All Things Videogame Related: EXTREME VS!!

[anime52k8]

hmm... not exactly encouraging to read.

[dizman]

35 GB's for audio files..... what were they thinking? The game will be successful no worries, just needs to go through the average EA public QA period is all.

[GU-11]

Not surprising actually.. the uh.. learning curve on that game is more like a cliff.. unless you know exactly what you're doing, you probably won't beat normal mode. And even on easy, there are parts it wants you to do that will have you tearing your hair out because they're simply impossible on the first run. After a few runs through newgame+ though..

Btw.. the ending is probably screwiest thing I've seen in years. It seems like it's going the way you expect it for a bit, but then it takes a left turn into crazyville, and you wind up with a mindscrew ending that really reminds me of Chrono Cross. Not quite Gainax-style, because there isn't enough angst, but close.

Essentially.. take nuBSG, G-Gundam, Gurren Lagann, and Chrono Cross, throw them all in a blender, have Goku chug the mixture, and then hold a match to his backside while he farts the ending into the heavens. Yeah. It's one of those endings.

I can't say it was really bad, but the story really isn't the high point of the game. I do enjoy the combat system though, very reminiscent of some of the .hack games, what with abilities being partially linked to equipment, and having to setup equipment sets that can handle assorted enemy types.

I'm just 8+ hours into the game, and damn, the enemies are no pushovers. I'm staying away from those mech things in the Luxerrion graveyard for now.

That said, the game play perfectly balances linearity and free-roaming, where every region had a quest or two that ties into the main plot, as well as the characters from XIII. The battle system is ridiculously addictive. I'm not sure how I feel about making you level up through quests instead of fights, though. Sure, it's a new take on things, but quests take time, and that's something you can't ever waste in this game.

On the plus side, it eliminates the need for level-grinding.

One minor problem here is the lack of regenerative spells. EP regeneration only works before or after battle, and potions don't do much good after your HP extends past a certain amount. Hope sells X-potions but those cost more EP than I'm willing to spare. It's like this game actually tries to keep you on edge, like how those old (read PS1 era) Resident Evil games do so by limiting the amount of ammo you can find.

Or maybe I just haven't come across a regenerative schema yet? So far, I've been to Luxerrion, Yusnaan and the Wildlands, but none of the outfitters stock any "healer-type garbs".

[anime52k8]

35 GB's for audio files..... what were they thinking? The game will be successful no worries, just needs to go through the average EA public QA period is all.

there's a big difference between successful and good.

[azrael]

35 GB's for audio files..... what were they thinking? The game will be successful no worries, just needs to go through the average EA public QA period is all.

Why the PC version of Titanfall is a 48GB install: "It's almost all audio," explains Respawn.

[anime52k8]

definitely will not be playing this on my laptop. I'm also less certain about getting an Xbox One early for this. I kind of want to get on the hype train, but I think I might end up disappointed.

[Chronocidal]

On the plus side, it eliminates the need for level-grinding.

One minor problem here is the lack of regenerative spells. EP regeneration only works before or after battle, and potions don't do much good after your HP extends past a certain amount. Hope sells X-potions but those cost more EP than I'm willing to spare. It's like this game actually tries to keep you on edge, like how those old (read PS1 era) Resident Evil games do so by limiting the amount of ammo you can find.

Or maybe I just haven't come across a regenerative schema yet? So far, I've been to Luxerrion, Yusnaan and the Wildlands, but none of the outfitters stock any "healer-type garbs".

Regeneration will pretty much always be a serious problem, unless you play on easy difficulty (since you regen between battles). You'll want to get a feel for where the food shops and inns are. The only real regen skill available is mediguard though, which does drop from certain enemies, but also comes pre-equipped at max level on the pre-order Aerith garb.

Honestly, the "no grinding" idea is kind of deceptive.. because, depending on your difficulty level, grinding will actually solve a -ton- of problems. Not only will you accumulate a ton of drops that you can just go around and instantly complete quests with from the message boards, but you'll accumulate gil and EP. On easy difficulty, even grinding easy spawns will generate enough EP to consecutively spam chronostasis, so you never actually spend any time doing it.

