but not Switch), and I expect you come up with a couple thousand games per year.

 

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Probably just depends on if someone counts things like Doom 64 or Enter the Gungeon being added to Switch online, not all games added are new games but just ports. So even if they were added in 2020 most wouldn't consider that a new release. But still, there were a shit ton of games that came out across all consoles. How many are good is another matter.

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I actually finished all the dungeons and the final boss of Mortal Shell, way more than I ever thought I was capable of. I don't think I ever would have picked it up again if I didn't notice the free PS5 upgrade. Time to play a less anxiety-inducing game for a while before I try Bloodborne again, I feel skilled enough to take on that challenge now.

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Finally got Geralt to L20 and went out to Skellige, and HOLY CRAP does the game get weird there.  I mean, this was already a seriously fucked-up world on a lot of levels, but the sense of "something will jump out of nowhere and eat your face" goes from about a 4 to an 11 on those islands.  Galloped right up onto a Level 30 Cyclops and thought, "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK BACK UP HORSE".  And I'm digging it.

It's funny; I thought at first that the Detective Mode/Witcher Sense stuff would make it easier for me to get into the game, but having played enough of it now, I think it's a detractor more than anything.  I think it's mostly that it's not as substantive and well-done as Detective Mode was in the Arkham games.  I mean, that's clearly the idea they're going for, but it just doesn't work as well here when it feels like you're flailing about more randomly to find one set of markings or some trail.  Really, the movement and interface in general leaves something to be desired.  Geralt feels jerky and strange in nearly every situation.

Given the tone and the emotional impact of the main questline, I have to say I worry that playing the DLCs will feel...unimportant by comparison.  It's weird how much *better* this method of storytelling is than, say, the Bethesda games where you're the Big Damn Hero.  There, you can Save the Entire World but it seems less important than planting crops at some far-flung location you own.  Here, you fight like hell and hang on by a fingernail's grip, and yet you're still rather powerless when all is said and done, because it's not really about you.  It just feels like Ciri's got, well, something bad coming her way.  A friend of mine warned me years ago that the game was like this, and he wasn't wrong.

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I do enjoy that Geralt is basically annoyed by everybody. Every time the discussion of money comes up with someone that is poor, I wish there was a prompt to cut the person off, roll your eyes, tell them, "yes, I understand, you don't have any money, fine, I'll kill this monster and find your daughter for free and risk my life in the process, great, wonderful" and have the person respond with, "thanks, but you don't have to be a dick about it."

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The gruffness of the VA and the extent to which he gets annoyed really makes it seem like you could sub out large swaths of his dialogue for something Rick Sanchez said.  Geralt of Rickia would be a potentially funny meme.  Plus he keeps saying, "Show me what you got" to merchants.

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If anyone knows of a site still selling unused digital codes for Super Mario 3D All-Stars, let me know.  Thought I bought the game before it was delisted, but apparently not.  Physical copies are still easy to come by, so I bought the physical edition yesterday, but no one has unused codes (codes can still be redeemed even though the game was removed from the eshop).  Figured I might at least find a few on eBay at a markup, but no such luck.

Got a good laugh when I realized I wasn't sure where the cartridge slot was.  I bought my first Switch around August 2017 but never needed to insert a cartridge until now.  SM3DAS is my first (and hopefully only) physical Switch game.  

 

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Bought my most expensive video game ever a couple days ago - Animal Crossing New Horizons for the Switch.  Not that expensive, you say?  Well, it is when you don't have a Switch.  See, my wife played the life out of the 3DS Animal Crossing game* and started playing it again a couple weeks ago.  "Honey, I want the Switch version".  So, yeah, a new console - a nice Switch Lite - to play the one game.  I would be shocked if she ever plays anything else on it.  But if she plays it as much as the 3DS version, it'll still be an incredible value.  We previously did the same thing with a Wii and that also ended up being a good value.  The last 3 Nintendo consoles I've owned have been to play Animal Crossing.  Only the Wii ever played anything else.

* - She collected every single item in the game and still kept playing.  She found some 300-page online guide online and printed it out and stuck it in a binder.  Literally the only console game she's ever gotten into.

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I bought an x-box series s because I'm not going to have a 4K TV any time soon and here's some things I've been playing on it, with brief reviews.

