General gaming discussion

Did Halo Infinite really, like really cost 500 million US dollars to make ... ??? I guess they remade it a few times or something, but FFS, it's very entertaining, but nothing that hasn't been seen before technically. Couldn't they have reskinned Gears Of War or something ...

I'll say it again, I think XBoxes have special chips in them for churning out FPS games.

What other FPS is on Xbox that's not multiplatform?

Yep, you'll need to take a break and you'll probably get it done first time, next time. It's a long level so you need to relax and focus. Don't forget to inhale/exhale. Great game.

Super. I loved that game and the sequel which is even better.

That was pretty much the exact image that stopped me in my tracks in Unity and turned me off the AC series for a few years. Played the first few hours of Unity, but once I got to that stage in the game and opened the map with all those icons.... I just couldn't bring myself to continue.

I've been playing The Sinking City over the last couple of weeks - plugging away at it bit by bit over the Christmas holidays. The game has great elements in it - the detective work for the most part is enjoyable - the mind palace makes connecting clues to arrive at different outcomes i, there's no real handholding and the city initially looks the part for a Lovecraftian inspired game but it does everything it can to spoil it for you. The combat against the monsters is terrible and the lack of effort put in to make the interiors different for the houses you enter is criminal - it's so bad that a lot of the time, I'm trying to figure out was I in the house/building already only to remember that the place I'm thinking about is in a completely different area of the map altogether. The controls are terrible on the PS4 - almost nothing feels intuitive when your navigating the menus - the map in particular just feels wrong every time I go to pin evidence on it. The movement is janky and the ragdoll physics when you die are completely laughable. The open world is a chore to get around at times, especially if you haven't opened a fast travel booth. The other problem with the open world is that feels very empty and like the interiors of the houses, the exteriors get very repetitive very quickly. It's a pity that it suffers so badly from a lack of polish and little bit of extra care taken in bringing the city to life.

With all that's wrong with it, I can't help enjoying the game. It's one game where I'm more than happy to play all the side quests just to be able to keep the game going for that little bit longer. It's a bit of weird one.

I agree. My problem with Unity was that it was a buggy mess when released as but once that was fixed, it was a solid game.

There's a mountain of things to do in the game but there's no requirement to. That picture is widely pilloried but at the end of the day, if you like Assassin's Creed, there's an inordinate amount of side activities to do. Barely any are required to move to the story along and even completing a handful in each area buffs the character enough to keep it fair.

Yeah, that was the biggest load of nonsense ever. Spoiled that game completely for me.

Played about an hour of Days Gone maybe 18 months ago or so. Wasn't grabbing me and wasn't in the mood for an open world game so decided to leave it. Restarted it on PS5 last night.

Played to the same part I did the first time (where you meet the first camp). Saved game after a cutscene. Loaded the game maybe 2 hours later and it put me back about 20 minutes. No type of warning or anything when saving there would be pointless, or that the autosave which had been happening was pointless. That was annoying.

Kept going for another while and things are opening up a bit more. I know in later parts there'll be huge hordes and stuff, but right now everything just feels a bit bland. I'm already bored of salvaging and opening car boots, and the controls for doing things in the survival wheel such as crafting etc feels awful.

I'll keep going for another bit anyway, but there's a definite issue with some open-world rpg-lite games like this where you're so underpowered at the start because all the interesting skills are locked until later in the game that it can make the start of the game a chore to get through. I could also really do without having to refuel the bike. That's a mechanic that should have been thrown in the bin.

You're really not overpowered until you get to near the very end of the game and mopping up the side quests when it's over. The first mission in the main storyline where you have to kill a horde - or where your character is powerful enough, and has enough weapons, to take on a horde takes too long to arrive but taking down that horde was one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I've had. It gets to be routine very quickly but the first couple of hordes you take out properly are so much fun.

Even if you do all the side content you won't be so OP at the end of the story that the required storyline hordes are trivial, that really only happens in the post-game. The late game difficulty curve for those sections is judged perfectly, they are intense encounters and probably the highlight of the game.

Reminds me of this: