Discussion What's your most favorite GAMING GENRE ? **General game Discussion thread**

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Hello everyone !

As the title says, which is your most favorite Gaming GENRE ? And, what all games do you actually play, be it any genre, or a mixture of 2 genres ?

Some examples of genres: Action game, Action role-playing game, SIMs like City-building or a Flight game, First-person shooter, Tactical role-playing game, Third-person shooter, Tactical shooter, "Platform game", Racing video game, Real-time strategy, Massively multiplayer online first-person shooter game, 2D Fighting games, Stealth game, Sim racing, and Role-playing video game among others.

Mine is mostly First-person Shooters, with some third-person action Games, like Gears of War 4, Mass Effect 3, DEAD SPACE, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, JUST CAUSE. Though, FPS has always remained my topmost priority.

I'm not an actual gamer though, very casual. But I've been playing FPS games since the good old days of DOOM, QUAKE, HEXEN, HERETIC, DUKE Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein, Soldier Of fortune, PAINKILLER, HALF LIFE, F.E.A.R, Call Of Duty series, Battlefield series and few others.

These are my list of games owned by me, all LEGIT, not pirated. This list is not exhaustive though. Some are lesser-known titles though.

ALIEN RAGE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Rage

Aliens versus Predator 2.

Alpha Prime (excellent FPS, by an indie DEV studio). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Prime

Area 51. I love this shooter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_51_(2005_video_game)

Battlefield 3, 4, 5, Hardline, BF: BAD company 2.

BIOSHOCK 1 and 2.

Bordelands 1 and 2.

BREED. A good old-school FPS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breed_(video_game)

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, earned in Blood, and Hell's Highway !

BULLETSTORM.

CALL of DUTY series (starting from the fist game till BLACK OPS).

CALL OF JUAREZ.

CHASER ! This is my most favorite FPS of all time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaser_(video_game)

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena.

Clive Barker's Jericho ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Barker's_Jericho

Contract J.A.C.K. Hell Yes, lol !

CRYSIS 1, 2 and 3.

DOOM, DOOM 2 and 3, BFG edition and DOOM (2016).

Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition.

DYING LIGHT.

F.E.A.R. series.

FAR CRY series !

HALF LIFE series.

Halo: Combat Evolved.

Hard Reset. This game is TOO tough for me, I had to use Cheats/Trainers to beat it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Reset

HERETIC, HEXEN.

MEDAL OF HONOR series.

No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way. I like Cate Archer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_One_Lives_Forever_2:_A_Spy_in_H.A.R.M.'s_Way

PAINKILLER series.

PREY (only the first title which came out in 2006).

Project Snowblind ! This is my MOST favorite FPS. You guys must try playing this shooter.


QUAKE 1, 2, 4.

RAGE 1 and 2.

RED FACTION 2.

Section 8: Prejudice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8:_Prejudice

SERIOUS SAM series, All the games released till now. And, yes I'm SERIOUS !

Shadow Warrior 1 and 2.

SiN Episodes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SiN_Episodes

Soldier of Fortune series.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear SKY.

SWAT 4.

Titanfall 2.

TIMESHIFT ! I love this game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TimeShift

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2.

TRIBES Vengeance. This game is really good. Strong STORY campaign. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribes:_Vengeance

Unreal II: The Awakening.

Wolfenstein: The New Order and The Old Blood.


Thanks for reading, NICK. :)
 
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DEAD SPACE 1 "remake" is in the works. Might launch soon. The first DEAD SPACE game was really awesome ! Creepy atmosphere, great voice acting, and a thrilling environment. It was a fun horror game. It took me some time to get used to the game's mouse/camera control, and movement though.

Does anyone like the DEAD SPACE franchise here ??

EA has announced that a complete rebuild of Dead Space is in the works. The project was announced at the recent EA Play Live livestream event. An announcement tweet reads: “Survive the spine-chilling horrors of the USG Ishiura in #DeadSpace – A classic rebuilt by @MotiveStudio”.

View: https://twitter.com/EA/status/1418268376447787011



https://news.ea.com/press-releases/...-Fi-Classic-Survival-Horror-Game/default.aspx

From the sounds of it, the project is a complete remake of the original built from the ground up. The trailer says that the game is being built in DICE’s own Frostbite Engine. That’s the engine that’s also being used for Battlefield 2042, so it’s bound to look amazing.

A press release also suggests that the story and characters might be altered slightly to bring the game up to modern standards. It reads: “Fans will experience an improved story, characters, gameplay mechanics and more as they fight to survive a living nightmare aboard the desolate mining starship, the USG Ishimura, all while uncovering the dreadful mystery of what happened to the slaughtered crew and ship.”

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5WeBNfX-og&t=1s&ab_channel=DeadSpace
An update on my thoughts on this remake. Word is Motive are making the environment not just more elaborate visually, but they are adding in new things in the environment as well. This includes less bland looking interior structures with more realistic shapes, contents, and textures. They are also actually putting in environment gameplay content, which involves optional pathways you can explore, which were cut from the original game due to technical limitations. It is said these pathways will serve to help explore Nicole's backstory, and find out what happened to her. Who knows, maybe they'll also serve to find easter eggs, or useable resources.

They are also changing the damage to be more elaborate via a enemy destruction system called peeling. This means weapons will first peel away the flesh of enemies, which will help visually determine what part of the limb will be more likely to break. They also said some weapons will be better at peeling flesh, while others will be better at severing limbs, so there will be more weapon strategy involved, which should also play into inventory management.

