Discussion What's your favourite video game you've been playing?

[Diogo505]

I've been playing Doom Eternal and Devil May Cry 5 at 4K on my laptop, for some reason it can still run games at the native resolution despite having only a 1070 and being 3 years old.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I've been having at the Halo Master Chief Collection lately. Currently several missions into Combat Evolved Anniversary. I decided to do them in order of release, vs the story chronologically. Really some nice graphics upgrades I must say. Same old quirks remain though, I could never figure out where that damn control room was for some reason, then when I finally figured out how to get there, no waves. Game is vague and misleading in ways.

Really looking forward o Reach though.

 

[Gman450]

I played Halo: Reach first in the MCC. I got onboard as soon as it was available. After that I played Combat Evolved. Yeah, they did a great job with the graphics. When switching between the old and new style, the difference is very much apparent. I remember playing the original many years ago, but I didn't really notice that the graphics were that old...
Halo 3: ODST has released recently and I have to play it soon.

Yeah, the game doesn't exactly tell you where to go most of the time. There's a lot of copy-pasting involved which makes it much much harder to navigate in some of the later levels. Repetition will become less over the following games, don't worry.

I started a first person perspective playthrough for GTA V last week. It's game changing once you install some mods to fix the FOV. Feels like a completely different game when in first person. You start noticing a lot of details you have never noticed before. I drive, shoot, fly planes, all in first person. Shooting IMO, is harder as third person cover doesn't really work since you can't see your enemies anymore...

 

[Frag Maniac]

I played Halo: Reach first in the MCC. I got onboard as soon as it was available. After that I played Combat Evolved. Yeah, they did a great job with the graphics. When switching between the old and new style, the difference is very much apparent. I remember playing the original many years ago, but I didn't really notice that the graphics were that old...
Halo 3: ODST has released recently and I have to play it soon.

Yeah, the game doesn't exactly tell you where to go most of the time. There's a lot of copy-pasting involved which makes it much much harder to navigate in some of the later levels. Repetition will become less over the following games, don't worry.

I started a first person perspective playthrough for GTA V last week. It's game changing once you install some mods to fix the FOV. Feels like a completely different game when in first person. You start noticing a lot of details you have never noticed before. I drive, shoot, fly planes, all in first person. Shooting IMO, is harder as third person cover doesn't really work since you can't see your enemies anymore...

Yeah the older Halo games will say something like hold off waves of enemies while defending the control room as the mission description for Assault on the Control Room, but that never happens actually. Instead you fight your way through very similar rooms, and if you're tricked into thinking you have to find a certain room and defend it as per the description, you're constantly thinking you're lost. There was at least two rooms with a small room suspended above which I thought I had to get into somehow to flip a certain switch or something to start the waves, so I wasted much time trying to jump to them. I even watched a play through of that mission on YT after I finished it to see if I missed anything. Apparently I did because you can actually get to the control room on foot. Instead I worked my way back to the snowy narrow path where Cortana first mentions the control room, and grabbed a Banshee there that wasn't wrecked and just flew it across to the control room. This tactic however I will use if I ever take on Legendary mode, as you can avoid some heavies by it, including Hunters. Currently I'm only playing on Normal mode. I seem to recall the part that always was tough for me believe it not was that damned "Flood" enemy, which basically looks like yeast attacking you. It's easy to run out of ammo there, or get caught reloading and die.

As far as first person in GTA V, I tried it a bit once, but never with an FOV mod. It's funny that I used to always prefer first person mode, but I've gotten so used to 3rd person that as long as it's done well, I actually prefer it now. I don't always use it for seeing around corners though. In Max Payne 3 I'd often not even use the cover system because it would expose you too much when you'd pop out to shoot. Instead I'd just crouch near cover and shoot around or over it. It was easy to do in that game because the physical buffer around and over objects was very tight. In many games, you have to shoot a ways away from the actual cover or the bullets won't pass by it, which I hate.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I played Halo: Reach first in the MCC. I got onboard as soon as it was available. After that I played Combat Evolved. Yeah, they did a great job with the graphics. When switching between the old and new style, the difference is very much apparent. I remember playing the original many years ago, but I didn't really notice that the graphics were that old...
Halo 3: ODST has released recently and I have to play it soon.

