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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Jun 16, 2023 18:40:47 GMT
18. Quake 4 (PC) I remember this not being well received at the time (presumably being so similar/close to Doom 3) but I quite enjoyed it. Unusually for an id Software game it has not aged well at all but thankfully someone has created a HD mod that improves the graphics and I think it looks great - it has that wow factor Doom 3 had back in the day. There are some minor instances where your flashlight doesn't react to the shadows but these are few and far between and I think what your getting overall is worth it. One of the issues I have with the game is that it isn't until the midpoint when it decides you don't need to be in a squad anymore that it begins to feel like a proper 90s shooter and you can tear along corridors blasting everything with your grenade launcher (including yourself) is just great fun and maybe what it should have been from the beginning. I'm also not a fan of bodies and blood/particle effects disappearing after a few seconds (which I assume was performance related at the time) but is a bit jarring. Anyway I loved my time going back to kick some Strogg ass. 8/10 The vehicle sections really are a bit painful, but other than that I agree. It takes some hours to come into its own, but after a while it did become quite enjoyable. From what I remember it takes a while to get to some of the better environments and more options becoming available is often helpful to make games more interesting/fun. FPS' are no exception.
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Post by simple on Jun 17, 2023 11:57:06 GMT
I’m a big Quake 4 apologist. It didn’t break any new ground but it was an absolutely solid fps that was a lot of fun to play and at the time was a modern polish of a recent classic.
Star Trek Resurgence
Its basically TellTale Star Trek in all but name. It also looks and plays like its from the peak TellTale era on the Xbox360. Lots of bugs and some questionable gameplay choices but its also the perfect format for a Star Trek game and one of the two strands feels very authentically 90s Star Trek.
7/10 if you’re a Trekkie, probably 5/10 if you’re not.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2023 12:28:25 GMT
Part of the reason Quake 4 gets a bad rap is the godawful 360 version, which ran like a slideshow (like, the entire time) and was particularly galling when you had also had the likes of Call of Duty 2 proving that the hardware was more than capable of handling bleeding-edge FPS's. It was only the inclusion of Quake 2 (which was excellent) that stopped me from getting an instant refund - it's kind of staggering Quake 4 was allowed to ship in that state honestly.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Jun 17, 2023 14:58:28 GMT
Guitar Hero 3 - Legends of Rock. I beat the final boss on Medium difficulty (hell yeah!! ) and there's no chance I'm gonna be able to play the game on hard, so I'm counting that as complete.
I dunno if it's possible to give Guitar Hero a rating. It's guitar hero. It's 0/10 when you're stuck on a song and 11/10 when you beat it.
I think the only other Wii guitar game that was released in Japan was Guitar Hero Aerosmith, for some reason. So it may be on to that next.
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Post by uiruki on Jun 17, 2023 15:33:29 GMT
Part of the reason Quake 4 gets a bad rap is the godawful 360 version, which ran like a slideshow (like, the entire time) and was particularly galling when you had also had the likes of Call of Duty 2 proving that the hardware was more than capable of handling bleeding-edge FPS's. It was only the inclusion of Quake 2 (which was excellent) that stopped me from getting an instant refund - it's kind of staggering Quake 4 was allowed to ship in that state honestly. The early part of the game is also the weakest part of the game - which is a bit of a rare miss for Raven.
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Post by simple on Jun 17, 2023 17:38:37 GMT
They must have patched the shit out of it because I remember it being fine on 360 when I replayed it. Had played it on PC at launch originally.
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Frog
Full Member
Posts: 7,058
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Post by Frog on Jun 17, 2023 20:06:10 GMT
Totk
Well almost finished but abandoned on the last boss due to a shit design choice. It's such a weird game for me, there are times when I'm playing it and having a great time, other times it's really annoying me. Swings from an 8 down to a 6 for me quite regularly. There is some genuinely brilliant stuff and some absolute shit.
The temples were an improvement on the whole over botw for me, and the shrines are much better.