Another revelation I was glad to hear is Gunner Wright will actually be voicing Isaac Clarke this time, which is perhaps one of the most shocking reveals since Isaac not only never spoke in the original, but many die hard Survival Horror fans liked it that way. They DID say however he will only speak when spoken to, and as well to give his opinions on tech matters being discussed, as an Engineer would. So the full on horror parts of the game will still be voiceless.

They're also saying it will be a seamless, continuous experience, with no load screens, but that seems like a ton of procedural rendering to master, and with a code heavy engine no less. So I have some skepticism about the technical end, especially since the creative director has zero experience with survival horror games.

Lastly, one thing they said that really excited me is Zero G this time will not just be limited to prescripted jump targets from one surface to another. We will be able to free float in Zero G using thrusters, just like in Dead Space 2 and 3, and from the looks of what they've shown, we will be able to search some of the alternate pathways this way, which are in Zero G.

The thing that concerns me most, is EA's insistence on using the Frostbite engine. This is because it's not only now a bit outdated compared to the latest build of Unreal Engine, but as I said, it's also far more code heavy, which means more development time and more chance of bugs. There's the chance Frostbite will be heavily updated, as there's talk of RT support, but it will likely still be code heavy, as streamlining it as well would not make sense due to time constraints and going against it's core nature. It would be like building a whole new engine. I'm also very concerned about the lighting balance, which looks so dark on my display I cannot see a lot of things.

I AM now a bit eager to see the final results of this project though, and EA are even allowing Motive to poll fans of the game, so that's a good sign. I really doubt EA will transform from Scrooge to do gooders though, and I still can't forgive them for what they did to Visceral Games. Deep down I hope Calisto Protocol stomps the Dead Space Remake, and it would be apropos if they released the same month. I still plan to give this one a try though, and hope for the best for the series moving forward.
 
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Hey, thanks man for the update on Dead Space 1 remake. You have shared pretty good and interesting points/thoughts. Sounds really cool right now. Regrading the game's engine, yes it would be much better if the devs use Unreal Engine instead of Frostbite. And If they also plan to add RTX and DLSS, or AMD's FSR, then using UE 4/5 would be more convenient, imo.

Fingers crossed if this game turns out good, since I have kind of lost faith in game devs and publishers lately. BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if Gunner Wright is actually back for full voice acting. But I would still prefer Issac to be a sort of silent type protagonist, lol.
 
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BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if Gunner Wright is actually back for full voice acting. But I would still prefer Issac to be a sort of silent type protagonist, lol.
Oh he is, it's not only been confirmed by the devs, but Gunnar himself has been seen talking about it on a live stream, where the fan community Motive polled was interviewing the 2 lead devs.

I wouldn't worry about him being too voice heavy though, as they have reassured fans whom are worried about that by saying he is intended only to speak in conversation scenes, not in horror scenes.

I think in this sense, it sounds like the game will have good pacing as well. IMO, this is essential in a survival horror game. You don't want EVERYTHING to be horror non stop, or you become desensitized by it, and it loses it's effect.
 
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Some new Gaming news to share. Remedy has just announced the sequel to its award-winning 2010 action-adventure game, Alan Wake. Yes, Alan Wake 2 is a real thing, targets a 2023 release and will be exclusive to Epic Games Store.

According to Sam Lake, Alan Wake 2 will be a survival horror game. Other than that, though, we don’t know anything about this new Alan Wake game.

Alan Wake 2 will be a current-gen only game. And although Remedy did not reveal any tech details, we can assume that it will be using the Northlight Engine. We can also assume that it will support NVIDIA’s DLSS tech.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crQobuzpVps&ab_channel=EpicGamesPublishing
 
Some new Gaming news to share. Remedy has just announced the sequel to its award-winning 2010 action-adventure game, Alan Wake. Yes, Alan Wake 2 is a real thing, targets a 2023 release and will be exclusive to Epic Games Store.

According to Sam Lake, Alan Wake 2 will be a survival horror game. Other than that, though, we don’t know anything about this new Alan Wake game.

Alan Wake 2 will be a current-gen only game. And although Remedy did not reveal any tech details, we can assume that it will be using the Northlight Engine. We can also assume that it will support NVIDIA’s DLSS tech.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crQobuzpVps&ab_channel=EpicGamesPublishing
Yeah I saw a screenshot of it yesterday, but not this clip. Graphics look really good, and it looks like they're delving much deeper into the dark side of Alan this time. The end of that clip had a sort of Jekyll and Hyde feel to it.
 
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Yeah, graphics looks pretty cool. I forgot the ETA when Alan Wake 2 would be released though. I still have ALAN WAKE Remaster in my "to-play-games" backlog.

On some other news, Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade has been released by Square Enix, and the game lacks the DENUVO anti-tamper protection mechanism. A surpise from SE. However, the PC version appears to be a mere console port and nothing more. The game features some of the most bare-bones graphics settings we’ve ever seen in a PC game to date.

These days I have lost faith in Game developers and publishers. Gaming industry is slowly on the decline/collapse TBH. And the worse part is these new so-called games require at least 100 GB+ of min HDD/SSD space just for the base game, not counting any patches/updates. It's a pain to download such huge data online for everyone, given how bandwidth starved some ISPs are.

I heard even some of the latest COD and Battlefield games are also insanely HUGE in size.