Well I finished Halo 1, but I have to ask, did you have a problem at any point getting Halo 2 Anniversary to launch? The Outskirts mission kept crashing to desktop for me with a UE-4 Fatal Error about 2/3 way into the loading screen. I checked online and most others were having this problem. There were a few that claimed certain things fixed it, the one I tried that seemed to work at first was just launching Outskirts from the Mission Select option, but shortly into the mission I had the same fatal error crash. It is said 343 are aware of the problem and are "looking into it", but still no word on a possible fix.

I'm not sure what to think of Halo 2 so far, as I don't think I've ever played it. As far as I recall I've only played Halo 3 with the Vista hack, but not all the way through as far as I remember. The cutscenes in Halo 2 Anniversary are amazing, and very detailed. They rival most any of the cutscenes of games with top graphics. However the level design and mission length so far seems ridiculously plain and short. I was really hoping to play this series out in order of launch though, so I'm reluctant to skip to Halo 3. No telling how long it will take to fix this problem with Halo 2 crashing though, if it's fixed at all.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Well Halo 2 Anniversary ran fine on Outskirts mission once I reverted from 4K DSR to native 1080p. Once I got to the next mission though, going back to 4K DSR was no problem, but there is a problem caused by trying to resume a session after quitting via the Continue tab. It makes for some pretty bad crashes, including a blue screen one that had that hard lock audio sound.

One thing that was strange though, is when I let the game continue through after completing prior missions, the Delta Halo mission loaded with the old graphics in both the cutscene and gameplay. It seems 343 needs to do some major patching here, but as long as I quit at the start of the next mission, then go back to it via Mission Select, it's fine.

As far as short missions and plain level design, that went away after the first mission or two. It really does get a lot better, and so far has a lot more variety to the environment and gameplay than Halo 1. It's was kinda cool being able to play as Arbiter in much of it, but between the chaos going on between the factions, and being able to cloak, it was pretty easy to cloak or even bunny hop past them. Rather unexpected for a Halo game.

Here's the last part of the Hunter Battle in the Gravemind mission. The design of the
environment in this mission reminded me a lot of the Urdak mission in Doom Eternal.

I'm now a couple missions into Halo 3, and the graphics, though less in need of a makeover like Halo 1 & 2 were, are a bit of a letdown from the 1 & 2 Anniversary editions. Not hugely so though.

 

[Gman450]

...it was pretty easy to cloak or even bunny hop past them. Rather unexpected for a Halo game...

...I'm now a couple missions into Halo 3, and the graphics, though less in need of a makeover like Halo 1 & 2 were, are a bit of a letdown from the 1 & 2 Anniversary editions. Not hugely so though.

I've run past a few sections in 1 and 2 mainly when I felt the level was dragging on a lot more than it should. Sometimes you're able to traverse a large distance by simply avoiding all the enemies and just running straight to the exit of one room to the next. But when you do that, the game doesn't trigger checkpoints so if you die at the last section, you are still brought to the very first segment. So it really is better to just wipe out all the enemies from one room before you proceed to the next. I've got lucky 3-4 times and I was able to skip a chunk of some levels this way.

Halo 3 had the least repetition of the three, IMO. Yeah, the graphics, especially the character models look really dated. Gameplay largely remained the same although I really had enough of dual wielding in these games. I am glad they got rid of it in the subsequent ones. Dual wielding just didn't seem like an option to me as using a single weapon just didn't kill enemies quick enough. Adding to that, you lose the second wielded weapon when you enter a vehicle or throw a grenade etc made the mechanic just feel awful to me...

 

[Frag Maniac]

Halo 3 had the least repetition of the three, IMO. Yeah, the graphics, especially the character models look really dated. Gameplay largely remained the same although I really had enough of dual wielding in these games. I am glad they got rid of it in the subsequent ones. Dual wielding just didn't seem like an option to me as using a single weapon just didn't kill enemies quick enough. Adding to that, you lose the second wielded weapon when you enter a vehicle or throw a grenade etc made the mechanic just feel awful to me...