MLB THE SHOW 21 [3] As good as you'd expect.
NHL 94 REWIND [3] Also as good as you'd expect.
CASTLEVANIA SYMPHONY OF THE NIGHT [2] Redownloaded thru X360 backwards compat. I have learned in the last few years that repetition causes deep dread in me, and hitting the upside down castle made me want to run away from civilization so I tried some other stuff.
ORI AND THE BLIND FOREST [1] This didn't work for me at all.
HOLLOW KNIGHT [4] This did. It might be the single best action game I have seen in my life, I will keep you posted as I play through it.
CROSSCODE [3] On recommendation from my brother. I like parts of it very much. The action loop involves plotting encounters in a line in order to increase the rarity of the drop rating. Neat! Except the game expects some amount of grinding and that hits the repetition thing.
JUDGMENT [4] As someone who is completely done with stories about saving the world, a competently written crime drama works alright. I've already been rewatching a lot of Columbo so I'm in this mindset already.
 

Edited by Lamp, broken circa 1988
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5 hours ago, Tabe said:

Bought my most expensive video game ever a couple days ago - Animal Crossing New Horizons for the Switch.  Not that expensive, you say?  Well, it is when you don't have a Switch.  See, my wife played the life out of the 3DS Animal Crossing game* and started playing it again a couple weeks ago.  "Honey, I want the Switch version".  So, yeah, a new console - a nice Switch Lite - to play the one game.  I would be shocked if she ever plays anything else on it.  But if she plays it as much as the 3DS version, it'll still be an incredible value.  We previously did the same thing with a Wii and that also ended up being a good value.  The last 3 Nintendo consoles I've owned have been to play Animal Crossing.  Only the Wii ever played anything else.

* - She collected every single item in the game and still kept playing.  She found some 300-page online guide online and printed it out and stuck it in a binder.  Literally the only console game she's ever gotten into.

That sounds like my sister-in-law.  I'm not sure how much she plays now that she's busy with two kids but the only reason they got a Switch was for that game.  Last I heard she plays it as much as she can but life gets in the way.  Though on past systems she would get pretty much everything and was even into the mobile game they have.

As for me I see that there's a deal for Gamepass where I think it's $1 for 3 months or something like that.  I checked the titles and while there's some games I wish were on there compared to the Xbox version there's more than enough for me to go nuts with it.  And for Steam I'm looking to set up Steam Link on our TV.  It's all well and good to play like crazy but with it being upstairs I'm looking for ways where we can play and check things out together.

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2 hours ago, Lamp, broken circa 1988 said:

CROSSCODE [3] On recommendation from my brother. I like parts of it very much. The action loop involves plotting encounters in a line in order to increase the rarity of the drop rating. Neat! Except the game expects some amount of grinding and that hits the repetition thing.

I love CrossCode, I'm slowly making my way through it on PS5. I have to level up quite a bit before I hit the first main dungeon on the mountain, though.

The collector's edition from Strictly Limited is beautiful and I rock a Lea keychain now. ?

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9 hours ago, Tabe said:

Bought my most expensive video game ever a couple days ago - Animal Crossing New Horizons for the Switch.  Not that expensive, you say?  Well, it is when you don't have a Switch.  See, my wife played the life out of the 3DS Animal Crossing game* and started playing it again a couple weeks ago.  "Honey, I want the Switch version".  So, yeah, a new console - a nice Switch Lite - to play the one game.  I would be shocked if she ever plays anything else on it.  But if she plays it as much as the 3DS version, it'll still be an incredible value.  We previously did the same thing with a Wii and that also ended up being a good value.  The last 3 Nintendo consoles I've owned have been to play Animal Crossing.  Only the Wii ever played anything else.

* - She collected every single item in the game and still kept playing.  She found some 300-page online guide online and printed it out and stuck it in a binder.  Literally the only console game she's ever gotten into.

Be happy your wife was satisfied with the Switch Lite.  Mine has cycled through a couple different ones.  2017 Switch (used, first one I bought) -> Switch Lite (meh) -> Animal Crossing LE (too girly) -> Current model with the better battery.  Of course, just as I finished buying/selling her discarded Switches, the Mario LE came out and I replaced mine.  She plays other "cutesey" games once in a while, but mostly just plays AC.

Also, I know where my cartridge port is, but I've never used it.  I only buy physical editions anymore if the digital edition gets delisted.  3D All-Stars is my one and only retail Switch game, but it's still shrink-wrapped.  I'll only use it if something happens to my Switch and I can't re-download the game.

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