The Gamers Arms

I think Cyberpunk suffers from having a fairly boring and rather broken open world which is constantly taking you out of the game. The stories and quests you get involved with around the world are well written and in some cases really good but the other stuff can be so immersion breaking, at least it was at launch.

I also believe the games UI is just as responsible for crippling the overall experience when I do attempt to properly digest any of it, It's fucking downright awful in its design I always felt like it was a placeholder early access kind of deal, unintuitive and shoddy to boot. Agreed on the open world Dj it all just feels so uncompelling, I've never once ventured outside the initial city area.

Can also relate on the Red Dead 2 front, I played that game for perhaps just short of twenty hours and the micro control system drove me completely nuts. It's undeniably a stunning looking game, no question but to do anything literally anything in the game world feels like an absolute chore and I could never shake the sluggish unresponsive feeling. I've still not returned to it scolded so hard was I trying to get along with it, paid full price for the bloody thing too.

To add a bit of a more positive spin here Assassin's Creed: Valhalla - I know that didn't click with many for various reasons, but I have something like 323 hours on the game and have not even started on the Ragnarök expansion, that one clicked for me big time and I have more time on it than any other AC game in my library.

Assassin's Creed is an easy one for me. Now the novelty has worn off (around about the time Brotherhood came out) they are just a massive slog of filler. The world's are very well designed and look very pretty but 90% of the content you have to do in them is just inane rubbish which is poorly written and mostly plays out with the same gameplay loop. It's just boring. I enjoyed Origins because of the shift more towards RPG and because the setting is one I particularly enjoyed, but watching my partner play Odyssey after that put me way off wanting to try it.

Red Dead 2 is a weird one because I bounced off it hard due to the tanky controls and long winded animations for everything at first. But when I restarted the game and stuck with it I absolutely loved it. After you've spent a few hours with the heavy physics system you can kind of intuitively read the animations so that you know when to press the next button, you have to be quite meticulous about timings otherwise it's easy to accidentally queue up actions whilst an animation is still playing and then it feels like you've lost control as the character goes off in all manner of directions. When you get to grips with it I found it was actually very responsive, and treating it like a slow paced outlaw simulator rather than a rapid action game makes for a really chilled experience. I ended up dumping a few hundred hours into it just chasing the 100% marker, doing all the hunting side quests and finding the random exotic birds. It was great.

AC - didn't play Origins, instead I went straight to Odyssey and loved it, played it all the way through to the end and had a blast with it overall.

Valhalla - liked it, keep intend to go back to it but something else always seems to grab my attention first. If it was on Steam I'd probably have played a lot more of it, honestly I keep forgetting the Ubi launcher is a thing.

Deus Ex - really enjoyed Human Revolution, never finished Mankind Divided, just didn't grab me in the same way, and it's entirely possible it was just too similar and bored me a bit.

Prey - started it, played about 10 hours, haven't played it since. Not sure why.

RDR2 - see above, only about 20 hours this time. It wasn't even the controls really, I was really into it up to a certain point, then I just couldn't be bothered to pick it up again one day. Again, if I had it on Steam rather than the shitty Rockstar launcher maybe I'd have played a lot more of it.

I still really enjoy playing Cyberpunk despite the fact it's not perfect. I enjoyed it a lot more once I stopped trying to play it like Deus Ex and stealth encounters, instead loading up with either mantis-blades or monowire and just going berserker-mode on everything in sight.

Very surprised you've never touched Origins Sly my mate, it's the purest of the three recent games in terms of the jump it made to an RPG style and the actual setting is just to die for if you have even the slightest interest in all things Egyptian. Easily has the best looting system best character in Bayek and great combat mechanics to go with it...https://youtu.be/8siH_49fyO8?t=250

Lennyquantum wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 01, 2022 1:00 pm

Very surprised you've never touched Origins Sly my mate, it's the purest of the three recent games in terms of the jump it made to an RPG style and the actual setting is just to die for if you have even the slightest interest in all things Egyptian. Easily has the best looting system best character in Bayek and great combat mechanics to go with it...https://youtu.be/8siH_49fyO8?t=250

It was mainly that at the time I didn't like the change in direction to become more RPG-ey, years thereafter I saw the newer game for dirt cheap online so thought if I was going to play one it may as well be the updated version.

But I've noted courtesy of MM that Origins is free on Prime this month, so I'll be picking it up for sure.

I agree sly about Human Revolution, that was a lovely new iteration of Deus Ex. If you put aside the weird crappy boss fights, that was bordering on a classic game.

I think I still have Origins on my Steam wishlist. I've never played an Assassin's Creed game.

Sly Boots wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 01, 2022 10:32 am

Deus Ex - really enjoyed Human Revolution, never finished Mankind Divided, just didn't grab me in the same way, and it's entirely possible it was just too similar and bored me a bit.

Yup, this was me too.

For those who struggle with RDR2, we are currently having an absolute riot in our Discord co-op group (currently Lenny, Raid, El Gaucho and me with Solitaire whenever he is able) playing RDR2 online. We have four in the posse just now, with space for 3 more, so if you have ever wanted to play it but struggled, there is more co-op cowboy carnage than you can shake a pretty hefty stick at going on almost every evening.

As noted, this includes Lenny, who is now really enjoying himself in the game.

Have they added much content to it since the last time we played together? The last big update I remember was the moonshine profession path.

Yeah quite a bit, there is a big set of crime missions to ease the way to earning the other professions, plus there is the Naturalist career path for folks who want to explore the wildlife the game has to offer (and anaesthetise/kill it).

I restarted RDR2 a few days ago and am getting the gist of it now. I die almost every time I'm ambushed, I only discovered my poor horse is malnourished and I'm constantly broke...but I'm really enjoying it. The details in the simplist of actions is amazing at times and the subtle body language changes and glances from npc's is nothing short of astounding.

ok. I Have massive FOMO at the moment. I can't seem to find an active discord invite so might need to added (again? can't remember if I ever had access)

Rusty wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 13, 2022 12:34 pm

ok. I Have massive FOMO at the moment. I can't seem to find an active discord invite so might need to added (again? can't remember if I ever had access)

I've PM'd you a Discord invite.