General gaming discussion

Cordell

I never played other WD besides Legion, but this was really good and the best large modern city open world so far, much better than Cyberpunk.

Anyone playing High on Life get a bug in the Krubis boss where he disappears? I've reloaded the checkpoint and got to the same point 3 times now and it keeps happening. Always when he's near death which makes it even more frustrating. I can see online its happening to other people but there is little help in it which is strange.

wotzgoingon

I loved all the watch dogs. In 2 I loved collecting the upgrade points and money bags by using RC car and Drone and then in Legion using the spider bot while I am above the area on the construction large drone. Don't get me wrong the main missions or side missions are great in the games also. I loved climbing the clock tower in Legion with the spider bot. They are easy games too once you get used to playing and hiding the user and using all your abilities like cameras, drones, rc car or spider bot.

Potential-Monke

It's been on my mind a while, so I said I was going to have a proper look at the GameStop Levels vs Pro Club just to see how much worse it was.

GameStop Pro: €25 a year (free for the first year if you're already Level 3 or Epic)

• 10% trade in bonus on used games
• Priority sales - Access to Limited Edition items (remains to be seen if it's games or crap related to games, I assume the latter)
• Access to Exclusive GameStop events (oh wow! I also assume this means the yearly gaming con in Dubland which doesn't change year on year)
• Birthday gift (unexplained what this may be)
• Dedicated page for Pro members (.............)
• A slew of non-gaming related "partners" with discounts or trials.

GameStop Level 3/4 (Epic): Free as long as you spent enough in store to earn carrots and level up.

• 1-time use €10/€20 bonus trade in credit (on reaching Level3/ 4)
• 10%/15% Bonus trade credit
• 25%/35% Bonus trade credit against pre-orders
• 10%/15% Loot Clothing discount
• 30%/50% @Play accessories discount
• Birthday voucher: Buy 1 game, get 30%/50% off a second)
• 1 week return guarantee on used games
• A single 3 for 2 voucher when you level up
• Exclusive monthly offer
• 12 month digital Game Informer sub
• VIP privilege's and access to exclusive events (Level 4 only)
• Access to Exclusive Loyalty competitions (don't think I actually ever saw any of this)

So yeah, Pro Club is obviously far better value.... Criminals. Time to start shopping wherever has the cheapest now. Most likely Smyths. My Level 4 is due to expire the end of March anyway, and honestly lads, not a hope you can get me to sign up for a yearly sub for a bloody games shop with far less benefits than when it was free!

I was going to email GameStop with the above and let them know my thoughts. But then I remember I have the PSVR2 pre-ordered, wouldn't be unlike some company man to do something which could never be traced (or just wouldn't be looked into). I don't trust people!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120053171#Comment_120053171

What a gem, really enjoying this. It should be a mindfulness app 😊 The sound of the rain, slow piano keys, even the purr from the cat when you pet it. And that's not even part of the gameplay. It's got some very relaxing puzzles to solve and intriguing background stories as to why the customer needs a particular remedy. Relaxing is the keyword. It also plays nicely on my Surface Pro which means I can play it wherever I like, adding to the relaxing vibes.

SuperBowserWorld

Spiderman remastered on PS5 is such a relaxing game. It's cheerful, fun, super playable and polished. Reminds me of the really good AAA Nintendo games.

XBox really leans towards the adult FPS, zombie apocalypse, dark games, with a huge dash of sports games, as they have no developer that seems to be able to do the above. Even Ori is dark. I think they've a few tedious AA kids games but nothing that works across all generations.

The only thing I can think of is Fenyx Rising and that's a 3rd party game. Super Lucky Tales is annoying. Maybe Minecraft, but they fluked/bought that.

wotzgoingon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120076052#Comment_120076052

What did you not like about Super Lucky's Tale? I played it twice the first and then the New SLT. Same game. I bought the first and all DLC and then the New was on GamePass. I have gotten every achievement in both games. Found it to be an easy game but I love platform games so there is that. Another great platforming game I played twice but do not hear any body talk about is Yooka-Laylee. I played it first on PC at release and then again on Xbox a year or so later and got every achievement in that game also. Yooka-Laylee and the impossible Lair is good also.

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120076089#Comment_120076089

Maybe I was just spoiled by most of the Mario games, which are incredibly polished, and have the industry best art design, music, game design and playability.

However, I did forget Rayman Legends which is just as good if not better than any Mario Game. 3rd party. Not a MS produced game.

I liked Youka-Laylee and the impossible lair, but that final lair is incredibly difficult so that put me off the game, and some of the overworld stuff is tedious. Also not MS.

