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

Page 144 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
I got into Path of Exile 2's Early Access and I gotta say... It's one heck of a game so far. Very good first impressions from almost all angles:
- Great technical customization for PC peeps: it has FSR (I think it's 1), XeSS, DLSS2 and it's own internal upscalers just in case (NIS and Bilinear), plus other interesting bits like "auto-upscaling when perf is under a target FPS", which I'm finding more often in well implemented games.
- Runs pretty well for how great it looks, although it's still an ARPG, so not thaaaat graphically intensive, but still for an Early Access title, it's really well fleshed out. I've tested it in my Steam Deck and Laptop with a 6800M; both run really well.
- The atmosphere is brutal, in a good way. This is a proper Diablo2 inspired title alright.
- I can't comment on the story, but so far, so good. It could be tweaked on the delivery (VAs are ok, text could improve though), but the story is compelling enough to keep me interested; so far, at least.
- The gameplay for the classes I've tested (Necro/Witch and Sorceress) is SO well tweaked and engaging. I can see how this at endgame is challenging even for regular mobs.
- Boss design (and mini-bosses, elites, etc) is meaningful and they feel as such. All have their own animations and, at least so far, I haven't seen any re-skinned units for higher tiers. So far.
- The attention to detail is really good. Each class, attack, "thing" in the environment has an impact on how they move, act, etc. One that is hard to explain, but easily understood if you watch some gameplay.

Like, the only real problem they have so far is capacity, which is definitely a great problem to have for them. Still, frustrating when the servers collapse every few hours, haha.

Anyway, those are my day-1 impressions.

EDIT: Typos and testing out the Steam recording feature as a bonus. I think OBS does a much better job, but Steam's implementations is really good for how hassle free it is. I quite like it, so I hope they improve it quality-wise now.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-1zZ6aeUsGuEX9DqsVPWRmnrOm9HGHSM/view

Regards.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: helper800
Math Geek said:
i downloaded it only to find out had to pay to beta test it. not gonna pay so guess i wasted the time to download 90 gb. lol
Click to expand...
I know this doesn't mean much, but... Even in it's Early Access state, it's feature complete and they're just tweaking things before the proper launch. I think it is worth the asking price if only to support a good Development studio with a properly well implemented game. Kind of like Larian and BG3 when it was Early Access.

Still, I can't say you're wrong. We are indeed paying to be "beta testers" and I don't disagree under that premise. This is a "best case middle ground" for me, since I was pretty sure it was mostly feature complete and, so far, seems my impression was correct.

Regards.
 
-Fran- said:
I know this doesn't mean much, but... Even in it's Early Access state, it's feature complete and they're just tweaking things before the proper launch. I think it is worth the asking price if only to support a good Development studio with a properly well implemented game. Kind of like Larian and BG3 when it was Early Access.

Still, I can't say you're wrong. We are indeed paying to be "beta testers" and I don't disagree under that premise. This is a "best case middle ground" for me, since I was pretty sure it was mostly feature complete and, so far, seems my impression was correct.

Regards.
Click to expand...
Its already better that Diablo 4 ever will be.
 
-Fran- said:
I know this doesn't mean much, but... Even in it's Early Access state, it's feature complete and they're just tweaking things before the proper launch. I think it is worth the asking price if only to support a good Development studio with a properly well implemented game. Kind of like Larian and BG3 when it was Early Access.

Still, I can't say you're wrong. We are indeed paying to be "beta testers" and I don't disagree under that premise. This is a "best case middle ground" for me, since I was pretty sure it was mostly feature complete and, so far, seems my impression was correct.

Regards.
Click to expand...

who knows i might have a change of heart but it has always left a bad taste in my mouth to pay to beta test. considering the company behind it though, this does seem like a good exception to the rule.
 
  • Like
Reactions: helper800
Going retro here. Been playing a lot of Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man recently.

dMYbqHD.jpeg


-Wolf sends
 
  • Like
Reactions: King_V, 80251, Math Geek and 3 others
-Fran- said:
Still, I can't say you're wrong. We are indeed paying to be "beta testers" and I don't disagree under that premise. This is a "best case middle ground" for me, since I was pretty sure it was mostly feature complete and, so far, seems my impression was correct.

Regards.
Click to expand...

I personally don't have a problem paying to beta test... but being that I am currently tied up in D4 and have heard a mixed bag of reviews so far on PoE2 I'm gonna wait it out a bit.


helper800 said:
Its already better that Diablo 4 ever will be.
Click to expand...

Prior to VoH I'd most likely agree with you... I played D4 at launch and quit about 3 weeks in... and didn't touch it again till VoH launched in Oct. Haven't been able to put it down. Outside of the broken Spiritborn class which I don't play I don't have any major issues. It's a helluva lot better than it was pre-expansion. The minor issue I have is loot... but if you grind long enough it will come.