Yeah, 3 has it's quirks. I'm not sure how to engage dual wielding in it. I assume it's supposed to be tap the C key when near a like weapon, but that doesn't do it like in Halo 2. I just finished Covenant, and captured the last part called Journey's End. I thought that part was pretty good, especially the Scarab battles. I also finally found and used one of those guns the Hunters have. Don't know why I can never pick them up off off one of their corpses. Too late to upload it tonight, I'll do it tomorrow.

 

[Gman450]

I'm not sure how to engage dual wielding in it. I assume it's supposed to be tap the C key when near a like weapon, but that doesn't do it like in Halo 2.

I think you have to hold down the 'C' button to grab the second and dual wield. Not just press.
You're playing it without dual wielding? What do you think about the enemies? Do they die just as quick with a single weapon?

I finished Dishonored 2 today. Much like the original game I played many years ago, I've got nothing but praise. Level design was amazing and a couple of them were absolutely spectacular! You can practically play this game without killing or alerting anyone. I ended up killing maybe 0- 2 enemies per level but as long as you get 'low chaos' status when the mission ends, you're good to go. You're given a lot of passive options so as to get the 'good' ending and I of course went in that direction.

You also have a lot of powers at your disposal, most of which I didn't end up using. I've had way too many runes by end game and did not spend them to new powers/skills. I spent a lot of time during the first 4-5 missions collecting every bone charm and rune I could find. Some bone charms are very useful especially later on but others are just chance increments. In the later levels, I didn't bother to collect them all since you have to spend a lot of time chasing after them.

I highly recommend this game. It's incredibly well made. I am going to try 'Dishonored: Death of the outsider' in a few months time since I heard the powers are even more insane over there and your chaos meter doesn't really matter in the game's ending, which means I can finally go on an insane kill spree in these games lol.

Over at GTA V, I've changed the minimap to just show blimps rather than roads. This way I don't have my eyes on the damn minimap every time I drive around. It helps with the immersion more, IMO, because you have to think about which road to take to get to the place you want to go. You also pay more attention to your surroundings and what's on the road because clearly there is a lot of detail in this game and I was always too busy checking the minimap for directions...

 

[Frag Maniac]

I think you have to hold down the 'C' button to grab the second and dual wield. Not just press.
You're playing it without dual wielding? What do you think about the enemies? Do they die just as quick with a single weapon?

Yeah, now that I think of it, I may have been holding C to dual wield in Halo 2. DOH!

I'm only playing on normal, so it's hard to gauge weapon effectiveness in general, but whenever I was dual wielding in Halo 2, I do recall liking it as much for being able to carry twice as much ammo as for firepower. So no, they do not die as quick with single unless you're talking a one shot headshot zoomed from a distance. Some of the Flood enemies are bullet sponges with either, so good to have dual for them if nothing else just for the added ammo.

I watched a guy's narrated Legendary walkthrough of The Covenant, and that taught me a ton. He was equipping two of his Marines with the Fuel Rod and Spartan Laser guns, and they'd jump into any vehicle he piloted. It's very cool because they're pretty long range weapons, and one works well for vehicles, the other for everything else. Plus letting your Marines use them vs yourself means they have infinite ammo.

So I'm thinking now there IS a doable way to play on Legendary. Not sure in Halo 1 it's as easy to keep your squad mates well equipped and alive though.

Here's that Legendary walkthrough of The Covenant I spoke about.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Just about done with my Halo TMCC Normal play through on the series, but had to take some time out to play the RE3 Remake. Wow, graphics are amazing, and it's a pretty challenging game, even on Standard. I've got some DLC I could be using, but am limiting myself to the lock pick and bolt cutters. The Nemesis really is intimidating, and he's harder to dodge than in RE2. Even zombies take a fair amount of headshots to take down using standard weapons. I know full well RE2 required getting to know where every item and objective was, and collecting/doing them in the right order to avoid back tracking and losing time and resources, but somehow the immersion and trepidation of this game has had me forgetting to use the map. So I took some wrong turns at crucial times evading the big guy, and am not sure if I collected everything I could up to this point. I know I missed cracking the safe in Jill's first segment

I've got a roughly 18 min video of my Jill gameplay avoiding and fighting Nemesis, the first segment of which shows how I foolishly ran to the actual subway prematurely, instead of the train control room, after turning on the power. Here I'm thinking I finally got past him unscathed, only to then realize I'm in the wrong place, and have to get by him yet again. Unfortunately I didn't think to capture some fairly good footage of Carlos, as I took on several zombies at close range, and saved a grenade to kill the Licker on the way to the S.T.A.R.S. HQ. As far as I recall, I've still yet to find that damned S.T.A.R.S .ID card. I'll be posting the vid a bit later after I finish compressing and uploading it.

SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHOM HAVEN'T PLAYED IT!!!

 

[logainofhades]

Same as always, WoW. Trying to get my loremaster achievement, before new expansion hits.

 

[thepersonwithaface45]

Genshin Impact is actually really fun.
It's free too, feels like a quality game that you'd actually buy but it's not!

 

[YetAnotherUser!]

I absolutely love:

1. Xonotic

No it doesn't look that terrible like in the screenshot! It's smooth.

2. TheDarkMod

3. SuperTuxKart
This one is mostly for kids, but I, as an adult also enjoy playing it...

Note that these are free to play, in fact, these are open source games for PC.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Had no problem beating Halo CEA on Heroic, so I've learned enough to beat it on Legendary I hope.

RE3 Remake is continuing to impress even more though. Just did the 2nd boss fight between Jill and Nemesis. I really like how not all the pickups, especially two of the most important ones, aren't just out in the open, and you have to figure out how to get to them.

That said, I really don't like that Jill gives away too much in the dialog as to how to take him down. IMO it would be far better if you could turn those hints off like in Tomb Raider.

SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHOM HAVEN'T PLAYED IT!!!

 

[Frag Maniac]

Just started playing Mafia Definitive Edition last night, and I have to say it's really good. There's also new content, and motorcycles now, and the last mission I played ended with a pretty good motorcycle chase. No bugs or crashes so far. My one slight nit pick is that like Mafia III, the color palette is too washed out. It doesn't have the sepia tone problem of Mafia III before they enhanced it, but the colors are so washed out I have to crank my TV color warmth up about 57%. When I'm done with this first play through I'm going to see if the Nyclix Mafia III ReShade mod works for this game as well.

 

[Gman450]

I forgot to mention that I went back to playing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice again about 3 weeks ago. I finished the final boss yesterday. The combat finally clicked with me this time and I couldn't get enough of it. If you were like me and just didn't believe anyone who said 'From Software' games are better played on a controller, you should definitely be playing it on one. The last time I played it, I was on keyboard and mouse and I feel I really did handicap myself when I played it that way. It's just much easier on a controller since it's been designed around it. It is super fun to go around sword fighting the enemies. Blocks, deflects, attacks are done so well and with great precision that I really haven't played another game where sword fighting is just incredibly fun as this. The final boss fight indeed goes down in my book as the most epic boss fight I've ever come across in a video game - the hardest too.

Here is a video of me beating the final boss of the game, SPOILERS of course -

Spoiler: Sekiro final boss fight

I haven't finished GTA V yet but I'm more than half way right now. Still in the first person perspective for every mission. I had to turn it to 3rd person for a helicopter mission where you had to attach a cable to a submarine in the ocean. It's almost impossible since you can't see the cable while in first person. But other than that, this game so far can be played in this perspective from start to finish, I would reckon.

 

[Gman450]

I finished GTA V a few days ago. It is 100 percent playable in first person mode from start to finish minus a few instances of 'hook this object to the helicopter's cable'. Those were the only few times when I had to switch back to third person mode. Other than that, the game was really fun to play in FPS and everything just felt so much more immersive. Drive-bys are insane when in first person. Adds a completely different feel. I was able to admire the story just a little bit more since I already knew what happened in Michael and Trevor's past. Still not as good as it could've been though.
I did the heist missions with different strategies compared to my first playthrough so as not to make it feel more of the same. But yeah, I absolutely enjoyed it all over again.

I should get back to playing Uncharted: Lost Legacy. Haven't touched it in a month after deciding to play Sekiro.

