All Things Videogame Related: EXTREME VS!!

[JB0]

13 hours ago, Gaijin said:

I need to play the old Strike Games on Genesis. Deseret, Jungle, Urban.  I sold the carts years ago...what was I thinking?

Important lesson learned: NEVER. SELL. ANYTHING.

[Dio]

I'm maybe 30-40% into Horizon Zero Dawn, and it is incredible. I think it might be like a more realistic/grown-up Zelda BotW, though I can't confirm until I finish it and start on Zelda. There's a lot of cool discovery elements to the story, and both the robot and scenery models are so gorgeous I have actually spent time just looking around to take it all in.

There is a lot to accomplish, like a Fallout or other open world game, and it's easy to go off on side quests and forget the main story, but it's never tedious or feels repetitive. I actually rack up so many crafting materials, I have to dump/sell to make inventory space, but have not had any issues crafting/trading for upgrades I want. The discovery of where you actually are geographically (I actually figured it out because I used to live there and recognized a couple landmarks!) and how the world became a tribal, post-apocalyptic machine empire (still figuring it out), along with Aloy's mysterious origins (also still figuring out) are definitely holding my interest.

[sh9000]

 

[JB0]

And I finished Blaster Master Zero. Both endings, and Unlimited mode.

Inti Creates should've included a hard mode.

[sh9000]

 

[Archer]

Grabbed a copy of Nier Automata, excited to play Platinum's next masterpiece (going off the reviews). Also got a copy of Wildlands with three other guys, hoping the highest difficulty makes us work strategically. 

[kajnrig]

Bought Nier Automata yesterday. It's frozen my computer three times since. Hoping for a patch, either to the game or to the hardware, to fix that sometime soon. Will try rolling back video drivers (which seem to be the problem) in the meantime.

[Archer]

3 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Bought Nier Automata yesterday. It's frozen my computer three times since. Hoping for a patch, either to the game or to the hardware, to fix that sometime soon. Will try rolling back video drivers (which seem to be the problem) in the meantime.

Dang, sorry to hear that. I'm on PS4, and the game has been an absolute blast so far. I really hope it starts working for you. 

[kajnrig]

16 minutes ago, Archer said:

Dang, sorry to hear that. I'm on PS4, and the game has been an absolute blast so far. I really hope it starts working for you. 

Thanks. Graphics drivers are almost definitely the issue. Rolled back to an older firmware and managed to get to the first save point with some stuttering come the big prologue finale. So yay for that, boo until AMD fixes bugs on their end. Good ride so far, though, the game itself.

[kajnrig]

Update: Played a few more hours and the game's running smooth(er) now. A quick summary of the issues most people seem to be having:

- Low and choppy framerates, lots of frameskipping
- White/Black screen on launch
- Game and/or computer freezes after a certain amount of time (if the former, requires game restart; if the latter, requires full system restart)
- Fullscreen 1080p is actually 900p upscaled

The first of these seems to be a combination of a generally poor porting job, underpowered hardware (people were trying to run it on integrated graphics chips and wondering why it was so slow...), and an anomaly with the way the game does antialiasing. Turning any amount of antialiasing on will interfere with how the game draws textures, so instead of getting a smooth fading in/out of high/low-res grass textures, you'll see patches of grass "pop in," as it were, and causes the frame timing to spike. I turned AA off (the ambient occlusion option apparently has a measure of AA built in, according to Steam forum members), and my game started running buttery-smooth.

I didn't experience white/black screens, even though it's apparently more common on AMD cards than Nvidia ones and I have an AMD RX 480. Rolling back video drivers to version 16.11.5 (I'm guessing that's the release date of it? May 11, 2016?) takes care of the problem. I don't know exactly which driver revision works for Nvidia cards, but in either case, hopefully a driver update helps to fix the problem.

The same thing fixes the game/computer freezing bit. On my end, it was the computer freezing, as I mentioned in the above post. This particular problem seems to happen to both AMD and Nvidia cards across all sorts of hardware configurations.

The last issue can be overcome by downloading a program called Borderless Gaming that allows you to run any (or at least most) game/program/etc. in a borderless window. This forces the game into a 1920x1080 window, so everything looks right. The upscaling seems to be a leftover from the original PS4 version, which renders at 900p.