I'm gonna at least run till the end of Season 6 (Jan 25th) and then weigh my options. I'm having a blast playing my Sorc... and am pushing to see just how far I can get in the Pit.

It's a grind sure... but I haven't gotten bored.

Wolfshadw said:
Going retro here. Been playing a lot of Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man recently.

dMYbqHD.jpeg


-Wolf sends
Click to expand...

My 2 favs growing up. Personal best on Galaga is stage 61. Just insane.
 
I went back and played the 2006 Version of Prey.

I never did finish it when it first came out. A little aged but not horrible. I have to admit I didn't remember the wall thingy, thing the monsters come out of and go back into. Once you see it you can't un see it.

But the game was fun and now I can check that of my unfinished play list. :)
 
helper800 said:
Can always wait for it to release, or pay for some stash tabs and try it before 1.0. The choice is yours!
Click to expand...
A friend randomly gave me the extra access key he got from the supporter's pack so abandoning all dignity and begging profusely seems legit.

PoE2 is the only ARPG I've tried so nothing to compare against. It's fun for a bit but quickly got grindy af, and not in a good way. I suspect part of it is that playing the warrior is a neverending slogfest. I did like "take a few steps, tank a bunch of hits from some angry wildlife or socially impaired dudes, bludgeon them with my giant stick, rinse, repeat" so many times it was muscle memory by the end of the first day.

However, magic happened when I quit soloing and formed a party of 4 with some people I knew. The shortcomings of the individual classes suddenly became a non-issue as we each found our role and got into rhythm. Instead of dragging myself along, devoid of hope and totally lost in a random forest, I was doing fun adventuring, gleefully slaying unhappy crabs and totally lost in a random cave. Night and day difference.

Server capacity issues were essentially resolved within hours of going live from what I could tell. Lots of stuff getting tuned. There's been a couple times where they pushed multiple patches just while I was in game. I've been having some issues with it obsessively trying to run on my iGPU, not uncommon CTDs and even hardlocks, super displeased about that last one as that hadn't happened before now on this rig.


Also discovered "Satisfactory" when it hit v1.0 a couple months ago and have put an unhealthy amount of time and effort in since. The gameplay is extremely addictive. Something about seeing a maze of conveyor belts feeding massive forges and refineries that definitely would be EPA banned or flying around with a hover pack and seeing the native wildlife flee in terror as you engage in mass deforestation with cluster munitions because you need somewhere to dump your radioactive waste is endlessly satisfying.

It's also the best example of UE5 done right I've come across so far. The visuals, while not mind blowing, fit the overall theme of the game perfectly. I mean, it's better to succeed at looking good then fail at looking incredible, and it manages that without issue. More importantly, performance is more than satisfactory as it stays over 60fps at native 1440p, ultra quality, running on a RTX2080, which seems uncommon with UE5.
 
  • Like
Reactions: helper800
froggx said:
PoE2 is the only ARPG I've tried so nothing to compare against. It's fun for a bit but quickly got grindy af, and not in a good way.
Click to expand...

The game studio is Grinding Gear Games...

They released a patch that was supposed to take care of item drop frequency and modifications to a few mechanics that should fix some of the grindyness.
 
Fallout 1.

I never got to play it through back in the late 90s, as I'd borrowed it from a friend, and had to return it.

I haven't finished it yet, but, I am appreciating more of the "little details" than I realized were there back when it came out. By the way, according to Steam, I've played Fallout 1 a total of 43.4 hours EVER (on Steam). I do know maybe 2-3 of those hours were several years ago to see if it worked with ultra-wide. So, maybe really only 40 hours this year.

Also, I have recently started playing Pinball Arcade again, to relive the pinball games I remember from the student center back in college. My daily driver these days is The Micro Machine, and with the relatively recent updates I've made, it can handle a bit more variety among the older games than it used to. While Pinball Arcade didn't work for me on Linux for the longest time, some update must've happened, because now, it works.
Favorite tables:
- Black Knight 2000
- Funhouse
- Centaur

And, having seen a video talking about the game, I had to go and fire up VICE for the C64 emulator, and have been playing Zenji.


I wonder if Steam is subtly chiding me, in a "well, it's more than what you did LAST year!" kind of way:
image.png
 
  • Like
Reactions: helper800
stonecarver said:
I went back and played the 2006 Version of Prey.

I never did finish it when it first came out. A little aged but not horrible. I have to admit I didn't remember the wall thingy, thing the monsters come out of and go back into. Once you see it you can't un see it.

But the game was fun and now I can check that of my unfinished play list. :)
Click to expand...
I actually prefer the original to the one Arkane made.
 
  • Like
Reactions: stonecarver
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom