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

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I'm averaging about 63 FPS outside and as much as 77 FPS inside. 1440p Ultra DLSS with ray tracing off.
 
I never played New Vegas, probably because I was so unimpressed with the controls, animations, shooting mechanics, performance, and 3rd person movement of Fallout 3. I know people say NV is stand alone and better in many ways, but I still associated it in my mind with FO3, so passed on it. The Frontier mod looks interesting, but it does look dated graphically. I enjoyed FO 4 a lot though.

That new set of GRID 2019 events is now fully processed and ready for posting. Again, the highlights for me were the Okutama GP race in the tuner class (all of which were Time Attack races), and the Yan' an Tunnel race in the GT Group 2 class. As I said, the GT race at Sepang in the rain was very tough, but more laborious than fun. The Muscle class event was kinda fast and furious by comparison, on the high speed Barcelona and Okutama sprint tracks. That event also threw in one of the Zhejiang tracks, which is slower but has some challenging turns. The big Dodge can be tough to handle in places on the sprint tracks too, mostly on the turns you have to brake hard for.

I also played around a little with livery customization on the GT Group 2 Mustang GT4, and liked the result, so I may do a bit more of that with the next set.



 
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Finally beat Cyberpunk at 103 hours. I loved it. All in all one of the best non series games I've played in years. I give it a solid 9/10. Hopefully they give it some great DLC.
 
Finally beat Cyberpunk at 103 hours. I loved it. All in all one of the best non series games I've played in years. I give it a solid 9/10. Hopefully they give it some great DLC.
Well HowLongToBeat.com puts it at 94.5 hrs Completionist, so I assume you did everything there was to do? Personally, I found some of the side quests, like the police ones, to be very repetitious feeling.

I've been playing Hitman 3 lately, and although I do like some of the missions/levels, it's pretty disappointing content wise. I just captured and edited one of my favorite levels in the game, and am now compressing it. Another problem with the game is it's far too easy, even on Master. I'll post the vid as soon as the upload fully processes.
 
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Pretty much everything. I didn't do the beat on the brat fights or get all the cars.
 
Pretty much everything. I didn't do the beat on the brat fights or get all the cars.
Yeah I completed only the first Beat on Brats quest and even after dumping a lot of skill points into melee, it was annoying as hell. The fist fighting controls in this game are horrible. At that point I realized I was not going to want to do any more of them. I also didn't bother with the cars. they all look pretty ugly, and as thick as the traffic is, I can slip through it quicker on Jackie's bike.
 
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Yep, I avoided melee in general and the driving was mostly bad. Except Jackie's bike which was a blast. I even drove almost everywhere rather than using the fast travel points just for the amazing city details.
 
Since I had been encountering numerous bugs during my playthrough, I held off Cyberpunk for a week. After patch 1.1 was out, I tried it out again. It's cool that they've implemented memory optimizations and hopefully it fixed the memory leak too but the bugs are still abundant. I must've only sat for 2 more days since then and I had done some side quests I think. I don't know if I should get back to it on the regular. I'd really like to play it in it's full glory but I realize that it's going to take a long time for that to happen.

I've been playing Red Dead Redemption on the Xenia emulator since my time off Cyberpunk. It runs well enough even on a 2060 (Xenia is GPU heavy). It's definitely playable (20-30FPS) and I heard the game can be played from start to end without many problems (some quality of life bugs can make the game tedious at times). It's pretty slow at the moment even though I think I've reached halfway story wise.. Gunplay is easy on normal difficulty especially since I've got aim assist. Just like RDR2, shooting in this game is impossible without it, for me. There's been some really great moments and it's surprising to know that this game is almost 11 years old and yet has mechanics and AI that seem far advanced for its time.
 