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/p/final-fantasy-vii-remake-intergrade

Has anyone played FF 7 Game before though ?
 
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Btw, Techland has just revealed the official PC system requirements for Dying Light 2: Stay Human. According to the specs, PC gamers will at least need an Intel Core i3-9100 or AMD Ryzen 3 2300X with 8GB of RAM and 60GB of free hard-disk space.

For gaming at 1080p/30fps/Low Details, Techland suggests using an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 560. For gaming at 1080p/60fps/High Details, the team suggests using an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 or AMD Radeon RX Vega 56. Not so modest PC specs though.

Dying-Light-2-PC-system-requirements.jpg


Dying Light 2 will also support Ray Tracing effects. Techland will be using Ray Tracing in order to enhance the game’s reflections, global illumination and shadows. I enjoyed playing Dying Light 1 but the gameplay/story became too monotonous and repetitive for me. And not to mention the PARKOUR techniques.

Dying Light 2 releases in February 2022.

Dying-Light-2-delay.jpg
 
The devs anymore IMO are only misleading a lot of players with their requirements. My i7-8700K and GTX 1080 still stomp a lot of CPUs and GPUs mentioned even in Recommended spec. The average user doesn't know that because of the bizarre models they show though.

Yes, I know that. I honestly never gave any serious attention to any game's official system SPECS, nor took it seriously. Because we all know, most of the game devs actually exaggerate the minimum and recommended specs. I guess some of them are a bit scared, or lack confidence that if they provide a lower GPU/CPU requirement, then the game won't run as intended for the majority of the gamers, if not all.

Either that, or the game/game's engine is indeed very demanding. But we also need to take into account the optimization issues as well, which plays a huge role in performance despite the game's ENGINE. A poorly optimized game will struggle to run properly even on a modest gaming PC, let alone high-end PCs.

I have seen even more weird and funny system specs posted on the official game's webpage, and other gaming platforms. I'm just wondering who actually decides any game's system requirements. Are they the game developers themselves, who have extensively tested the game before, or just the Marketing/PR team ?

I doubt any game studio or developer can test N number of systems, with varying PC configurations which can be impossible to do since there are a lot of GPUs/CPUs in the market.

One more thing though. I have a feeling that it might also be possible that some of the game devs/publishers want to promote the latest GPU and CPU models by AMD, Nvidia and INTEL, if the companies are under some sort of agreement or deal. That's why we usually don't see an older Gen CPU or GPU model listed, but there is no hard and fast rule to this though. Some games do support older and previous gen cards/processors as well.

But most of the recent AAA titles have a steep system requirement these days.
 
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Yes, I know that. I honestly never gave any serious attention to any game's official system SPECS, nor took it seriously. Because we all know, most of the game devs actually exaggerate the minimum and recommended specs. I guess some of them are a bit scared, or lack confidence that if they provide a lower GPU/CPU requirement, then the game won't run as intended for the majority of the gamers, if not all.

Either that, or the game/game's engine is indeed very demanding. But we also need to take into account the optimization issues as well, which plays a huge role in performance despite the game's ENGINE. A poorly optimized game will struggle to run properly even on a modest gaming PC, let alone high-end PCs.

I have seen even more weird and funny system specs posted on the official game's webpage, and other gaming platforms. I'm just wondering who actually decides any game's system requirements. Are they the game developers themselves, who have extensively tested the game before, or just the Marketing/PR team ?

I doubt any game studio or developer can test N number of systems, with varying PC configurations which can be impossible to do since there are a lot of GPUs/CPUs in the market.

One more thing though. I have a feeling that it might also be possible that some of the game devs/publishers want to promote the latest GPU and CPU models by AMD, Nvidia and INTEL, if the companies are under some sort of agreement or deal. That's why we usually don't see an older Gen CPU or GPU model listed, but there is no hard and fast rule to this though. Some games do support older and previous gen cards/processors as well.

But most of the recent AAA titles have a steep system requirement these days.
Well I think they for the most part try to stay relevant with models that have recently released regarding Recommended spec, but when I see models like a 2600 GPU for Recommended, or i3 9100 for Minimum, it just looks strange. The 3060 would be a much better example on Recommended spec for all but the most demanding games, and 4 core, 4 thread CPUs anymore are getting quite old. It's really only the most egregious examples, or ones that don't yield anywhere near the performance most would expect, that bothers me.

I just got Halo Infinite btw, and although the gameplay is fun, the performance is less than I expected from a series that's always ran pretty well on my rigs. Granted, it's visuals are definitely a step above what they've done before, but you need a beast of a PC to see a lot of difference. Even if I stay within their so called "ideal" amount of VRAM usage, if I choose the wrong settings, it will feel pretty laggy.

The default graphics settings (and I'm not sure if it's calibrated to my spec), are all Medium. I've already tried going all High settings, then selecting any Ultra settings as well that barely bump the VRAM meter, though going just slightly above the ideal mark. That works fine for the lengthy prologue that's all inside a huge space ship, and at over 60 FPS average, but as soon as I get outdoors, it starts dipping to 40 FPS in spots, averaging 45-50, which really affects movement and shooting.

So now I'm planning to go all Med, then select as many High settings as I can, while staying well under the ideal VRAM usage, and try to stay as close as possible to 60 FPS average. I will also be checking for good graphics settings guides on the game. I have to think The Coalition may have been a better team for Halo though, They made Gears of War 4 and Gears 5, both of which were well optimized with decent visuals. Both were done on UE 4 though, and since there was no problem with hitching at asset loading points, I have to think that, unlike many devs who've had that problem with UE, they know what they're doing with it.