All of these seem like they'll be fairly easy to fix in a debug patch. I imagine even the graphical driver problems can be traced to a problem in the porting process, but even if it's not, I'm fairly confident AMD/Nvidia will release updated drivers to support the game.

As it is, I'm 4 hours in and loving it so far, even if I've only just beaten the first tutorial quest.

[renegadeleader1]

For those of you that are Girls Und Panzer fans and play World of Tanks, WG just announced that next month the Panzer IV H anko Angler team special will be made available for all the platforms WoT is on including PC, mobile, PS4, and Xbone. This tank used to be a PS4 exclusive, and you can be sure I'm purchasing it for my xbone.

[azrael]

Now PC players can join the grind on 9/8/2017.

[kajnrig]

Just got the final ending of Nier, some 70+ hours in (with half of that time spent on the first playthrough). Good game. Go play it.

EDIT:

Make sure you backup your save periodically.

Edited March 30, 2017 by kajnrig

[sh9000]

 

[mikeszekely]

6 hours ago, azrael said:

Now PC players can join the grind on 9/8/2017.

The first one wasn't on PC? Huh.

[dizman]

6 hours ago, kajnrig said:

Just got the final ending of Nier, some 70+ hours in (with half of that time spent on the first playthrough). Good game. Go play it.

EDIT:

Make sure you backup your save periodically.

I finished it up a few days ago too, definitely one of the best games of the year. I think the only game that beats it so far is Yakuza 0 but Nier is close behind.

[JB0]

5 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

The first one wasn't on PC? Huh.

They kind of teased that it was in the works, but it never happened.

Cayde is still the best thing about that game.

[mikeszekely]

7 hours ago, JB0 said:

They kind of teased that it was in the works, but it never happened.

Cayde is still the best thing about that game.

As a primarily PC gamer I feel embarrassed that I didn't know that, but as someone who shuns multiplayer gaming that doesn't involve having extra people in my living room Destiny never seemed like my cup of tea.

[Duymon]

Man... Destiny 2.... I had like 1000 hours in to Destiny 1 before I totally burned out on the contant repetition and loot grinding only to have the system change drastically every 3 months.

After that I made the mistake of playing the division, another gun-grinder game

I'm think I am skipping any border-lands formula gun grinders for good....... 

[JB0]

15 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

As a primarily PC gamer I feel embarrassed that I didn't know that, but as someone who shuns multiplayer gaming that doesn't involve having extra people in my living room Destiny never seemed like my cup of tea.

As a solo player, I felt I got what I wanted, mostly. The strikes were really all that bothered me, there didn't really seem much reason to require a team for them. (I decided early on, basically the moment the vault of glass opened, that I was never running a raid.)

On the occasions I did something multiplayer, I just pretended everyone else was an NPC. Sorry, people who were not actually robots.

13 hours ago, Duymon said:

Man... Destiny 2.... I had like 1000 hours in to Destiny 1 before I totally burned out on the contant repetition and loot grinding only to have the system change drastically every 3 months.

After that I made the mistake of playing the division, another gun-grinder game

I'm think I am skipping any border-lands formula gun grinders for good....... 

In fairness, the game system usually changed for the better. The game started super-ultra grindey and most of the system changes were to make it less so.

 

Borderlands formula would have been better, I think. Destiny early on placed a high emphasis on getting good drops, but drops weren't frequent enough to ensure you were getting good gear. Hence the constant hunt for a new cave of loot as Bungie shuttered the old ones.  Borderlands, by contrast,  pretty much rains guns. No farming, no plans. Just play the game and you will have more choices of gun than you know what to do with.

It did take Bungie quite a while to figure out WHY people were spawncamping the AI, though. They knew the popularity of the loot caves indicated a problem, but had a LOT of trouble figuring out what that problem was for some reason.

 

That said, I don't play Destiny "right." The crucible was of zero interest to me, the raids were just obnoxious "solo players not invited" signs, and mostly I just did story missions. (Also strikes before my PS3 died, seeing as how they were basically story missions you had to play in a team. Not paying money for multiplayer on PS4... except during the SRL season. )

[Big s]

I'm gonna get Destiny 2. I still play the first one every once in a while. Was playing the old Crota raid on challenge this week with some old friends and had fun doin mostly the same old stuff.