I started Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. I've heard a lot of it's blade mode and I had tried to play it many years ago but I dropped it right after the tutorial. I want to finish it this time. I'm playing on hard and it's kicking my butt. It has a bit of learning curve to get used to but the game will feel much smoother once you learn how to play it properly.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Update, turns out the NyClix ReShade mod for Mafia 3 does indeed work for Mafia Definitive Edition too. I played through 3 times on Standard through Classic difficulties though, and the game just felt too easy. Despite having a bit of added content, it also felt short on content overall, as it's a sort of streamlined version of the original. Not as impressive overall as I'd hoped.

Since then I've been playing Red Dead Redemption 2 for about a week now. Not sure what to think of this game, it's sort of a love/hate affair. It had tons of potential, but they ruined so many critical things that it's a mess to play. The controls are very clumsy and awkward. Even taking cover can be hit and miss as far as concealment and shooting angles. I also really hate that you have to click shoot again just to get the rifles to reload. As many say, between the clumsy controls and weapon functions, it can be a pain just to shoot accurately without the "Deadeye" slow mo feature. If you've come off a very fast twitch, fluid shooter like Doom Eternal as I did, it can really be hard to bear. Every little detail with the combat has to be accounted for ahead of time to get through it smoothly, and what's strange is, it waffles between a slow prepare-and-take-cover shooter, and a fast twitch shooter, just due to the unpredictable and often fast ways the enemy moves. Doom Eternal took some time for me to get used to though, so I'll give this one some time too.

It's also chock full of things you have to micromanage, and some of them make no sense at all. Your body weight will often show as underweight, even if you stop and make camps regularly and eat game you've killed, or eat the venison stew in your gang camp. Yet if you so much as sleep in your gang camp, your body weight resets to average. Mind you though, sleeping at a mobile camp you make doesn't have this effect, very strange.

Then there's the damn Core system. It's one thing to have easy to read/understand, Health, Stamina, Deadeye, etc bars, shown as semi circles in this game. Those are plenty easy to get, but in their center you have the Cores, which will often blink red if damaged. The player really only has 3 basic ones, but the horse has about 6. Just being dirty can make your horse take damage over 5% faster. You so much as brush it while sitting on it a few seconds, and this goes away. I've also been in a fairly tough gunfight with a bounty posse where my horse got shot, yet it bounced right back up. It was pretty low on health, stamina, etc, but a single carrot brought it back to full stats. JEEZ, can I have some of those miracle carrots please!

After reading about the very linear nature of the game, forcing player boundaries, having to do things a specific way, etc., I expected a lot of restrictions. However, a lot of missions are scripted nonsensically. One example is your first big game mission, one Hosea takes you on to hunt bear, has him suggesting the use of predator bait. He for no reason goes to check the condition of the bait a short while after telling you to wait at a distance, only for the bear to appear right in front of both of you, making it hard to kill it without being killed.

Hunting in general also kinda sucks because it's near impossible to get a perfect pelt. I've had times where I bow shot game with a regular arrow, in the suggested neck/head area, only for the game to say the pelt was in Poor condition. And the game tracking system also sucks. You hit the key that enables focus, and everything goes super slow mo. In this state you can see yellow game trails appear. When you press the track key, you go back to normal vision/play speed, but the game trails appear as faint yellow blotches on the ground. The problem is these blotches on the ground are much harder to see than the continuous string of trails that appeared above the ground before using the track key. I've yet to use predator or herbivore bait for hunting, but I'm beginning to think it's the only way to do it consistently well. I think the bait, combined with a way to set up a tree stand, would be the ideal, but sadly there's no tree stand feature as far as I can tell.

That said, there ARE ways to deal with some of the annoyances, and there are many things to like about the game. I used to hate the random bounty posse ambushes, but now I almost look forward to them. I found if you so much as keep an eye on the circumference of the minimap, and take note of which direction at times it's highlighted in red, that you can either prepare for these ambushes, or avoid them by quickly moving the other direction. Some of the most immersive moments have been taking on bounty ambushes, including one time at night where I took cover behind a rock on the other side of a river as it started getting dark in the pouring rain. I called my horse over to get another long weapon from it just in case, only for a wolf to follow it across the river. The wolf was getting dangerously close, so I shot it, thinking the posse was too far away to hear it, WRONG!

