General gaming discussion

SuperBowserWorld

That's one really nice thing about a lot of Nintendo games, you get trained in the mechanics without even knowing. It's because they have 40 years+ experience behind them.

It's a hard thing to do on modern complex games. They did a great job on BOTW in training you with all the skills you need, then booting you out into the big bad world after 2 hours or so on the great plateau.

I kind of got this feeling with Ghosts of Tsushima last night. But it's a harder sell for me, cause I've burned through a lot of open world games since BOTW. Skyrim certainly has the same adventure spirit as BOTW. Hoping GoT is similar.

One thing that is very important in an open world game is the soundtrack. BOTW nailed this. Skyrim also has those great flourishes. The soundtrack on GoT sounds excellent so far.

Retr0gamer

Nintendo aren't always the best at it. Breath of the wild was a masterpiece but they probably put so much effort in because previous Zelda's were obnoxious with their handholding. Every time you booted the game up you would be reminded what every item was when first picked up and it reached the absolute worst with skyward sword.

Then again there's always going to be people that can't grasp even simple tasks, especially in today's gaming landscape where you are spoon fed. It leads to 'why can't Metroid duck?' moments. Hell, I was put off from playing system shock 2 for years because my friend told me it was awful. Turned out he thought it was awful because he couldn't figure out how to climb a ladder at the start of the game and never got further that the opening.

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120138110#Comment_120138110

Yep, I had my Nintendo rose tinted spectacles on. 😸

Yep, Skyward Sword was so bad in this respect. "Master, your batteries are about to die in your sword". And "you have picked up a flower" blocking dialogue boxes, jingle and animation, each time you picked up something. 😹

brady12

Smyths still best bet get game releases on launch day in post ? Prob going pull trigger on Dead Space remake .

wotzgoingon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120141356#Comment_120141356

I will wait a long time before I play that game as I played once on PC and then again about two years ago on Xbox so it's still too fresh in my mind.

McFly85

I really liked Days Gone, it had enough in it to keep me going and when I had fully upgraded my tank it got much easier to appreciate - especially as by that time you were familiar enough with the map to always stop and top up if needed. Taking on a hoard was genuinely fun.

The bike upgrade and weapons systems were nonsense, though.

It was fun if not spectacular, I felt there were enough obvious improvements there for a sequel so it’s a shame we wont get one!

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120143437#Comment_120143437

Even though the game genuinely annoyed me to the point where I couldn't finish (think I was about 30-35 hours in before i had to give up), I do think they could have made a great sequel by taking some of the criticism on board. They had a decent framework.

Grumpypants

Im on my third play through of days gone after buying it again on steam deck. 🤣

Upgraded the petrol tank in the first camp which is about an hour in.

It's one of the few open world games where exploring is enjoyable and rewarding by adding to the story/world building. The amount of stuff I found just wandering around in the most random of places was brilliant.

it could have been about 30 hours shorter and just had lots of dlc for those that really wanted it.

Zero-Cool

I felt the burn on my 3rd playthrough with all the unnecessary beck and forth, very hard to quickly progress the story but I absolutely loved traversing the world. I never spent much money on weapons so I'd buy petrol at a camp before leaving and fill up anytime i passed a petrol station, nero check point, etc. As long as you prioritise the camps that give you bike upgrades early, makes it much more enjoyable to get around..

The time i was cruising around, took a shortcut through a field, drove off a small ridge **** 10ft high but I didn't see what was below. Landed bang in the middle of a horde. That completely random non scripted experience will be extremely hard to be topped in another open world in my book.

Damn, might have to reinstall it again.

SuperBowserWorld

I'm thinking a lot of the content could be user configurable in these bloaty games eg. user could pick a short, medium or long version of a game. The same way you can pick difficulty levels.

JimBurnley

This thread just makes me want to play Days Gone again

McFly85

Yeah, I’m currently reinstalling it. Been bouncing around a few games since finishing Dark Souls 3(and as amazing as the trial of TLOU part one was it’s still too expensive!), and cruising around a zombie infested Pacific Northwest is exactly what I’m in the mood for!

Jordan 199

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120144169#Comment_120144169

Go back Jim and play it again,

Wheel on the chopper goes round and round,

Go back Jim and play it again...