[Archer]

Picked up Kingsom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 HD. Silly naming metrics aside, the game offers a ton of content for the price, especially if you've never played the originals (I think it's 4 full games and 2 cutscene remastered movies).

well worth the $50

[anime52k8]

lets see, my destiny stats:

225 days 22 hours 47 minutes played

10008 crucible matches won

3541 strikes completed

1969  public events completed

376  raids completed

[Archer]

45 minutes ago, anime52k8 said:

lets see, my destiny stats:

225 days 22 hours 47 minutes played

10008 crucible matches won

3541 strikes completed

1969  public events completed

376  raids completed

Good lord

Edit: The game came out in September 2014. It's only been around 2 years since launch. How is 226 days of gameplay possible?

Edited April 1, 2017 by Archer

[anime52k8]

The game's been out for 935 days, so that's a little under 6 hours a day since launch (on average). Also, that includes a lot of time where the game was on but I wasn't actually playing.

My active time in game is 2932 hours (about 122 days). 

Number 1 player in the world has over 11,000 hours.

Edited April 1, 2017 by anime52k8

[Archer]

42 minutes ago, anime52k8 said:

11,000 hours.

[JB0]

I have eight days, fourteen hours on the game clock. 0 raids, 0 crucible wins.

And Just over twelve hours in sparrow racing(Yes, I bought a PSN card just to play Wipeout: Destiny. Don't judge me.).

[Big s]

Srl is one of my favorites. We still jump in on the racing during private matches.

[Gaijin]

Don't want to mention how much I played the original. But I know I just can't afford to spend that much time again. 

 

I... Just... Can't. 

 

I will. 

[Archer]

Just never understood the draw of Destiny. I purchased it at release with a few friends. We had our fun in the crucible for around a month, but the story never held our interests. We eventually moved on. 

I'll have to admit that I'm not someone who really enjoys farming for loot/gear, in any game really, nor do I have time these days to commit to the grind. 

Just bought Persona 5 though, so I suppose I'll have to make time...

Edited April 3, 2017 by Archer

[mikeszekely]

Just finished Zelda. Got Mass Effect Andromeda installed on my PC, Horizon in the shrink wrap next to my PS4, and my steelbook copy of Persona 5 arrives tomorrow. Plus I'm still thinking about picking up NieR. Dunno how I'm supposed to fit all this great gaming in... this late winter/early spring has been better than the holiday.

[Archer]

6 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Just finished Zelda. Got Mass Effect Andromeda installed on my PC, Horizon in the shrink wrap next to my PS4, and my steelbook copy of Persona 5 arrives tomorrow. Plus I'm still thinking about picking up NieR. Dunno how I'm supposed to fit all this great gaming in... this late winter/early spring has been better than the holiday.

Honestly regret grabbing mass effect. Shoulda jumped on horizon instead. 

Game just doesn't feel as captivating as the original trilogy.

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, Archer said:

Honestly regret grabbing mass effect. Shoulda jumped on horizon instead. 

Game just doesn't feel as captivating as the original trilogy.

I've heard that, but as a huge fan of the original trilogy (I even read all Drew Karpyshyn's ME novels), I had to play it.  And in any case, I hear the PC version is better than the console version, so maybe there's that.

It also helps that a friend of mine works for EA and gets me Origin keys.  I try not to abuse the connection, but with ME getting lukewarm reviews and a ton of other games coming out I decided to hit him up for this one.

[Shadow]

So many good games have come out in the last 6 months and I've had so little time to play them. Finished FFXV and The Last Guardian not too long ago. Both were quite good in their own light. TLG was an emotional rollercoaster. Picked up Nier: Automata last week have been thoroughly enjoying it. Haven't played Horizon Zero Dawn or RE7 yet and now Persona 5 is out.

I haven't enjoyed console gaming like this since atleast the PS2 days and certainly the original Playstation era.

[dizman]

21 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Plus I'm still thinking about picking up NieR. 

Do it! There's even a demo up to try if you want to give the combat a try.