What ensued was the posse rushing my position, as I sought higher ground and a decent cover rock. By then it was too dark to battle without Deadeye. For the purpose of using it as efficiently as possible, I decided to not mark them with it, but just shoot them with it's brighter light while in slow mo. It worked out well, even though the final enemy rushed me. Fortunately he stayed on the other side of the fairly large rock I was behind, trying to shoot me over it, vs running around it.

I also found the save system is not as bad as I first thought, mostly when I found out there was a way to manual save. It takes far too many clicks to get in and out of the place you have to manual save IMO, and it can't be done while on a mission, but it's invaluable as a back up before missions or while out in the open traveling, in case things go south. I also found that once you break a mobile camp, a bounty posse indicator can be present on the minimap where it wasn't when you went to sleep. So you have to be ready to move fast after breaking camp, and it's also a good idea to save game before setting up camp. This is one of the many reasons you have to constantly monitor your horse's and your own health as preventative maintenance, as you may not have time to when a bounty ambush happens.

One really strange part of the micromanaging, which would otherwise make total sense, is that when guns deteriorate over time, the animation to clean them only shows Arthur polishing the outside of them. In other words he cleans everything but the parts that need it, and effect performance most. As cheap as gun oil is though, it's best to keep as many as you can carry, and clean guns often, well before they get half damaged.

Where the game really shines is the characters, voice acting, and story. Not that it doesn't have some very worthy action too, you just have to deal with a lot of clumsiness in getting through it. I'm only about a third way through the story, and have only gotten 65 out of 560 of the game, and 4 out of 90 of the challenges. Originally I was hoping to lean toward Honor vs Bandit, but that would mean forgoing the Bandit challenges, or taking forever to build my honor back up. And despite trying to play mostly honorably, because of the way the story missions are scripted, I've gotten a bounty on me pretty much everywhere I've been, from $60 - $600. It's strange though that you really don't need to pay them off to still do business in town. Even in Strawberry, where Micah and I shot up most of the town after I broke him from jail, a lot of citizens recognized me, but just insisted I not make more trouble. I was able to buy stuff in their store. So when people tell you it is very realistic just because it has a lot of little things you have to micromanage, don't believe it for a second.

It kinda makes sense though, and is probably taken from the many movies where the town folk lack the skill and arms to deal with such things, so it's left to bounty posses. They start the game saying the time period was one where law took over, and outlaws were hunted down, but compared to modern times, it still had the feel of a very lawless era in US history. I have to emphasize though that the way the story is told and acted makes it all worthwhile in itself, and many times the dialog has me laughing, which is a much needed break from the many annoyance that have me cursing.

 

[Gman450]

Wow that's a long post, but I read everything. I played and finished RDR2 on the PS4 and I had to use aim assist the whole time during combat, meaning I missed out on the challenge in gunfights. It was really that bad and I was a novice at the time with a controller as well, although I finished The Last of Us and Uncharted 4 without use of aim assist, prior to playing this.

Yes, the micromanaging is very tedious at times but I never found them too annoying... I guess the reason was that I had decided to take things very slow. I took almost 2 months I think to beat it. I didn't engage too much into the different activities available like fishing or hunting but I did them at least once. There's a lot of detail in the game which I appreciated a lot when I was playing at such a slow pace. But I think I finished all of the side quests the game had to offer. I liked riding to a nearby river to sit down and read Arthur's journal. It made me attached to him a lot more. I did get attacked by a wolf once while reading though, lol but that just adds to the dynamic nature of this game. I spent so much time just working on Arthur's moustache which I thought was glorious at lengths 3 or 4.

I had a very funny and dangerous encounter with bears, ran into many stranger missions, some of which I really adored. I remember the game for it's amazing story and just moments like this. The characters as well, was just above and beyond any video game for me (Mass Effect comes close though).

 

[Frag Maniac]

Wow that's a long post, but I read everything. I played and finished RDR2 on the PS4 and I had to use aim assist the whole time during combat, meaning I missed out on the challenge in gunfights. It was really that bad and I was a novice at the time with a controller as well, although I finished The Last of Us and Uncharted 4 without use of aim assist, prior to playing this.