I've been playing Red Dead Redemption on the Xenia emulator since my time off Cyberpunk. It runs well enough even on a 2060 (Xenia is GPU heavy). It's definitely playable (20-30FPS) and I heard the game can be played from start to end without many problems (some quality of life bugs can make the game tedious at times). It's pretty slow at the moment even though I think I've reached halfway story wise.. Gunplay is easy on normal difficulty especially since I've got aim assist. Just like RDR2, shooting in this game is impossible without it, for me. There's been some really great moments and it's surprising to know that this game is almost 11 years old and yet has mechanics and AI that seem far advanced for its time.
Might have to try that out. Not sure 20-30 FPS sounds appealing though, especially at the 20 end. I'm not sure you're using the latest build of Xenia though, since it's said to have DX12 and even Vulkan compatibility, which allows bypassing the 30 FPS limiter. Word is it's supposed to allow you to play at up to 60 FPS. My question though is can you play on keyboard and mouse somehow? I suck with gamepads. I have even seen some games, like RE4 before the devs ported it to KB/M, have user made mods where the gamepad icons were replaced with KB icons. I'd settle just for KB/M controllability though. Turns out the method to disable Vsync on a YT vid I saw doesn't work (-vsync=false added to target path of shortcut). I then read the FAQ on Xenia, and editing it's config file works fine, I'm now getting 35-65 FPS. The graphics are a bit hard to take, but I fear if I bump Xenia from it's default 720p to it's 1440p option, the FPS will tank to 20 (and sure enough, it did). As for remapping controls to KB/M, I was going to use Xpadder, but the Xenia FAQ recommends x360ce, which it says also works for remapping look to mouse, sweet! It's still going to take some time to get all the onscreen gamepad prompts translated to KB/M in my head though.

OK, since YT is taking quite some time lately to process 1440p vids, I thought I'd go ahead and make another Hitman 3 video and post the both of them. Both of these are played on Master level. The first is from the mission in Chongqing China Called End of an Era. I played it via the tactics in the mission story All Seeing Eyes. It's the one scenario in the game where you get to do some decent sniping.

The other is from the mission in Mendoza Argentina called The Farewell. In that I used the tactics from the mission story Closing Statement. Closing Statement is the one bonus mission story in the game, which is unlocked at the end of The Tour mission story by listening in to a conversation between the main target's head guard and the vineyard's sommelier.

I could not progress through Closing Statement the way you're supposed to after doing The Tour, because the head guard, whom is supposed to lead you to the main target's gathering at his house after you disguise yourself as the sommelier and retrieve the requested wine, was walking around talking non stop on his cell phone, without being able to interact with him. I had to laugh at that because it was quite similar to how many people in the real world are too preoccupied by their cell phones.

My solution was to experiment and see if I could unlock Closing Statement just by somehow catching the request when the wine is ordered (in a different way than it happens in The Tour), and then disguise myself as the sommelier and retrieve the wine. Oddly enough this worked, despite having trouble when doing it the way it's supposed to be done. In fact I didn't even have to use the sommelier disguise or properly "deliver" the wine for Closing Statement to play out. Mind you though, since mission stories are technically not available when playing on Master, it may be simply due to that. All others have worked fine though, so I have to think when they say they're not available, it really means you are just unassisted with objective markers should you choose to do them. For all I know, the head guard being on his cell non stop may be a bug that only happens on Master. I had another bug in this mission when doing it on a lower difficulty mode where vineyard workers outside the wine room would see me dragging bodies after I turned on the device that drastically darkens the glass wall of the room. That is not supposed to happen.



This game is very enjoyable in many ways, but it's woefully short on content. So short it reminds me a lot of Id's rushing out a 2 part DLC for Doom Eternal to end the story arc of the current Doom, vs capping off what could have been a great trilogy with a full installment 4 years down the road like they did with Eternal. The 2 part DLC's combined total is half the length by comparison. That's exactly what Hitman 3 feels like, a well constructed, but half length, rushed title. Where Hitman 3 differs though I'm told is the Doom DLCs are a bit harder (according to some) than Eternal, but Hitman 3 feels far easier than the 2 that precede it, even on Master.
 
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Might have to try that out. Not sure 20-30 FPS sounds appealing though, especially at the 20 end. I'm not sure you're using the latest build of Xenia though, since it's said to have DX12 and even Vulkan compatibility, which allows bypassing the 30 FPS limiter. Word is it's supposed to allow you to play at up to 60 FPS. My question though is can you play on keyboard and mouse somehow? I suck with gamepads. I have even seen some games, like RE4 before the devs ported it to KB/M, have user made mods where the gamepad icons were replaced with KB icons. I'd settle just for KB/M controllability though. Turns out the method to disable Vsync on a YT vid I saw doesn't work (-vsync=false added to target path of shortcut). I then read the FAQ on Xenia, and editing it's config file works fine, I'm now getting 35-65 FPS. The graphics are a bit hard to take, but I fear if I bump Xenia from it's default 720p to it's 1440p option, the FPS will tank to 20 (and sure enough, it did). As for remapping controls to KB/M, I was going to use Xpadder, but the Xenia FAQ recommends x360ce, which it says also works for remapping look to mouse, sweet! It's still going to take some time to get all the onscreen gamepad prompts translated to KB/M in my head though.