I like the new enemies and weapons though, and using the grapple is quite fun. I now have it equipped with the Shock upgrade, but so far have only tested it on my squad. I love to interrupt their dialogue with it like a taser. LOL
 
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Yes, I heard HALO INFINITE is a pretty demanding game. I guess it is poorly optimized as well more like. Is the game and the story/gameplay worth it ? I will wait for the devs to patch this game further. I still haven't completed the Halo Master Chief collection. I'm on Halo 4 now. Just started. I haven't completed the last 2 missions of REACH properly though, but I will do it now, before jumping on Halo 4.

Btw, are the events/storyline of INFINITE directly linked to the previous game's storyline, either a sequel to Halo 4 or 5 ? Though, Halo 5: Guardians was never got released on the PC though.

Or, the game revolves around a totally different storyline ? But I'm guessing they are somehow obviously interconnected.
 
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Yeah I left off on The Master Chief Collection having beaten all but Reach on Heroic, and was a little ways into Reach on that mode.

Before I answer your questions, some good news on performance and graphics settings. I looked at Digital Foundry's recommended optimized settings based on a few GPUs. One of them was the 2060 Super, which is close enough to my 1080. At first I thought the settings were way too high from what I had experienced, being mostly High, with Textures, Terrain, Effects, and Anisotropic Filtering set to Ultra, and Depth of Field set to Med.

During a lot of my previous testing I had Async Compute set to Off though, and DF said you get a bit better performance with it On. Other than that, they highly recommended setting Minimum FPS to a decent amount. They exampled 60 Min and 60 Max settings, with Vsync On, which is what I tried. Lastly, they claimed this should all be possible on that level of GPU, at 1440p Resolution Scale.

Needless to say, I was very doubtful. My first attempt at these settings surprisingly involved no lag problem. I mean I didn't even see the res looking like it was being compensated by the high Min FPS setting. However there was TONS of flickering, mainly light sources. I tried compensating some of the more demanding settings, but still the flickering. Then I went back to the DF settings, and this time quit the game AND rebooted the PC.

The result was incredible. I can now play at these settings, which look fantastic btw, with no flicker, or res compensation, or any graphical glitches whatsoever. So far I've done two lengthy sessions with zero problems. I got a slight hitch here and there on long drives, which happened in transition areas in between the many camps and random spawns, so I'm pretty sure it was just a matter of assets loading. This is pretty common with UE too.

Infinite does very much tie into previous games in the series story wise, so I highly recommend playing them in order if you want to get the most story immersion. As mentioned, the gameplay is very fun. The Grappleshot especially really changes the dynamic. It's great for moving around both in and out of combat, but also grabbing out of reach weapons or explosive containers, shock stunning enemies, and making punches do more damage when you grapple onto enemies.

That said, the game also has some quirks. One of the biggest being navigating land vehicles over the very rugged terrain. It takes close and careful observation of roads on the map first, and even then, a lot of roads end up dead ending, then you have to reassess how to get through. One of the strangest things is at times you'll rescue a captured squad, where there's a UNSC vehicle they all fit in, but there's no way to drive them out, so how did that vehicle get there?

It kinda reminds me of that awkward, ill conceived part of Far Cry 3 where there's a boat in a cave, with only a small stream going into it, yet somehow when you fix it, you can magically get it out of there. Another slight quirk, but this has only happened with ONE squad rescue so far, is when you get there and defeat all enemies, the squad is unresponsive, and the side mission doesn't register as complete. I had to drive out of there, come back, then an enemy ship came, and after we defeated them, the complete verification came. The squad would still not get in the vehicle though.

Despite any minor quirks though, yes, IMO the game is well worth getting. If you've not finished The Master Chief Collection though, you may want to do that first, then look for a sale on Infinite. Despite not having completed Reach on Heroic, I've already finished it on lower difficulties. So I had the full backlog of story events in my memory before getting Infinite, or at least as best as an old fart like me can retain such memories. LOL

 
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Cool man ! Thanks for all the explanation. it looks like INFINITE is game is indeed very demanding, but if those DF settings are anything to go by, then I would look at 1080p settings as well, if any. Aside from that, yes obviously I need to first complete the entire The Master Chief Collection as well, before jumping on Infinite.

From your description, it looks like the game is a slight buggy when it comes to the Squad AI, and some gameplay elements/objectives as well ? That's why I can easily wait for this game to be patched by the game DEVs, assuming they optimize the game further, and the performance difference is there (minus all the gameplay bugs/glitches).

That Grappleshot sounds like fun though. :D
 
Cool man ! Thanks for all the explanation. it looks like INFINITE is game is indeed very demanding, but if those DF settings are anything to go by, then I would look at 1080p settings as well, if any. Aside from that, yes obviously I need to first complete the entire The Master Chief Collection as well, before jumping on Infinite.

From your description, it looks like the game is a slight buggy when it comes to the Squad AI, and some gameplay elements/objectives as well ? That's why I can easily wait for this game to be patched by the game DEVs, assuming they optimize the game further, and the performance difference is there (minus all the gameplay bugs/glitches).