Yes, the micromanaging is very tedious at times but I never found them too annoying... I guess the reason was that I had decided to take things very slow. I took almost 2 months I think to beat it. I didn't engage too much into the different activities available like fishing or hunting but I did them at least once. There's a lot of detail in the game which I appreciated a lot when I was playing at such a slow pace. But I think I finished all of the side quests the game had to offer. I liked riding to a nearby river to sit down and read Arthur's journal. It made me attached to him a lot more. I did get attacked by a wolf once while reading though, lol but that just adds to the dynamic nature of this game. I spent so much time just working on Arthur's moustache which I thought was glorious at lengths 3 or 4.

I had a very funny and dangerous encounter with bears, ran into many stranger missions, some of which I really adored. I remember the game for it's amazing story and just moments like this. The characters as well, was just above and beyond any video game for me (Mass Effect comes close though).

Yeah I recall when a friend of mine with a PS4 asked me to play a bit of The Last of Us. I warned him I suck with gamepads, especially the Dualshock 4, which has narrow handles that tend to slip out of my hands. The strange thing is, I did OK battling the monsters, even the first Bloater boss, which I took out handily. When it came to gangs though, if it wasn't a situation where I could take most or all of them out with stealth (which is tricky to learn), it became a lot harder. The main problem was getting a bead on them with the gamepad in the short window they popped up out of cover. Often times I'd shoot too late, miss, or get shot aiming too long while popped out of cover myself, it was infuriating. My friend's answer was to play on a low enough difficulty where he could rush them and use melee attacks, but that's not the way I like to play shooters.

I guess I'm getting more used to RDR2 now, but there are still times when I get really upset with the very clumsy control scheme. It's also really strange as far as trying to stay equipped with the weapons you want to use in battles. For instance there's a mission where you go off to Rhodes with Bill, Micah, and Sean (the one where Sean gets killed). Of course you're in Rhodes, which is under Dutch's no violence policy, so you can't even take long guns from you're horse once you're there. Yet most of the others with Arthur are carrying long guns in their hands right down the street. When the fight first breaks out, you only have your pistols. A bit later when things really heat up and more enemies join the fight though, suddenly my go to long weapon, the Carbine Repeater, is hanging on my back. It's things like this that just make the linearity ruin the immersion. It's utter nonsense.

As far as length of play and whether I'll bother trying to hunt all the animals, or especially deck out the camp completely, which requires a lot of perfect pelts, I don't know. I think I can get through just the story and side missions in less than 3 weeks, but I'm going to have to find a better way to hunt if I want to get perfect pelts. When I search Google for things like best ways to track animals, or get perfect pelts, I see nothing. This tells me many others are likely having the same problem, or just don't care to bother with such things. Rockstar's GTA and RDR fanbases seem more bent on being destructive towards humans in random ways. Over 90 percent of what they talk about on forums has zero to do with the story, and more about robbing and killing people. This may also be why a lot of what's in the campaigns of these games makes very little sense. It simply doesn't have to when most are content with horsing around.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Well it turns out I had a LOT to learn about the hunting in RDR2. The main thing is, the animals themselves start out in Poor, Good, or Pristine condition. So the key is to always study the species first with binocs or scope, which makes this condition appear (via 1-3 stars shown) even with scopes. Then it's just a matter of using one of the weapons suggested in the Compendium once studied, and using Dead Eye to assure you hit a weak spot.

At first I thought this would be too complex and laborious to enjoy, but it's really been quite fun. So much so that I spent the majority of last night's session fast traveling back and forth between the Shady Belle camp and the central Big Valley area of West Elizabeth. I chose this spot to first try to get the Legendary Buck in that region, who's antlers can be used to make a talisman that can upgrade Good condition pelts to Perfect.

The great thing about that spot is it is rich with quite a variety of wildlife. Racoons, Boars, Wolves, Elk, Deer, Bears, Rabbits, Birds, etc. I'm starting to make a serious dent in the camp decorations you can make with them. There's also a spot on the way there after fast traveling to Emerald Ranch from Shady Belle that has Foxes and Squirrels. I wanted to bathe in Ausenburg since Arthur is looking pretty crusty, but I always get distracted by hunting.