I am using the latest version of the master branch from github. Yes, I did turn off Vsync via the config file. I do get upto 40 FPS while riding around on the horse when it's just far open land. But generally in the city, it goes as low as 20-24 at times. I have tried Vulkan API too but the game crashes as soon as I launch it. I have to stick with DirectX 12.

I am playing it with a controller and have no idea about keyboard and mouse support. I don't think it's gonna work all that well if you can get it to. It'll end up feeling floaty and weird, IMO...
 
I am using the latest version of the master branch from github. Yes, I did turn off Vsync via the config file. I do get upto 40 FPS while riding around on the horse when it's just far open land. But generally in the city, it goes as low as 20-24 at times. I have tried Vulkan API too but the game crashes as soon as I launch it. I have to stick with DirectX 12.

I am playing it with a controller and have no idea about keyboard and mouse support. I don't think it's gonna work all that well if you can get it to. It'll end up feeling floaty and weird, IMO...
Well after much searching, I found a YT guide on how to set it up with KB/M via X360CE, Vjoy, and Xinput. I did get the mouse look and WASD steering to work fine and even got the mouse sensitivity dialed in, but the key bindings for functions so far I've only gotten to work half ass. The problem is, invariably you'll get one or two bindings working two functions at once that conflict with each other, and at times, the functionality comes and goes, meaning I can't even get the key bound to Start to launch the game.

That said, I forgot a key step at the end shown in the guide where you're supposed to open and close the X360CE settings tab, which I think registers all your VJoy bindings in it properly. So I'm going to go back and try it again. So far I've only done the rabbit shooting mission, the one where you follow the dog then stop a horse thief, and the one where coyotes invade. I only got a few coyotes and one wandered off leaving a red enemy marker, but I hadn't got the mouse sensitivity dialed in yet at that point. I'm at the one where you race miss McFarland on the horse right now. It was really fun at first, and the horse was going screaming fast, but it's really hard to slow down and make the tight turns, so I got off trail and way behind a couple times (restarted the mission both times).

You may be right though, it's way too early for this game to even have a KB/M profile, and it's still pretty new just to emulation in general, so there are going to be quirks with performance, controls, and visuals for a while. I may end up having to shelve it and play other games like I did with Cyberpunk 2077. If you're only getting 20-24 FPS in places in the city, any missions there would be hell for me on my spec anyway.
 
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Went back and finally finished Shadow of the Tomb Raider. I'd paused it for other games and had never gone back and it turned out I only had about an hour and a half left. I liked it but I liked it the least of the series. Too many cut scenes and not enough action. Graphics were amazing though.

Now I'm back to Wolfenstein II which I paused for Cyberpunk. Like all of the newer Wolfenstein games it's one step short of torture porn in places but gameplay sure is fun.

I think I'll start Control next.
 

iTRiP

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After full playthrough of RDR2...Assassins Creed Brotherhood...Cyberpunk2077 ...GTA:V online heists...Assassins Creed Revelations... then HiTMAN III... then some DiRT Rally 2.0... then Marvel Avengers...
Computing merely along>>>
 
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Feb 3, 2021
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I love singles. My favorite the Witcher 3, I especially like the addition "blood and wine". After the gloomy Velen, it's very cool to wander the streets of Toussaint.
I love the assassin's creed series. Well, where do without the Elder Scroll. You can list for a long time, I like different games)
 
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I didn't play Witcher 1 or Witcher 2 and hadn't read the books yet so I didn't know the story the first time I played. Not gonna lie the first 20-30 hours are a grind. You reach a point where that mostly goes away though and you can focus on the story and gameplay. I still haven't played 1 or 2 but I've read all of the books, watched the Netflix series and played the game and all the DLC twice now for over 300 hours so to me pushing through that beginning grind paid off. :p


It was the second New Game + playthrough that really let me appreciate just how good of a game it is. To me it's the best single game I've ever played.
 
I tried Witcher 2, but was so put off by the clumsy controls for some things like turrets, and horribly awkward inventory system, that I gave up on it before getting into it. I did however enjoy 3, and yes, it's DLC was very good.