The combat isn't great but the combat sandbox is excellent.
Decaying weapons are still shit, especially when you fuse something as rare as a diamond to something and it breaks in no time.
Horses don't control too well and are generally a waste of time. Quest rewards are often underwhelming
The building is really good and makes for some great puzzles, especially when you rig together a piece of junk that shouldn't work but does.
I didn't enjoy the underground, the blight mechanic is annoying and it looked really bad.
Story was really good and I enjoyed watching it unfold.
Rainy climbing should be locked in a box, set fire to, driven over by a car and then the remnants launched into a black hole.
The companion abilities were really good but the execution of using them is a bit too clunky.
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Post by Samildanach on Jun 18, 2023 9:46:02 GMT
Dishono(u)red 2 So this got two playthroughs, one as a stealthy Emily, the other as a murderous Corvo. I had really enjoyed the first game and its dlcs years before, but strangely was only infrequently truly enjoying myself with this one. Karnacka just didn't hold a candle in atmosphere to the plague-ridden Dunwall, the home base wasn't anywhere near as interesting and the storyline didn't really have any surprises. That said it did have some remarkably good sections, namely the Jindosh Manor and the Crack in the Slab mission, both incredibly clever and well-designed levels. I was very disappointed that the final level was almost no different whether I was in high or low chaos, as the first game could be all out War between your targets or a quieter more stealthy affair. I'll still play Death of the Outsider at a later date, as I did have fun..it was just no where as impactful as its predecessor. 7/10
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Post by Aunt Alison on Jun 18, 2023 10:11:25 GMT
I love Dishonored 2 and Karnaca
Arriving for the first time in the burning sun, rotten fish and flies everywhere, blood in the water, leathery skinned people chatting and working away - I could smell the atmosphere. I love the start of the museum mission where there's some people unpacking stuff from a boat. There's something about it that really captures that feeling of it being the dead of night. Each mission has you exploring the streets and sneaking over and through buildings. It really gave a sense of seeing Karnaca. There's one mission that starts at night and I remember just sitting on the boat looking out at the Karnaca skyline, listening to the waves for ages. Love that boat. I like any location that's by the sea and that's pretty much everywhere in Dishonored. The docks in Thief Deadly Shadows is another really good one
Returning to Dunwall at the end and seeing what's become of it while you were away, hearing the witch singing in the streets was another great moment
I sometimes think Billie and Daud are the better and more interesting protagonists than Emily and Corvo, especially if you play Death of the Outsider. The Knife of Dunwall together with Death of the Outsider is pretty much a complete game in itself
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Jun 18, 2023 10:54:51 GMT
It's more replayable than the first one and I enjoyed it near as much, but story-wise it is very much inferior. Especially the Dunwall bracket just felt unneeded and not really well executed. The setup is okay and it did work emotionally - at least for me - , but let's be honest, it's mostly just an excuse for the chosen character to be able to forget about Dunwall and the Empire and be allowed to go to the new game setting.
From what I remember Delilah and her rule have almost no presence in the story and Karnaca itself was more about just that part of the Empire. When the player gets back to Dunwall it turns out that the Empire outside the city really doesn't exist. Just Delilah, some Witches and a whole bunch of incompetent Overseers. The rest of the power structure doesn't seem to care what is going on there.
The impression wasn't improved by Billy and Delilah both getting their "tragic backstory/reveal/whatever"-cliche shoehorned in at some point.
The whole things seems comparatively way more incoherent narratively.
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malek86
Junior Member
Pomegranate Deseeder
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Post by malek86 on Jun 18, 2023 11:36:22 GMT
Part of the reason Quake 4 gets a bad rap is the godawful 360 version, which ran like a slideshow (like, the entire time) and was particularly galling when you had also had the likes of Call of Duty 2 proving that the hardware was more than capable of handling bleeding-edge FPS's. It was only the inclusion of Quake 2 (which was excellent) that stopped me from getting an instant refund - it's kind of staggering Quake 4 was allowed to ship in that state honestly. I tried replaying it on PC recently, with ultrawide and 60fps and all that jazz, and it was still terrible. I do seem to remember it gets better after the stroggification, but the first part was a bit too long to bear going through again.