That Grappleshot sounds like fun though. :D
Actually I have no problem with the in-game res scale set to 1440p, or close to it anyway. It's the only game I recall where the res scale slider jumps in steps, and never actually lands on 1440p. I also tried adjusting it via the mouse too, but same problem. There is only ONE area that felt a bit laggy where the FPS dropped a bit, which was a flat spot with lots of shallow water on the ground here and there. I was going to try lowing Reflections from High to Med to see if that was causing it, but I never needed to. It also may have been that I was in the Ghost, a fairly fast land vehicle, and using boost a lot. I seem to recall having a two-boss fight in that spot on foot later where the performance was much better.

Actually that particular AI problem I described, where the freed captives did not get in the vehicle, has only happened once. Anymore though there always seems to be one idiot AI that gets hit standing under the vehicle drop platform after unlocking an FOB and ordering a vehicle. It always cracks me up, especially when one realizes they're in a dangerous spot, dives out of the way, only to walk right back to that spot and get killed by a vehicle dropping on them. Then there's ones that get nicked by a drop and survive, only to shout out they're taking fire. LOL

That said, I'm more concerned now about bugs regarding interactive prompts that disappear and crashes when Fast Traveling. There's a point in the game, which you may have already seen in one of the pre-release trailers, where the pilot crash lands. I did the main mission after that part, but when the objective became "find the pilot" afterward, I kept searching the area for left over collectibles, rather than interacting with the onscreen prompt to leave the area. A cutscene plays when you find the pilot, and I seem to recall it went black screen on me, which may have caused me to think the game was frozen, causing me to Ctrl-Alt Del and End Task (read below about cutscene black screens).

This caused the prompt to no longer appear when I went back to the spot where I found the pilot, so I was stuck there. It's also a point in the game where Fast Travel is unavailable. So I chose Restart Mission, but instead of restarting the mission, the game put me at the start of the next story mission. Once I completed that mission, I tried to Fast Travel back to the island where the pilot crashed to do a story mission there, but the game crashed.

Twice in fact it crashed trying to Fast Travel there. The reason I was trying to Fast Travel is there was an impassable huge chasm separating the two areas. So I stayed where I was, and unlocked some more FOBs, hoping I would soon get access to a flying vehicle drop, which I did. Then I was able to travel back to the island the pilot crashed on. I'm not sure if not using that prompt right away to leave that island caused the Fast Travel crashing, but the game DOES have some technical bugs that need to be fixed.

One of the bugs is once in a while, a major story cutscene goes black screen out of the blue. Last night I found out if you just move your mouse when that happens, it then goes out of black screen and back to the cutscene. So yeah, probably best to wait for patching and perhaps a price drop, but easy for you to do that if you've not completed TMCC yet. The game is very fun though. One of my fave things lately is using my now fully upgraded Grappleshot to Power Shock enemies. You basically hold F after latching onto one of them, and when Chief gets to then, he delivers a massively damaging shock punch, which hard stuns even heavily armored enemies. I've actually killed several heavy armor enemies doing this repeatedly so far, but am only playing on the default difficulty mode this run. It will also kill small groups of lesser enemies when close together with one punch, so the Power Shock has a small area of splash damaged.

The game is designed pretty well combat tactics wise, where one can quickly swap between skills to use them together. For instance if I have Threat Sensor enabled, I can toss out a sensor, which highlights all enemies in a battle area, then clean out lesser enemies, then find a choke point near tougher enemies, put down a Drop Wall shield, which when fully upgraded adds shock to each shot, then go back to Grappleshot and take on harder ones. The Threat Sensor even reveals cloaked enemies btw, as long as you stay within it's radius, which is big enough when fully upgraded. It also adds a health meter to enemies when fully upgraded, which is very useful on tougher enemies.

So yeah, a few bugs here and there (nothing I haven't been able to deal with), but a very fun game. I know that sounds like a lot of bugs I mentioned, but it's really an over 90% bug free experience, and I still wonder if the Fast Travel bug could have been avoided by not avoiding use of that prompt to leave the area.
 
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Do you intend on doing any first-person shooter walkthroughs?
If you're asking me, I may do one of Halo Infinite soon. Right now I'm on a Heroic mode playthrough and I haven't even done any upgrades yet. I'm trying to decide whether I want to do one on Heroic or Legendary, and whether I want to dare attempt a no upgrades run.

That said, I'm not even sure if the game works with ShadowPlay, but if not, that would be a deal breaker for a walkthrough.

I did do a walkthrough of Doom Eternal on Nightmare not long ago, which I believe was the most recent FPS game I did one of.

 
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Awesome. Thanks for the detailed explanation on Halo Infinite. I'm waiting impatiently to get my hands on this title, but still haven't completed the Master chief collection. Got very busy lately. And let me go through that DOOM Eternal Walkthrough Topic afterwards. Sounds quite informative, and I think I missed or overlooked that topic of yours.

As a side note, I just wanted to ask one thing . Do you play DARK SOULS/DS game series as well (assuming you also like this particular RPG genre) ? Can you play it easily ? I like the atmosphere, setting and those creepy and bizarre enemies/monsters in this Franchise, but my GOD, the game has a punishing difficulty. Someone gifted me Dark Souls 2 on STEAM, and I installed it just to check whether I can hop into this DS bandwagon, and man, I was seriously lost in the game ! :unsure:

Can't figure out where to go next, and what to do, lol. Had to watch some walkthroughs, but despite that, the game was TOO difficulty for my taste and gameplay style. I had to quit playing it. I also tried using some Game Trainers/Cheat engine tables to beat the game, but I still couldn't figure out where to go next, and what is this game all about ? No objectives or any marker as well. I guess this is what DS game's design is all about. They made it on purpose I assume ?