These and random bounty hunter ambushes are definitely the most immersive moments yet in the game for me.

Unexpected Bounty Ambush on a Mt in Big Valley

Grizzly Attack After Bagging a Pristine Deer

 

[Gman450]

I just finished Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. I played it on 'Hard' difficulty and it was definitely challenging. It has a very weird block/parry system (you have to press forward and then attack button at the same time to register a block/parry) but it works well enough once you get used to it. The blade mode is definitely the star of the game which you can use to cut your enemy limbs to lots of pieces.

There were a surprisingly good number of enemy types for a comparatively short game(took me nearly 8 hours but I could've finished it under 7 had it not been for the final boss). It definitely took me an hour or 2 to realize on how to play the game properly, and what to do during combat. Sometimes they emphasize on using stealth, but IMO this is nearly impossible since there's no crouch/stealth stance. You'll be seen very quickly by most enemies. I was able to avoid a few sections though by running away at the right time though.

There's lots of upgrades available too some of which makes a huge difference. I was able to kill almost all the bosses in 1-2 tries once I understood what to do. But the final boss was just impossible to beat without unlocking a certain type of armor. You can use a recovery item called 'repair nanopaste' to automatically replenish your health if it ever goes below zero. These are of course limited and before I got to this final boss, I only had 1 repair nanopaste on me which made things super hard/almost impossible. There was no way to turn down the difficulty and the boss was dealing way too much damage on me. Once I read about this armor and decided to unlock it, I got 10 of those repair kits and I was easily able to beat him.

I've finished Uncharted: Lost Legacy as well. Wow, that ending was exhilarating. Everything came to a beautiful conclusion in true Uncharted style. I still can't get over just how amazing this game looks. The transitions from cutscene to gameplay is so sublime. Gunfights are very dynamic, much like Uncharted 4 and it just plays so well. There was a chapter in this game, unlike in any other game in the series, where it was sort of open world. I really liked that part and wish future games would have something similar in store too. I also just love how this game hides the HUD from you most of the time and barely tells you what to do with a textbox. The game still offers you hints if you seem to be taking too long to figure stuff out though. But nothing blatant and obvious like 'go to the door' or 'follow this person'. I'm just so sick of those text boxes, lol.

 

[Frag Maniac]

My revenge against the Grizzly in RDR 2 that left scars on my face.

I've managed to kill all the Legendary animals except for the 3 in the Blackwater area that I don't have access to yet, as well as getting perfect pelts from key big game like the Buck and Elk to dress up the camp. The Bull Moose is very elusive I'm finding though. Even after finding the last ingredient I needed to make the potent herbivore bait, which is supposed to attract pristine animals, I've not been able to find a pristine Bull Moose yet.

I have to say, one of the most realistic things about the game is the Euphoria software that applies internal skeletons and realistic rolling and tumbling when falling. I've more times than I care to accidentally galloped my Palomino into a ditch while trying to lose a bounty posse in dense woods, and though it's frustrating to have my horse fall and myself face plant in the dirt, I always marvel at how authentic it looks.

I really wish more developers would use Euphoria.

 

[Gman450]

Agreed, Frag. Euphoria is one of the best physics engines out there. I was absolutely amazed with the shooting in GTA IV back in the day. When you shoot an enemy in the foot while they were charging at you, they fall down so realistically. Their reactions to getting shot is also superb in any of the Rockstar games since GTA IV, really.

I started Brothers In Arms: Earned in Blood a few days ago. It's been a year since I played the first entry of the series. Gameplay and graphics so far seem quite identical to the first game. I think the character models are slightly better, but there's no huge change. I did notice that the enemies retreat if they see you flanking, which is a nice reaction I suppose. In the first game, they'd just stick to their original covering spot like glue.

I also started The Talos Principle. Really nice game! I've always wanted to play it but I kept putting it off. The puzzles so far have been pretty easy actually. I was expecting a huge challenge but maybe it's because I am still early in the game.