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Post by JuniorFE on Jun 18, 2023 12:19:06 GMT
Frog what was the problem with the last boss, if I may ask? (just put it in a spoiler or something for those that haven't finished it) Also apparently the weapons gain a flat 25 extra durability no matter what you fuse to them (Gerudo weapons aside), which... doesn't really make sense to me. A simple boko horn gives the same extra durability as a diamond or Silver Lynel horn?
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Quasi
New Member
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Post by Quasi on Jun 18, 2023 16:15:28 GMT
It's more replayable than the first one and I enjoyed it near as much, but story-wise it is very much inferior. Especially the Dunwall bracket just felt unneeded and not really well executed. The setup is okay and it did work emotionally - at least for me - , but let's be honest, it's mostly just an excuse for the chosen character to be able to forget about Dunwall and the Empire and be allowed to go to the new game setting. From what I remember Delilah and her rule have almost no presence in the story and Karnaca itself was more about just that part of the Empire. When the player gets back to Dunwall it turns out that the Empire outside the city really doesn't exist. Just Delilah, some Witches and a whole bunch of incompetent Overseers. The rest of the power structure doesn't seem to care what is going on there. The impression wasn't improved by Billy and Delilah both getting their "tragic backstory/reveal/whatever"-cliche shoehorned in at some point. The whole things seems comparatively way more incoherent narratively. Agreed with every word of this. It's all very videogamey [Ed. note: derogatory] and this extends to Death of the Outsider, too. I have wondered if it's something to do with Raphael Colantonio having left for Austin, considering how comparatively interesting and thoughtful the writing is in Prey.
Though it is a testament to the superlative quality of literally everything else in the game that the experience is only soured a little bit. Like Aunt Allison, Karnaca was love at first sight for me, despite initially being skeptical that anything could live up to Dunwall.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Jun 18, 2023 16:47:38 GMT
A quick search (imdb) turns up...
Sachka Duval ... (lead narrative designer) Terri Brosius ... (external writer) & Austin Grossman ... (external writer) Harvey Smith Cara Ellison (writer)
(directed by Colantonio & Smith)
...for Dishonored 2 and...
Harvey Smith ... (storytelling) & Ricardo Bare ... (storytelling) & Anthony Huso ... (storytelling) & Raphael Colantonio ... (storytelling) & Todd Vaughn ... (storytelling) & Christophe Carrier ... (storytelling) Austin Grossman ... (writer) & Terri Brosius ... (writer) Ricardo Bare ... (additional writing) & Anthony Huso ... (additional writing) & Christophe Carrier ... (additional writing) & Steve Powers ... (additional writing)
(directed by Colantiono & Smith)
...for Dishonored.
Seems odd that there would be so many more writers on the first one...
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Post by Samildanach on Jun 18, 2023 17:12:15 GMT
It's more replayable than the first one and I enjoyed it near as much, but story-wise it is very much inferior. Especially the Dunwall bracket just felt unneeded and not really well executed. The setup is okay and it did work emotionally - at least for me - , but let's be honest, it's mostly just an excuse for the chosen character to be able to forget about Dunwall and the Empire and be allowed to go to the new game setting. From what I remember Delilah and her rule have almost no presence in the story and Karnaca itself was more about just that part of the Empire. When the player gets back to Dunwall it turns out that the Empire outside the city really doesn't exist. Just Delilah, some Witches and a whole bunch of incompetent Overseers. The rest of the power structure doesn't seem to care what is going on there. The impression wasn't improved by Billy and Delilah both getting their "tragic backstory/reveal/whatever"-cliche shoehorned in at some point. The whole things seems comparatively way more incoherent narratively. Agreed with every word of this. It's all very videogamey [Ed. note: derogatory] and this extends to Death of the Outsider, too. I have wondered if it's something to do with Raphael Colantonio having left for Austin, considering how comparatively interesting and thoughtful the writing is in Prey.