I have another set of GRID 2019 videos, and this one introduces the very fast 207 MPH Prototype class. It starts off with the Euro GT event, which is Group 2. I switched from the Aston Martin and Mustang to the Nissan 350Z for this one, due to the courses requiring better handling. I could tell from the get go the very first race at Barcelona was going to be demanding, due to a combination of high speed and tough turns. The second race was at Silverstone in the pouring rain, which I must say took quite some getting used to.

The second event, called Barcelona Blast, is just a one race open wheel Time Attack at a short and fast track. It was a bit easy to win, not so easy to avoid contact with cars/walls. I actually worried a bit that I looked too out of control a few times, occasionally ending up on two wheels after hitting aprons, but when I discovered I got a reward for completing the 10 seconds on two wheels challenge, it seemed apropos.

The 3rd, called High Speed, is the aforementioned Prototype event, which appropriately starts at Indianapolis (though I'd have preferred they used the sport track) . Then on to a very nice course in Crescent Valley. I was skeptical when I discovered before playing this game that there would be a few fictional tracks, which this one is, but it's one of the best I've encountered so far in any race game. You start out hotlapping in a fast car thinking you're really going to have to brake a lot, but these cars can handle most of it full gas. You DO however have to really know how and when to brake and steer. The only disappointment is for some reason, the two fastest AI often try to take the inside line on the driver in front of them at the tight hairpin, which usually results in a momentary pile up. So you get on average one, maybe two at the most competitive laps, then they're all struggling to catch up. What a shame for a track layout that is otherwise nirvana to race, especially in Prototype class.

The 3rd race in this event is at the excellent extended course at Okutama. This is a very sweet course to race in Prototype, though the slow tight turns just after the upper bridge were very difficult until I discovered a technique that works well to maintain your line and momentum on keyboard.

I'd have to say the highlight race for me ended up being the very first one in the Euro GT event at Barcelona. It's a very demanding track, and you never feel too comfortable, even with what appears to be a good lead. As a result, the lead changes a few times.



 
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I played Witcher 1 a year ago and then went for second playthrough for Witcher 2. They're both really good games with the former feeling more open than the 2nd. I was about to go for a 2nd playthrough for Witcher 3 as well but CDPR announced a remaster at that point and I thought it'd be best to hold off until they release that.

I finished Red Dead Redemption on Xenia. The story picked up in the closing stages. Until that point, I definitely felt that the pacing was slow. It was really very good towards the end. Story spoilers for the game below. Don't read it if you haven't finished the game -
From the start, Marston is looking for Javier Escuella and Bill Williamson. You only find them past the halfway mark in the game. And that too, you find them in 2 consecutive missions. I feel they should've spaced it out some more between finding Escuella and Williamson. Later we try to find Dutch and I think finding him was the least drawn out out of the 3. It was much more on point. Later we have some ranch missions much like in RDR 2's epilogue.

To be honest, if I hadn't played RDR 2, I would be pretty devoid of what happened between the old gang. It's cool to play it this way. I felt like playing an after story and I could understand whatever references they made from their past as I've already played it.
 

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Me and a friend of mine were looking for a new coop game and came across Phasmophobia and its a lot of fun if you get a good group (up to 4 players) together. Its got some good jump scares and escaping the hunt is fun. It can be played in either VR or PC and can be matches can be played together with both. VR does have a more immersive experience as well as being able to hold one more item but both experiences are a blast. The upside and downside is who you get paired with as some people are fun to play with while others can be annoying but I guess that kind of goes with any online gaming.
 
Feb 3, 2021
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Oh thanks for the advice. I don't really like to play such games at all, because I'm a little afraid. But you intrigued me.
 
Been taking a bit of a break from GRID 2019 after trying in vain to beat the Night Endurance event. I started into Werewolf The Apocalypse Earthblood a few days ago, and it's a bit better than I anticipated. I am only playing on Normal difficulty my first play through, but still have struggled in some boss fights. I find the FOV and camera angles a bit claustrophobic and awkward at times. I'm also still trying to make sense of the controls and how they relate to the skills as well. The strange thing is, I get killed repeatedly in some boss fights, until I find a good way to tackle them, and after that, they usually go very quick.

The trick is to stay focused on Onawa, and keep her occupied so she can't lay down her hard to avoid ground attacks.