I've never played it and got it free on the Epic store recently. Its on boosteroid too so I might as well give it a whirl

Zero-Cool

My biggest gripe is the nests you can clear out to open fast travel. It's actually fun and strategic clearing out multiple at a time but it's very annoying when it says 4 in the area and you're running around like a headless chicken trying to find all of them. They should all appear on the minimap when you are in the area. Also, it has THE worst mission/quest in the world where you have to drive to an area to ask your best bud if they're doing ok, they say yeah and three mission ends. They spend so much time on the radio, wtf did u have to drive all that way for absolutely nothing. It was like the devs were given a quota with how many missions they needed to add and that was absolute filler.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120144785#Comment_120144785

I remember doing a mission with one of the women in the 3rd settlement. On the way back we passed a petrol station and she said we should come back later and clear it out. Dropped her off at the settlement, ended the mission, rode out of the settlement, and she immediately radioed me to say to come back when I get a chance and we'll go clear out the petrol station.

Why was it not just one mission? There's a decent checkpoint system in the game that means it's not like you'd have to start the whole mission again or anything, and the optimal path back to the settlement meant we were pretty much guaranteed to pass that petrol station (or she could have even just said "I know of a petrol station that needs clearing out on the way back" and just make it part of the mission).

There were just way too many "meeting that could have been an email" missions in the game that just really padded the whole thing out to the point of frustration.

One of my main gripes though were the open-world ambushes, whether by sniper or wire traps which knock you off the bike. There were never fun, never interesting, never difficult, and only in the game to have stuff happen in the open world. All they did was make me want to fast travel as much as possible.

Zero-Cool

Meeting that should have been email is the best way to describe a lot of the meetings. Also the question marks were useless. Random map events where the q mark appears for a sec and you have to trek around wondering where it was only to be ambushed. It was never anything positive or interesting so q marks became things to avoid instead of investigate.

BUT it was so damn fun biking around the map. I loved upgrading it and taking care of it, treated it better than the usual horse in other games. A sequel had so much potential, such a waste of a great premise of biking around the apocalypse.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120144858#Comment_120144858

Yeah the ? stuff that appeared in the open world was usually either something bland, or in a lot of cases it was over by the time you got to it due to having to try find your way to it on the bike. Half the time I got to them it was just a few freakers wandering about because whoever I was trying to save had already been killed. They happened and disappeared so quickly that after a while I stopped even trying to do them unless they were literally at the roadside (survivor trapped in a car or something).

I would have enjoyed biking around the map more if not for the ambushes and just non-stop radio calls with Boozer and others. Just have some ambient music playing in the background instead, because that game had a decent soundtrack.

Like I said, if the game was half the length, double the hordes, and a quarter the dialogue, for me it would have been a damn good game.

johnny_ultimate

Back to Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and there's a bit where the characters have to sneak into a heavily fortified base. The characters overtly say they need to sneak in, and they need to be quiet doing so - they repeat this consistently during cutscenes and in-game dialogue. But there are no mechanics allowing you to do so, so you just have to play the game as normal - meaning the entire 'stealth' section consisted of big, loud battles against seven-storey-tall mechs that were just roaming the base 😅

brady12

any word on dead space remake review embargo

SuperBowserWorld

Packed away the "next gen" game consoles and those huge open world games away! 😛

Have a ton of stuff to do and they are not helping. My covid lockdown was going on a little too long 😹

Plus I need to decompress before the next Zelda and Starfield comes out. 🤪

Have some excellent and much smaller and focussed 3DS and Switch games to complete in case of emergencies. 👍

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120148147#Comment_120148147

I've started to enjoy videogames again since I've started to actively avoid these games last year.

On the topic of time wasting open worlds with annoying dialogues.....Forspoken is out.

Thinking about picking up Stray as my next game. Meow 😺

Vicxas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFvRXyPAyf8

As we feared Forespoken is a pile of dogshite

J. Marston

Yeah, those time-wasting colossal open worlds with a million markers are a pain.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to Skellige in The Witcher 3.

Cordell

Excuse me, it's been a good while since I bought a AAA game at launch from a non grey market vendor, is 80 euros the new normal?

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120150626#Comment_120150626

Pretty much, yeah. 70-80euro. Prices jumped a bit this generation, even though games have so many additional forms of revenue built-in.

McFly85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120150626#Comment_120150626

Yeah, between €70 and 80 is the the usual price for standard editions unfortunately.

Unless it’s something that I’m completely desperate to play I’d usually wait for a sale which doesn’t usually take that long, maybe 6 months and you can get it for less than €60 anyway.

Cordell

Yes that's what I'm usually doing, I almost never buy at launch and from the main distributor. I was jus curious seeing Forspoken on Steam for 80 euros - 49 on CDkeys if anyone is interested, I'm not anymore, I'll wait for more PC reviews especially the DF one.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120150626#Comment_120150626

Depends on the publisher. The scummiest ones like Square Enix, Sony, EA, Bamco are charging 80. There's still a few hold ours at 60 on PC but probably will be the new normal. It's much worse on the closed off markets on consoles.