Though it is a testament to the superlative quality of literally everything else in the game that the experience is only soured a little bit. Like Aunt Allison, Karnaca was love at first sight for me, despite initially being skeptical that anything could live up to Dunwall.
I agree with all this. Maybe I missed something, but the first time I was made aware that Delilah was immortal was when the player characters discussed how to discover the source of her immortality...how did anyone know at that point? It's still a good fun video game set in a still very interesting world...but nothing beats that long trek from the Dunwall Outskirts after your betrayal, creeping through plague-riddled derelicts while avoiding the Half-life-esq killer sentries on long mechanical legs, crawling out of the horrendous pit where they had been chucking the tens of thousands of corpses and finally arriving back at the Hound Pits Pub in one seamless stretch (bar one mission end screen at the entrance to the latter). All that after you had seemingly killed the primary target. Near perfect. To be fair my 7/10 is just a personal rating that comes from how much it compares to the first game. As a game compared to all other PS4 games it would probably be a 8.5/10.
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Ulythium
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Lily-livered
Posts: 6,800
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Post by Ulythium on Jun 18, 2023 17:24:08 GMT
I'm very much of the 'Dishonored > Dishonored 2' persuasion myself, and easily prefer Dunwall to Karnaca in terms of settings; however, the sequel definitely added some new features that improved upon the original, from non-lethal drop attacks to voiced protagonists.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Jun 18, 2023 17:28:09 GMT
It's always seemed silly to me that they left it to Sam to poison Corvo and then dispose of the body Not sure why they thought he'd go along with their scheme I found that part to be the low point of the game- it just goes on so long and doesn't have a main location, so feels a bit indistict. The choice you're given at the pub to kill or incapacitate all the guards is the most game-iest of gamey choices as well
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Post by Aunt Alison on Jun 18, 2023 17:32:58 GMT
I'm very much of the 'Dishonored > Dishonored 2' persuasion myself, and easily prefer Dunwall to Karnaca in terms of settings; however, the sequel definitely added some new features that improved upon the original, from non-lethal drop attacks to voiced protagonists. Disonored 2 is easily the better game for me. Bigger in scope to the point where it makes the first game feel small in comparison. It's everything a sequel should be- take everything from the first game and make it bigger and better
I still love the first one though
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2023 20:54:21 GMT
I liked 2, and thought 1 was okay. So 2 better.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2023 23:25:38 GMT
Part of the reason Quake 4 gets a bad rap is the godawful 360 version, which ran like a slideshow (like, the entire time) and was particularly galling when you had also had the likes of Call of Duty 2 proving that the hardware was more than capable of handling bleeding-edge FPS's. It was only the inclusion of Quake 2 (which was excellent) that stopped me from getting an instant refund - it's kind of staggering Quake 4 was allowed to ship in that state honestly. I tried replaying it on PC recently, with ultrawide and 60fps and all that jazz, and it was still terrible. I do seem to remember it gets better after the stroggification, but the first part was a bit too long to bear going through again. Yeah it makes me wonder how many people who played Quake 4 way back when are completely unaware of the twist to this day after losing patience with it and moving on to something else. I actually like the idea of a game holding back something amazing until it takes you by surprise after a few hours play (another example is Allied Assault with the D-Day mission) but it can have some obvious drawbacks.
