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

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Well for one, they promised that your decisions would tie into what happens at the end, especially character wise, and that didn't really pan out, not even with the extended cut DLC. Plus EC just showed 3 color coded endings, they were all too similar. It wasn't true branching paths, just 3 cutscenes that were nearly identical save for the color coding.

I'm not saying that was a deal breaker for me, because I still think ME3 was best for the more polished combat, dark atmosphere, creatures, and DLC, but I can definitely see why many were very put off by it.

 



I agree with Anort. The hate for the Mass Effect 3 ending was way overblown. No, they didn't have 15 different endings based on what choices you made throughout the series but I did think it was a satisfying ending to one of the most epic gaming trilogies of all time. Even if people hated the way things ended is that 2 minute ending sequence really enough to turn them off of a series that provided about 150 hours of great characters, storytelling, and decent gameplay?

Mass Effect is my favorite series of all time. The combat and Mako sections of the first game were a bit of a chore to get through but it improved drastically in ME2 and ME3 and the story and characters had me hooked from the beginning. Maybe the ending didn't have as much choice as some people would like but they did do some interesting and meaningful things with branching paths throughout the rest of the series.

The ending certainly didn't do anything that is going to stop me from having ME4 on day one. I also really liked Dragon Age Inquisition so my trust in Bioware is pretty strong right now.
 
Like I said, the ME3 ending wasn't a deal breaker for me, but that's mostly because I don't play RPGs very often, and prioritize gameplay over story. I recall describing it as a "debacle", not a personal hate of mine.

I meant that it was understandably an issue among the RPG community, whom usually prioritize story, characters, and decision outcomes over all else. Even if I don't agree with them, I bend to their angst, because after all, RPGs ARE supposed to be heavily designed around such things.

I would have to say in looking back, the main nit pick I had with ME3 was in getting your military readiness up for the final mission, you invariably had to do a lot of side fetch quests, which got a bit monotonous.

Other than that, and perhaps even a smaller nit pick, is the fact that Citadel is a bit too brutal to play as Soldier on Insanity mode.

Overall a great game though, and best in series IMO.
 
I first saw this game several months ago and it seems like we might have even discussed it in here but did you guys see the Enderal review?

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/enderal-skyrim-mod-acclaim,32986.html

It basically turns Skyrim into another game. I remember thinking it looked amazing when I saw it before but I had forgotten about it until Joe's review. I think it was getting translated into English and wasn't quite ready when I saw it the first time.

Downloading it now.

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnracFjiC_k"][/video]
 
Got it installed and it runs great at max settings. No random FPS drops like my last modded Skyrim playthrough. Looks way better than vanilla Skyrim too.
 
About the Mass Effect 3 discussion - I loved each game better than the last. That's how I felt. I didn't feel let down by the ending at all, maybe because I played it after getting all the DLCs. The way I played it, as how you guys suggested, made the game really mesmerising to me and quite unforgettable.I too, am really looking forward to Andromeda.

I saw the Enderal mod quite some time ago too. I saw it on reddit, I believe. Claimed the game had much better story than Skyrim's main quest and better characters. I want to try it out too. But one RPG at a time. I'm finally tackling on Blood and Wine. I'm 7 hours in, doing mostly secondary quests. I'll go to Skyrim once more since the release of the special edition.
 

I take it you mean Enderal, not remastered Skyrim? Enderal looks good graphically (can't say the same about remastered Skyrim) , but I worry with the focus being on religion it might involve a tedious amount of fanaticism and magic. What I liked most about Skyrim is it had great hunting, dragon fighting, and swordplay mechanics (better swordplay than TW3), plus you could play it any way you want, without magic.


 


Yeah, I mean Enderal. I haven't even installed the Skyrim remaster yet.
 

Frankly I don't see the point of their making it. Instead of super hi res textures (like for 4k), they softened the look of it with a lot of blur, added some foliage, and just changed the color palette of the lighting. It actually looks worse than vanilla Skyrim to me, and way worse than using some decent mods.

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zk1KJtG3dM"][/video]

 
If the modding community is still into it the remaster could be amazing. The remaster uses a 64 bit engine meaning no more 3.1GB max memory issue.

The last time I checked they were still working on the script extenders for Fallout 4 and the Skyrim remaster. Once those are stable the real modding can begin.
 


This is the main reason I have heard that people are excited about the remaster. There were a ton of mods for the original game but apparently modders were limited in what they could do because of the 32 bit engine. People are looking forward to seeing what modders can do without that limitation.

The real reason Skyrim Special Edition exists is so they can sell it for $60 to console gamers though. Skyrim was obviously huge on PC but it was also huge on console and the PS4/Xbox One versions are a big step up from the PS3/360 versions. They are going to make a lot of money selling it to console gamers.