As far as I can recall, DS series is only for real pro and Hardcore Gamers, who love to take challenges in life/games. Though, I could be wrong. I like the game's atmosphere and the creepy setting, but it's not my cup of tea. But I have seen peeps playing this game with ease, as if they know how to counter the enemy easily in time, and collect souls/items/weapons, and obviosuly to proceed further in the game. Combat is damn tough for my taste though. You need to block and evade on time as well.

I know we can fast travel via any BONFIRE, but we still need to unlock that area/level by first visiting it. I was running in circles on one level/area, that I couldn't figure out what to do next, and had to quit the game. Too much ado for playing DS, damn.
 
No, I'
Awesome. Thanks for the detailed explanation on Halo Infinite. I'm waiting impatiently to get my hands on this title, but still haven't completed the Master chief collection. Got very busy lately. And let me go through that DOOM Eternal Walkthrough Topic afterwards. Sounds quite informative, and I think I missed or overlooked that topic of yours.

As a side note, I just wanted to ask one thing . Do you play DARK SOULS/DS game series as well (assuming you also like this particular RPG genre) ? Can you play it easily ? I like the atmosphere, setting and those creepy and bizarre enemies/monsters in this Franchise, but my GOD, the game has a punishing difficulty. Someone gifted me Dark Souls 2 on STEAM, and I installed it just to check whether I can hop into this DS bandwagon, and man, I was seriously lost in the game ! :unsure:

Can't figure out where to go next, and what to do, lol. Had to watch some walkthroughs, but despite that, the game was TOO difficulty for my taste and gameplay style. I had to quit playing it. I also tried using some Game Trainers/Cheat engine tables to beat the game, but I still couldn't figure out where to go next, and what is this game all about ? No objectives or any marker as well. I guess this is what DS game's design is all about. They made it on purpose I assume ?

As far as I can recall, DS series is only for real pro and Hardcore Gamers, who love to take challenges in life/games. Though, I could be wrong. I like the game's atmosphere and the creepy setting, but it's not my cup of tea. But I have seen peeps playing this game with ease, as if they know how to counter the enemy easily in time, and collect souls/items/weapons, and obviosuly to proceed further in the game. Combat is damn tough for my taste though. You need to block and evade on time as well.

I know we can fast travel via any BONFIRE, but we still need to unlock that area/level by first visiting it. I was running in circles on one level/area, that I couldn't figure out what to do next, and had to quit the game. Too much ado for playing DS, damn.
I'm making pretty good progress on my Heroic play through of Halo Infinite so far. I still haven't upgraded any skills yet, and I've unlocked them all now. I've beaten 3 of the bosses so far, and Bassus (the 3rd one whom wields a hammer), went the quickest this time, despite being one of the ones I struggled with first play through.

It was all due to finding the right turret weapon before going to the battle area, which you can remove from their turret and carry at a slowed pace. They are also found on the ground at times (which this one was). I was even thinking with the slowed speed, the heavy weapon would do no good, as the hardest part of the fight last time was evading his rush attacks. He wasn't even able to rush me or land any hammer strikes this time though.

It was actually harder to deal with the two heavily armored enemies at the end of the Conservatory, which is entered from the dig site, and is what Bassus tries to keep you from accessing. The 2 heavy armored guys both wield the same heavy weapon I killed Bassus with. The trick is to lure one away, stun him with a shock grenade, then kill him with explosive grenades and gun fire, which took several tries. Then you can use his Scrap Cannon on the other heavy, but as slow as you move carrying one, it's easy to get killed even if strafing behind cover as he advances.

So I'm now more confident I can do a no upgrades run, as even cloaked enemies have been doable. One of the reasons I'm experimenting to see if I CAN do a no upgrade run, is it cuts out a ton of time gathering the Spartan Cores you spend on the upgrades. I've also been primarily using the UNSC weapons available at FOBs, to make quick resupplying of ammo possible. If I do a walkthrough, it won't likely contain gathering any Mjolnir armor skins, because they are pointless for SP as they are only MP armor skins. I also won't be searching for any Propaganda Towers or Audio Logs. And as mentioned, Spartan Cores will be avoided if I make it through this run with no upgrades.

This will give the gameplay better combat and story flow, and keep file sizes manageable for uploading. That said, I still will likely be taking on the High Value Target enemies here and there, as they are like mini bosses whom when they and their minions are killed, unlock powerful Banished Weapons. I will also rescue captured squads, clear enemy outposts, and on occasion, destroy Propaganda towers I happen to see, as these earn you Valor. Valor unlocks vehicles, weapons and reinforcements at FOBs.

As for Dark Souls, I have no interest in games like that, and it's not just the difficulty. I don't particularly like games that pit you against one big boss after another, that you have to melee kill with precisely timed moves, which can take quite a while. My idea of a good Hardcore melee game is Ghostrunner, which I enjoyed quite a bit. I mean I love challenge in games, but if it becomes more tedious than fun, that's a deal breaker.
 
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Hey, what's up ? Season's Greeting everyone ! Just got busy this holiday season. Glad to know you are making good progress with Halo Infinite. I still haven't completed the Master Chief collection though, but will complete the full series by the end of this week. Halo Infinite's gameplay sounds more fun than other Halo games in my opinion. I watched a couple of videos as well.