I remember wishing that there had been a 360 version of Doom 3 rather than the horrible port of Quake 4 it did get (the OG XBox Doom 3 was super impressive but unavoidably compromised). Of course that turned out to be a monkey's paw type scenario when the BFG edition eventually arrived with it's awful overly bright graphics, survival horror aspects neutered to the point of non-existence and the feeling that it was at least 6 years too late.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Jun 19, 2023 5:31:51 GMT
I'm very much of the 'Dishonored > Dishonored 2' persuasion myself, and easily prefer Dunwall to Karnaca in terms of settings; however, the sequel definitely added some new features that improved upon the original, from non-lethal drop attacks to voiced protagonists. Disonored 2 is easily the better game for me. Bigger in scope to the point where it makes the first game feel small in comparison. It's everything a sequel should be- take everything from the first game and make it bigger and better
I still love the first one though
Well, as said: It has more options and replayability and some of the maps are bigger and more impressive, with some pretty cool ideas thrown in. But it doesn't come together as well as the first one. Mostly because of the schizophrenic story and with the ship as the only recurring location. From what I remember there are also no public announcements that keep reminding you of the story progress in the first game.
Though it's true that the thing with Sam is a bit questionable. I don't remember how that turned out in High Chaos, but I doubt it made more sense.
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rhaegyr
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Post by rhaegyr on Jun 19, 2023 11:17:29 GMT
I thought the stories in both games were pretty poor tbh but the second game had much better level design and player freedom - prefer it to the first game by some distance.
The 'twist' in the original was telegraphed beyond belief too - you could see it coming a mile off.
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Post by simple on Jun 19, 2023 11:40:51 GMT
Dishonored 2 crew - how forgiving is it when your stealth breaks down and you have to fight it out?
I remember the first was always like ‘sure you can do it but its going to feel so wrong that you might as well just reload the save’ but I like the idea if actually being free to mix stealth and carnage more authentically
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wunty
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Post by wunty on Jun 19, 2023 12:05:42 GMT
No idea. Every time I fucked my stealth up I reloaded. I played both Dishonored games as no kill ghost runs. I think the reason was that the few times I tried to fight my way out, I realised the combat was abysmal. These games are brilliant, but only when you're stealthing imo.
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Post by simple on Jun 19, 2023 12:08:48 GMT
First person melee always just feels like you’re mashing your face into their torso while hammering buttons that don’t carry the heft of the attack to me
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Post by kilters on Jun 19, 2023 12:25:39 GMT
Soma 8/10
This has aged very well. Genuinely scary, good plot, great voice acting and a fantastic setting.
It's the first game in a long time that has given me proper frights thanks to some excellent sound design. Really recommend this.
Technically it was a bit buggy on Xbox but the cloud saves work on the PC version too which had no issues and 60fps to boot.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Jun 19, 2023 12:37:52 GMT
You're extremely deadly in Dishonored if you want to be. If you get caught, you can punch a guard in the throat and then choke or kill them, even if they're facing you. Personally if I get caught, I just blink away. I never quicksave so I have to just deal with whatever happens
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malek86
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Post by malek86 on Jun 19, 2023 17:50:28 GMT
The Eyes of Ara (PC)
One of them Myst clones. While the game starts out easy enough, in the second half it really ramps up the difficulty, and not always in a good way. Puzzles become unintuitive and the solutions kinda like guesswork, and pixel hunting becomes much more common too. I had to reach for the walkthrough a few times in the third chapter, and the solution always made me think there was no way I could have imagined it on my own. Shame because the fist half is very good, just the right mix of easy and hard.
The castle is also lovingly rendered and nice to explore, even if the controls aren't too great.
7/10
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wunty
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Post by wunty on Jun 19, 2023 19:11:54 GMT
Soma 8/10 This has aged very well. Genuinely scary, good plot, great voice acting and a fantastic setting. It's the first game in a long time that has given me proper frights thanks to some excellent sound design. Really recommend this. Technically it was a bit buggy on Xbox but the cloud saves work on the PC version too which had no issues and 60fps to boot. Soma is one of these rare games that I still think about even years after finishing. My one gripe is I feel the ending should have occurred the other way around and would have had greater impact. Apart from that, it's a bloody brilliant game with some really fucking creepy moments.
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Post by Aunt Alison on Jun 19, 2023 19:21:40 GMT
The other thing with Soma is the weird way it handles dying. I've watched a couple of people play it and the reaction is always the same - confusion
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