I think New Super Lucky Tales is fine, it even runs at 120 FPS. But I got bored with it. Not sure if it was the samey colour scheme, music and/or puzzles. One think the best Mario games do is that each new thing that is introduced is only used enough, before it outstays its welcome. Or things are recombined in interesting ways. Boredom is not an option.

Might go back to NSLT and give it another chance.

My point is that MS have the cash but are not producing timeless, fun, polished, family friendly/broad age range AAA games. And this is why, in my opinion, they struggle compared to Sony and Nintendo.

They did buy Banjo Kazooie with Rare - maybe they need a Mario Odyssey level update to that and not a 1990s remaster.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120066122#Comment_120066122

About halfway through, with all Ace medals and gifts so far. Man it's starting to get really hectic.

I voted for Neon White for best game design in the thread here on the forum, but even then that was when I was pretty early on in the game. The game design just gets better and better. Levels are so superbly designed and laid out.

Retr0gamer

Sonic Frontiers is a strange game for throwing out influences and nods to other games but I was not expecting the second islands boss to give major metal gear revengeance vibes.

Retr0gamer

Just a PSA that Awesome Game Done Quick started today and is on all week 24/7

Penn

Finished Neon White on PS5 with all gifts and ace medals. God damn what a fantastic game. Will post up more on the Games Completed thread tomorrow, but anyone who has been sleeping on it, I highly recommend checking it out. The PS5 partly negates the lack of accuracy of kb&m with sort of a lock-on, but even then turning around to aim is slower and trying to lock-on to a specific item or enemy where there could be several close together is still b*stard hard, so it's a decent trade-off.

Don't think I'll bother with the rush modes, particularly the Hell ones. But I just bought the game on Steam because I want to try getting used to kb&m, and this seems like one of the best games to do it.

quokula

I loaded up the Witcher 3 next gen update last night. Haven't played the game since completing it at launch and absolutely loved it then, and the next gen update had been getting rave reviews. But.. I'm not seeing it. Feels like the game has aged pretty badly to me? The combat is terrible, UI and controls are poor, traversal is awkward, everything feels a lot more disjointed and outdated than I expected. I've only played a couple of hours and the writing still holds up but it was surprising to see just how much gaming has moved forward in the last few years.

I've played some sublime open world games in the last 6 or so months, primarily HFW and Ghost of Tsushima, and obviously they don't have the same heavy RPG leanings and probably won't stick with me the way The Witcher 3 did first time round, but they really are a cut above to play today, which isn't something I would have said before. I played Cyberpunk in the last year too, having waited for the next gen patch and all the bug fixes, and I think I enjoyed it more than I'm enjoying TW3 so far.

Maybe that will all change when the story gets into full swing and I hit some of the more iconic side quests, but I don't know if I'll have the patience to stick with the game that long tbh.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120090651#Comment_120090651

The combat and movement was always questionable tbh. It's awkward and clunky. The strength of the Witcher was more about the quests being interesting, even the side quests.

Compared to something like Ghost of Tsushima it's chalk and cheese.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120090651#Comment_120090651

The next gen update has improved some things, but mostly superficially. Aside from enabling a quicker control system for using signs during battle, the majority of changes are just cosmetic. The UI, combat, traversal etc is pretty much the exact same.

I was late playing TW3, think it was maybe 2019 I finally played it. I'm sure it was probably a pinnacle of design when it came out, but it hasn't aged well. The next gen update hasn't changed much in that regard.

johnny_ultimate

TBH I think Witcher 3 was always a game that excelled due to its writing and presentation far above anything else. A lot of the gameplay boils down to fairly clunky combat, running back and forth between different locations, fetch quests, and fairly linear 'detective vision' style investigation quests (punctuated by a fight, usually). A lot of the loot and RPG stuff is fairly tedious micromanagement. The best actual gameplay element is Gwent 😂 Open world game design has also come on a lot thanks to things like Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring since W3's release.

That the writing and presentation make it worth playing is a testament to how good a job CDPR did with those elements of the game IMO. I do keep meaning to get around to Blood & Wine, actually, even if I have no particular affection for the core gameplay.

Markitron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091164#Comment_120091164

Unfortunately I don't think BotW has been anywhere near as influential as everyone says it is or was going to be. It has been 6 years and almost every openworld game is still terrified that you might miss content so plasters your map full of nonsense. I don't think Elden Ring is going to move the needle either.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093117#Comment_120093117

No I don't think it has seeped through to your typical Ubisoft open-world game yet, and may not either. But I do think those two games on their own terms show how expectations of what a great open-world game design can be have shifted since The Witcher. You don't need to look much further than Cyberpunk to see how CDPR's open-world model - strong, heavily authored quest content within a rather unresponsive, shallow open world - feels rather flat and outdated these days, in a much newer game than W3.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093117#Comment_120093117

You'll see that change though. Most of the games released now probably started production 6 years ago and would be slow to implement those changes.