My idea of a good Hardcore melee game is Ghostrunner, which I enjoyed quite a bit. I mean I love challenge in games, but if it becomes more tedious than fun, that's a deal breaker.

That's a very good game, but I have never tried playing these ""action platformer"" type of games. But I have watched your Youtube Gameplay videos before as well, and the game is really awesome ! Especially the "Sensory Boost" feature ! 🤘

But I'm just not THAT much comfortable with dashing, jumping, wall-running, grappling and stuff like that, if they are the main gameplay elements. Some games I can play which have slight parkour techniques like Dying Light, Doom Eternal (if I'm not mistaken), but not sure If I can play Ghostrunner though. But I will try the free DEMO of this game which is on STEAM.

The game is indeed tough/hard to beat though nonetheless. I think just 1-hit kill from enemies can also end the player's life, killing him in the process ?
 
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Yeah I'm now making even better progress in Halo Infinite, but my addiction to this game is getting quite hard on me. I was up playing a super long session last night on a legendary mode no upgrade run, and I didn't get to bed until 4:30 this afternoon. As a result I got only 4 hours of sleep and it's already feeling like it wasn't enough recovery time. I plan on staying up only a little while though, and sleep longer tonight.

Legendary mode is turning out to be more doable than I thought, but certainly some boss fights take numerous tries. One battle in particular I'm glad I got through was one against two Red Hunters, These are new, as far as I know no other Halo game has them. I just call them Elite Hunters, but I've yet to find any official designation for them. Some have described them as mini bosses, which is apropos.

In fact I'd say if the side targets you kill are considered mini bosses (which unlock special weapons), these guys are a step up from that, especially the battle I'm talking about, which has minimal cover and is not a very big room for such a battle. Worse yet, the level it takes place in, the last one in the game, I went into without the assault rifle I planned to carry in, because I forgot when you release the pilot after defeating one of the main villains Escharum, it takes you straight into a cutscene and loads the next level. The very first room, which is pretty large with two shade (heavy) turrets, and some Elites was pretty challenging too.

On top of this, I failed to carry even the one weapon I DID want all the way to that battle, as I was setting it down here and there to make sure I had enough ammo for it in that battle, and it got trapped in a prior room I forgot you can't backtrack to. The annoying thing was, I even forgot there was an ammo dispenser for it in the room that battle takes place in. S I went into that whole level with one weapon I wanted, and another that was out of ammo, and lost possession of the enhanced version of the other one.

Basically what I did was use a Plasma Pulse Rifle instead of the Sentinel Beam on the unshielded back of one of the Hunters when first entering the room, and then went immediately to a nearby weapon cache where there was a Skewer (powerful spike projectile weapon), which I swapped for a Battle Rifle I picked up. That is pretty much the only weapon I used other than throwing the several explosive canisters available at them (hard to do without the Hunters exploding them with their fire) and my grenades, while desperately grappling to avoid their attacks. I was able to hone my tactics to where even if they split up, I could exploit what little cover there was by being patient and slipping between them.

It takes very good strategy and precise grapples to do this, especially with the base level grapple, which doesn't give you faster cooldown time. These enemies, which always are in pairs, tend to rage when you kill one of them, meaning they are more prone to rushing you and firing a barrage of Plasma cannon rounds. Worse yet, I wasn't lucky enough to get a checkpoint after killing one, so I often died from the other one and had to start the whole battle over. Halo Infinite, because of all the tools the player has access to, is considered one of the easier Halos to beat on Legendary, but with no upgrades, it's a whole other level. In fact I'm also not using any skills but the grapple. No Threat Sensor (which makes cloaked Elites visible), no Drop Wall shield, and no Thruster to dodge with. As well my Core Shield, which is a passive skill you can upgrade, at base level is 75% less powerful than when fully upgraded.

I'm also playing a bit differently than I had planned to when I spoke of how I want to make a walkthrough, meaning I'm going straight through the story missions, and in general not unlocking FOBs or battling mini bosses for special weapon upgrades. There was only one exception for that, the one that unlocks the Arcane Sentinel Beam, which I took a five man AI squad to, but they all died within the first minute of the battle, so I had to take on the Elites and the boss solo. Without unlocked FOBs, it means you also can't fast travel, and have less access to vehicles, so I traveled mostly on foot using the grapple. I traveled so much on foot in fact that I also tried my best to find a n alternate way to play The Road mission, designed to be a gauntlet you travel in a tank. No matter how far I got grappling the edge of the available hillsides though, the game would spawn in enemies on the perimeter, and there was always parts that were too hard to get through on foot, even if crossing over from one side to another. IMO it's OK if such an open world game, which is definitely new for Halo, has one mission in it that is fairly linear. I found out I was kidding myself to think I could fast track it on Legendary though, as even in a tank it takes a while, but much longer on foot, and ends up being too hard.

Oh, and yes, in Ghostrunner any single gunshot or melee strike will kill you, but as hard as that seems, and it is, you also have far more maneuverability than the enemies having sensory boost as one of your primary skills.
 
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my absolute favorite genre is RPG;
whether that be 3rd person action,
1st person immersion,
isometric, etc
all depends on story and gameplay.

currently playing through Halo: Infinite.
previous was a replay of Prey (2016).
previous to that was a run through of the Master Chief Collection.

the more player personalization and RPG elements the better.

but i always loved playing Halo: Combat Evolved back in the early Xbox days and upon it & Halo 2's release on PC.
so it has been great being able to finally play through the complete story on PC.

really anticipating the supposed soon to come Cyberpunk 2077 update and expansion.
 