So back to GRID 2019, I went back and did better with the Night Endurance event, but with a slight change of difficulty settings.

The first event is Road Rumble in those God forsaken trucks. I couldn't for the life of me manage to even get better than the default starting position (14th) in the hotlap qualifying, but since it's a 3 round event, I wasn't worried about winning the first race, as I figured I could win at the other two venues and still win the event. The first race I managed to shoot up to 5th on the first turn, and even had 4th place for a sec or two. I ended up slipping way back and finishing at 10th though. It's just a chaotic race on the small Fountain Loop track at Barcelona, and has a lot of tough turns with scant room to pass. It's also hard as hell to keep the speed the AI does in the turns on Hard mode. It felt like a "rumble" indeed, with lots of contact. I forgot to capture the multiview replay of the first race, but it wasn't really worthy of one anyway.

The 2nd and easiest event was Night Terrors in the modified tuner class. It has the fairly easy Tunnel Run track in Shanghai, a rain soaked track at Zhejiang, and the high speed Druitt course in Australia. I struggled to get anywhere near a podium hotlap time at the Druitt track until I figured out where to trim a lot of time. It's a slight left/right bend in the middle of a fast section where you can really gain an edge.

As for the Night Endurance event, I tried and tried as I said to beat it on my usual Hard with default settings, but on the Okutama extended GP circuit at night, it's nigh impossible to get the same traction and turn speed the AI do on Hard with these Super Tourer cars, especially on keyboard, unless you bump the assists up 1. The other thing is, I scoured YouTube for all the posts uploaded of this event, and the only one that mentioned the difficulty setting (Hard, and his had the most views of all of them by far), showed lap times that were 5 sec slower than I was seeing. Sure he plays with no assists, which is commendable, but when I tried turning off assists, I saw the exact same lap times to beat (2.02 something to his 2.07 something). Note that 2.07 is far closer to what I see at Med AI settings (2.09), than Hard. My first setting change attempt was Med AI with lvl 1 assists, which was too easy. I then settled on Hard AI with lvl 4 assists. With this setting my lap times were very consistent with that of the AI in both hotlap and race. As I implied, these Super Tourers are pretty slippery handling vehicles, not unlike NASCAR cars. All bumping up the assists one lvl really does is make them handle such that you can maintain the same relative speed the AI do in turns, without losing traction. In fact you still have to drive a very precise line or you'll lose control, while the AI can easily swerve back and forth abruptly no problem, which is very nerve racking when they're right on your tail.



 
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iTRiP

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HiTMAN III been playing the special missions and redoing some older missions in different ways, good times. F1 2020...Formula 1 is back baby, and its better than ever with DX12 and 4K.
 
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Here's another set of GRID 2019 vids, this time two classics and an open wheel event.

The first is the Classic Touring Cup at Silverstone, in the Alfa Romeo 155 TS. It's pretty easy once you get used to the handling of these old cars, and it grips surprisingly well even in the pouring rain.

The second is the F1000 Asian Tour Part 1 in the Jedi. These cars always amaze me with their speed and precision. The only real challenge here was the 2nd round on the rain soaked Sepang track in Malaysia. The 2nd race also made for the most exciting one of the first two events, with the lead changing 3 times.

The 3rd, and definitely the highlight for me, was the 1960s Face Off Part 1, again at Silverstone (though dry conditions), in the Ferrari 330 P4. This event was giving me fits at first. This car seems to feel slipperier on dry pavement than the Alfa Romeo 155 TS does in pouring rain. It can also go into a real bad off track swerve just unweighting as you take an S turn. This is why I ended up taking as straight a line as possible through the apexes and took mostly what the track would give me. I thought I was going to have to bump assists up one lvl to 4, and actually captured, edited and compressed a win that way. Then I decided to give it another go on the default Hard, with assists at lvl 3, and managed to do it. Regarding taking "mostly" what the track would give me, to clarify, I still maintained my policy of not allowing a full slide beyond an apron, insisting tires stay in contact not allowing the whole car to slide entirely past them. I even restarted my first win with level 3 assists because upon proof viewing the capture, I found I had slid entirely past an apron on a slow turn, which the game did not warn or penalize me for. After winning this event on full Hard mode, needless to say I was quite relieved and it felt very rewarding. I also after first hating that car grew to appreciate it, even though it needed babying a lot.



 
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