Funnily enough I'm nearing the end of Sonic Frontiers and it's an open world game that is heavily inspired by BotW. Exploration is the whole point of the game and I've found myself picking up all the map marker doodads on each map because it's so much fun hunting them down and completing the little challenges that go with them. I'm hoping it's a sign of things to come. Open world games need to actually use their open world as the main gameplay focus like BotW does rather than have it as an impediment between linear missions.

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093198#Comment_120093198

Speaking of the length of time that game development takes, I read the other day that it now takes so long to develop a large game that a game entering development now will most likely be targeting the next generation of consoles. Crazy.

johnny_ultimate

On that note, I wouldn't be surprised if this is quite a long console generation. The supply shortages have meant a very slow start, and as the GPU space is showing there's starting to be a pretty noticeable slow-down in generational leaps - particularly when it comes to price : performance gains. There are obvious gains to be made in console hardware, like ray-tracing performance and the various up-scaling solutions. But it also feels like the first time in a while that consoles are generally able to deliver the types of performance many games need. But we'll see what happens with the heavy UE5 games :)

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093186#Comment_120093186

Yeah that was something that struck me when going back to Witcher 3 - I think most people see Cyberpunk as a major misstep for CDPR but actually now I'm not convinced it does anything worse than TW3, it just hasn't moved forward as much as the rest of the industry.

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093257#Comment_120093257

It's not actually been a slow start though. Playstation isn't far off where the PS4 was, and Xbox is doing amazing in comparison to what they were doing last gen, so it's technically ahead of where it was last time around. Of course, it's so in comparison to what it could have been without those shortages though.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093450#Comment_120093450

Stock shortages aside, I think it's been a slow start on the game front as well (which can't be divorced from the lengthy development times, it goes without saying!). It's only really in the next few months that we'll start seeing a steady flow of full next-gen titles, as opposed to cross-gen ones. Granted, I actually think there have been benefits to the lengthy transition, such as games that run like a dream on next-gen consoles since they're targeting lower-end hardware as well. But it's pretty wild that we're now well over two years into a console generation and have only a small handful of full-fat next-gen titles to show for it.

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093540#Comment_120093540

Oh yeah, that's been shocking. Covid has also thrown a spanner in the works as well, but I think that we need to get used to longer transitions between generations now, over and above the usual doldrums.

Agree that it's resulted in some great performance though, we've been spoilt with 60 fps on almost everything. Got a C2 the other day though, so VRR and the hope that more games will target 40 fps over 30 is my dream right now.

Grumpypants

In my head, the PS5 came out last year. I can't believe it's been over two years already.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093551#Comment_120093551

There's some cause for optimism that the next-gen titles will aim big too. Ratchet & Clank and Returnal both run great without cross-gen compromises, and the recent Fortnite UE5 makeover suggests that games can still perform well with more cutting-edge tech (even in a modest package like Fortnite). We'll wait and see :)

Enjoy the C2! I do think an OLED TV is really what makes the next-gen sing. Between HDR, VRR, perfect black levels etc... it really does show games at their absolute best.

Grumpypants

I picked up that LG CS6 from Bargain Alerts, which is basically a C1 panel with a C2 processor for €980. All 4 HDMI ports do 4K at 120 with VRR etc. Just waiting on delivery now. But really looking forward to it. My TV, while not old, and with local dimming, still struggled with blacks being dark grey.

@CatInABox Have you tried Xbox Cloud on the LG? Apparently, it runs great directly in the built-in web browser.

SuperBowserWorld

I've only recently come to both XBox and PS, since Covid, and on SX and PS5, and OLED too. Hey, it's much cheaper than alcohol and golf etc etc

So I've a load of previous gen games to play on current gen hardware at bargain prices 🙂 🙂🙂

I must say I've been floored by how good the tech is now. Very high frame rates, HDR, instant loading, up to 4K, ...

High frame rates are the most important tech feature for me. Not just for smooth non jarring gameplay and low response times, but also because the animation of objects is so much more realistic at high frame rates.

I think standout moments for me include Spiderman crawling horizontally across a ray traced glass building with New York and eg. Central park stretching into the distance. And diving off high peaks and racing towards and climbing pyramids in AC Origins. And probably most of Uncharted 4 so far, and and and

GOOD TIMES ,🙂🙂🙂

Jordan 199

I'm going to have another playthrough of Far Cry 2 again. First time I played in was around spring 2017 on the Xbox 360, so I would like to see what it is like to play on the Series X.