They won't make as much on PC, especially since they are giving it away for free but it might not have been that much work to make a new PC port if they were already making updated console versions. Plus it creates goodwill for Bethesda in the PC community instead of the hate that they would have got if they ignored us or tried to sell it to us again. Then again, the Steam reviews are mixed and they are getting a lot of hate anyways.

I never understood how people can pile so much hate on something they got for free, especially since the old game is still in your library if you would rather play that instead. The same thing happened with the recent Bioshock remasters that were also given away for free to anyone who owned the original games.
 
Bethesda did make some policy changes regarding review copies, so it could be that the fans are just venting out on the remastered game. Also, I heard of poor quality encoded audio being in the steam release, which is fixed as of now.
The PS4/Xbox One versions are still only at 30 FPS though. What's the deal with that? Most remasters, at least had the frame rates unlocked to 60.
 


Because Skyrim's game/physics logic is tied to FPS (at 30). I remember seeing some plates fall from a height in the castle just when you enter when running at higher fps. It's also why I didn't encounter any game breaking bugs like others did cause i was playing at just over 30fps.
 

I'm sure they'd probably just insist it's more "cinematic" that way, but as mentioned, in Skyrim it's mostly to do with the physics being hard coded to 30 FPS, which is yet another reason this remaster is like polishing a turd.

They'd be better off putting the effort into making TES 6. Yeah I know TES 6 is already in development, and "a along way off", but I don't really see them doing anything better with Skyrim than modders have, and there's only so much you can do with a physics locked engine.

I guess they figure they can take their sweet time on TES 6, since The Witcher series has ended, leaving little to no competition.
 


From what I can find in Google searches the physics engine is actually set to 60 FPS just like Fallout 4 but everything is still fine at lower framerates than that. The problems for both of these games come when people try to play them on a 144Hz monitor or force VSYNC off in the ini files. The reason they don't give you a way to unlock the framerates in the settings is because they know the physics go crazy when you try to play at 100-144 FPS.

This obviously isn't ideal but you would have heard a lot more about this problem in both Skyrim and Fallout 4 if you couldn't play them at 60 FPS without breaking the physics. The reason the consoles are locked at 30 FPS is either due to the consoles being underpowered or Bethesda not being able to optimize their engine well enough to get 60 FPS out of the consoles. It's not because of the physics being locked to 30 FPS.
 
Vanilla Skyrim's physics engine is capped at 60 FPS. There are even mods to cap the game at 60 for stability. Most ENBs have built in limiters.
 




It's not the physics engine unless they designed a completely different one for consoles for some reason because the PC version is meant to run at 60 FPS. It's more likely that the consoles don't have enough horsepower to hold a consistent 60 FPS in that engine so they capped it at 30 to prevent large performance swings. This is very common on console games.

Keep in mind that the GPU in these consoles is comparable to a Radeon 7850. When you look at the way Skrim Remastered and Fallout 4 perform on some PC hardware that is much better than what is available in the consoles it's pretty easy to believe that they couldn't hold a solid 60 FPS.

It's an old engine and many games don't run at 60 FPS on the consoles. Most of them seem to run at 30 FPS and even then they aren't always 1080p. There are a lot of 900p and some 720p games, especially on Xbox One. Some of the games that do target 60 FPS use dynamic resolution scaling. Instead of letting the framerate drop when the hardware gets overloaded it automatically lowers the rendering resolution and then scales the game to 1080p.
 
Still not substantial but I want to play it. NOW. 😛

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyZw_oqk7Q8"][/video]
 

Well at least that is more substantial than those micro teasers. They actually showed a fair bit in this one. Still hoping they'll show us more over the holidays, hopefully with some actual gameplay footage, but I am much more eager to get my hands on it now.

Thanks

 


It's definitely going to be a day one purchase for me. I'm looking forward to this game more than any other game in a very long time. The trailer is good but the main reason I'm excited is because it's more of my favorite series of all time. I don't really need to see any pre-release footage to know I want this game.
 


lol, same here, I guess the day I'll quit playing PC games will be the same day I can't do it anymore(physically), probably at age 70 or 75, maybe a little later. The games I'll probably be playing will change according to my mental and physical state but I'll still be playing.

I love racing simulators and FPS in general, although I also love rare games like Alien: Isolation, not exactly your typical FPS. I guess when I'm over 60 I'll have to drop the simulators and any other game which excites me too much due to my heart condition which I'll probably have developed until then. :-D
 
OK it's WCCFTech but this is worth a read.

http://wccftech.com/mass-effect-andromeda-delayed-to-spring-2017-gets-cinematic-reveal-trailer/

Another trailer.

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjfIPkv4WDY"][/video]

And worst of all their now saying Q2 17 release. So it's delayed until spring. 🙁


Edit: Ars had an article too.'

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/11/new-tease-for-mass-effect-andromeda-shows-tiny-plot-details-but-thats-all/
 
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