As a side note, AMD recently teased its next-gen Zen 4 architecture and upcoming Ryzen 7000 series CPU at CES 2022, with a test of Halo: Infinite Game running on an undisclosed Zen 4-based CPU.

Halo: Infinite was run at 1080p on NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card, alongside a Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series CPU which will feature a built-in RDNA 2-based GPU. The new Ryzen 7000 series CPU was installed into a next-gen AM5 motherboard with the new prototype LGA1718 socket.

AMD says that it was hitting 5.0GHz on all of those next-gen Zen 4 cores, so we should see peak CPU clocks boosting over 5.0GHz -- especially with Intel at AMD's heels with its new Core i9-12900KS processor hitting 5.2GHz on all P-cores. The race of 5GHz and beyond is now here, I guess.

zen4_amd_keynote_halo_infinite-720x720.jpg


Oddly enough, the graphics card that was used in this demonstration wasn’t a Radeon RX 6000 Series GPU, but an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, according to the endnotes that can be seen at the end of the video (timestamped).

View: https://youtu.be/_jX-hKvUQDU?t=2343
 
I don't ever recall AMD featuring a new CPU chip paired with an Nvidia GPU before, really strange.

At any rate, I've now completed the Halo Infinite campaign on Legendary with no upgrades. The final battle was making me wonder if I'd get through it. I used a bit counter intuitive approach to the waves of enemies, ducking into the small alcoves they spawn from, then holding it as a defensive stand. The first two waves went pretty well, but the 3rd, with the Elites and heavy armor chieftain that spawn were making me wonder if I needed to change strategies.

What I would do on that 3rd wave is kill all or most of them before the Chieftain arrives, then go back into the arena to take him on, as you don't stand a chance anywhere close to him. I was getting killed a lot by Skimmers and Elites prior to that out in the open, as it's just impossible to see them all in time to avoid their fire.

The 3rd wave took numerous tries, but I finally got a checkpoint when the Chieftain was the last one left, and he was a good ways away from me. I even had time to scour for grenades and ammo for my Sentinel Beam and set up near a large canister of explosive material. I then tossed a shock grenade near the canister as he approached it, keeping him stunned monetarily as I tossed explosive grenades and shot the canister.

I basically rinsed and repeated this method to finally take him out. The reason it took a few tries despite the checkpoint was he kept chasing me down and doing his giant leap with a hammer strike. These guys can leap like 100 feet. I then realized with my grapple not upgraded, I would have to exploit a weakness in these heavy foes. They are not very fast at getting to a higher or lower level, so I just made sure anytime he was getting close, I grappled up or down to another level.

I was worried the Harbinger's final phase, which comes at the end of this wave, would result in dying several times when she teleports away from you (like on my Heroic run). If this happens, you often can't even afford to take a second to locate her, because she launches a powerful attack that's like 3 really strong shock blasts, which kills you instantly. I found the key to keeping her from teleporting is getting to her right after her force field drops, tossing a nade at her (a plasma one works well), then getting in fairly close and intermittently zapping her with the Sentinel beam and punching her. I actually got her on her 3rd phase first try.

I've decided I want to relish this victory by completing all the FOBs and High Value Targets, going from one to another with a squad of 5 in a Razorback. If you stay in the fight with them, they don't do too bad, but turn your head, and they're dead.

I WILL get around to making a walkthrough with the same challenge, but first I'm going back to Monster Energy Supercross 3 and doing a couple more rounds of my 250 East Realistic career walkthrough. Halo Infinite is really a gas to play though. Even when it's feeling next to impossible, the IWHBYD skull (I Would Have Been Your Daddy), which unlocks rare humorous Grunt dialogue, keeps me chuckling.
 
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By the way, if you or anyone like insane challenges, then there is a HORDE mod for the game DAYS GONE. I stumbled upon this recently, lol. This mod makes all hordes more challenging by raising the number of zombies.

In the vanilla version, the Hordes have between 50 and 500 swarmers. This mod changes that range to 280-600. Furthermore, a boss horde further increases that number to 670 zombies. But the modder did not simply increase the number of swarmers to ridiculous numbers in all areas. Nope. Instead, he followed Bend Studio’s Tier modes.

There are currently six Tier modes which are:
  • Tier 0 200. ( Little Bear Lake Horde – Because obvious its smallest original and sleep in a very small house , gonna look ridiculous as it is (sleep outside hous or on top of heads others)
  • Tier 1. ( Cascade Region ) 280 (boss horde – 320) Grotto Caves Horde
  • Tier 2 360. (Belknap Region) (boss horde – 400) Patjens Lakes Horde
  • Tier 3. (Lost Lake Region) 440 (boss horde – 480) Metolius Lava Cave Horde
  • Tier 4. (Highway 97 Region ) 520 (boss horde – 580) Lobert Draw Ridge Horde
  • Tier 5. (Crater Lake Region ) 600 (boss horde – 670) Mt. Bailey Horde
I personally haven't tried this mod, as I need to fully re-install the game, and I haven't even finsihed the full story yet. But there are too many zombies for my taste. BTW, this mod works as long as you have not explored new areas and discovered the horde prior to the mod. Otherwise, you’ll have to start a new game, IMO.

Resetting jobs (hordes) from game pause menu after 100% completion also works.


https://www.nexusmods.com/daysgone/mods/97?tab=description

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Q_4cMFAwg&ab_channel=AlexAmigo