The hilarious part though.. spawns for most monsters are not infinite. One of the major end-game quests is to kill EVERY monster. Kill enough, and monsters eventually become extinct entirely, and stop spawning.

Anyway, yes, it really does keep you on edge, even on easy mode.. until you play through a couple times and build up your stats and equipment, there's just a ton of stuff that will wipe the floor with you.

[mikeszekely]

definitely will not be playing this on my laptop. I'm also less certain about getting an Xbox One early for this. I kind of want to get on the hype train, but I think I might end up disappointed.

Ah, get one. Titanfall seems like the kind of game you like, and Microsoft is running plenty of deals now (like free Forza). Plus, while pundits love pointing out how PS4 games are running at higher resolutions, the difference isn't really noticeable when you're playing. If you don't have a next-gen console yet, the Xbox One does have better exclusives (so far).

[anime52k8]

BTW, I was playing COD ghosts last night when titanfall launched, and right at midnight there was an immediate 50% drop off in global online population. by 3am it had dropped to under 20,000.

[GU-11]

Regeneration will pretty much always be a serious problem, unless you play on easy difficulty (since you regen between battles). You'll want to get a feel for where the food shops and inns are. The only real regen skill available is mediguard though, which does drop from certain enemies, but also comes pre-equipped at max level on the pre-order Aerith garb.

Honestly, the "no grinding" idea is kind of deceptive.. because, depending on your difficulty level, grinding will actually solve a -ton- of problems. Not only will you accumulate a ton of drops that you can just go around and instantly complete quests with from the message boards, but you'll accumulate gil and EP. On easy difficulty, even grinding easy spawns will generate enough EP to consecutively spam chronostasis, so you never actually spend any time doing it.

The hilarious part though.. spawns for most monsters are not infinite. One of the major end-game quests is to kill EVERY monster. Kill enough, and monsters eventually become extinct entirely, and stop spawning.

Anyway, yes, it really does keep you on edge, even on easy mode.. until you play through a couple times and build up your stats and equipment, there's just a ton of stuff that will wipe the floor with you.

Thanks for the tips!

As embarrassing as it is to admit, I'm playing on easy mode. Even so, it's just about manageable; not too easy, but easy enough that I can fight most enemies without breaking a sweat...so far.

There are still plenty of monsters that I still wouldn't go near, though.

Fortunately, I scored a mediguard from one of the desert monsters, and it helps a lot. It's not a common drop, unfortunately, so I might have to hunt for more of those things to get enough for at least 2 of my schematas and a few more to synthesize.

[Chronocidal]

Honestly, the game is meant to be started on easy. Even on easy, near the end of the game, certain monsters can and will oneshot you, or spam skills that will make you immobile until you die. There is a lot of content that only opens up after you finish the first run though, and it helps immensely, like the weapon upgrade system.

Also.. be careful to check your quest log to make sure you're doing things in order.. I did the third part of the main storyline second, and the difficulty from trying that was fairly excruciating. It's entirely possible to do the main quests in any order you choose (though part 5 is mostly completed during the other parts if you do things correctly).

Defeating bosses early is definitely in your best interest though for the first run, because things get much stronger as the days run out. Once you can handle them though, defeating things later nets you much better rewards.

Anyway, so as not to monopolize the chat with this..

I have to admit that Titanfall looks like it could be fun, but that amount of downloading would pretty much take up all of my internet bandwidth for weeks. I really am sad it has no real single player campaign or story to speak of though.. I've never really enjoyed competitive online play except in very specific instances, and this doesn't seem like the kind of gaming community I have the patience to get involved in.

I'm kind of on hold for the most part with PC games until Star Citizen gets closer to release.. though I might go replay some old Wing Commander games, or dig out Freelancer to whet my appetite a bit.

Edited March 12, 2014 by Chronocidal

[azrael]

BTW, I was playing COD ghosts last night when titanfall launched, and right at midnight there was an immediate 50% drop off in global online population. by 3am it had dropped to under 20,000.

I would expect so. My worry is how it will hold up after a month? Will people flock back to other games after the hype to Titanfall wears off. I may pick up Titanfall when it goes on sale in a month or 2, but I think I'll pass for now.

[ErikElvis]

Forgot to cancel the $250 special edition titanfall and it showed up on my doorstep on the 11th. Thought about sending it back but kept it. Statue it came with is cool but it's not resin. More like a completed model. I'd much preferred a jointed toy.

The game is ok. My mind wasn't blown. Although I think I'm kinda over FPS's. I enjoy world of tanks on 360 more.

[GU-11]

Honestly, the game is meant to be started on easy. Even on easy, near the end of the game, certain monsters can and will oneshot you, or spam skills that will make you immobile until you die. There is a lot of content that only opens up after you finish the first run though, and it helps immensely, like the weapon upgrade system.

Also.. be careful to check your quest log to make sure you're doing things in order.. I did the third part of the main storyline second, and the difficulty from trying that was fairly excruciating. It's entirely possible to do the main quests in any order you choose (though part 5 is mostly completed during the other parts if you do things correctly).

Defeating bosses early is definitely in your best interest though for the first run, because things get much stronger as the days run out. Once you can handle them though, defeating things later nets you much better rewards.

Yeah, I just only noticed the numbering on each main mission.

I actually finished Mission 3 (Angel of Valhalla) before realizing I'd skipped Mission 2. Everything seems pretty easy at Luxerrion now.

[anime52k8]

Forgot to cancel the $250 special edition titanfall and it showed up on my doorstep on the 11th. Thought about sending it back but kept it. Statue it came with is cool but it's not resin. More like a completed model. I'd much preferred a jointed toy.

The game is ok. My mind wasn't blown. Although I think I'm kinda over FPS's. I enjoy world of tanks on 360 more.

You know what would be mind blowing? If they combined titanfall with dead space. Can you imagine how much fun dismembering space demons would be if you could wall run and pilot robots while doing it?

[Black Valkyrie]

Just waiting for a new Gradius game, hopefully on the PSV.

[azrael]

Watch Dogs minimum specs:

https://twitter.com/Design_Cave/status/441672868569821184

Processor: IntelCore 2 Quad Q8400 2.66Ghz or AMDPhenom II X4 940 3.0Ghz

Memory: 6GB RAM

Video card: 1024 VRAM DirectX 11 Shader 5.0

Sound card: DirectX9

Hard drive: 25 GB

He also notes:

PC on very high setting is REALLY stunning if you ask me. As for density it also very high of course.

https://twitter.com/Design_Cave/status/443034550092832768

[Mommar]

I suppose I don't understand, is 35GB a large number in terms of Hard Drive space these days? My laptop alone sports multiple Terabytes.

[azrael]

I suppose I don't understand, is 35GB a large number in terms of Hard Drive space these days? My laptop alone sports multiple Terabytes.

The Xbox version only installs 17GB onto the Xbone hard drive (due to hardware decoding). The PC version installs 48 GB of data, of which 35GB is uncompressed audio. Let's say you install it to a SSD, of which most sold, don't have terabytes of space, like 256GB or less. Larger SSDs are expensive, hence why people are buying the smaller sizes.

Now it's not textures, or image files used to help render the game. It's just uncompressed audio. If it was images, then most people would be okay with that, but it's audio. Respawn Ent. said it is to help older computers who don't have the processing power to decode compressed audio files and play them while running the game. To most modern computers, almost all gaming computers, and even computers used for AV editing/image processing, this seems silly. Those computers can surely handle simple audio decoding. Most computers within the past 10 years can handle simple audio decoding. Considering we have been using compressed audio for a good 20+ years, the idea of dropping 35GB of uncompressed audio onto your hard drive is, as I've said, silly. Decoding audio should be a trivial matter, yet here we are with 35GB of uncompressed audio. It's not a buy-stopper, more like a "Seriously?".

[anime52k8]

I've only got a 120gb SSD for my system drive, and with the OS installed I've got about 70gb of free space left. So yeah, it screws things up for people with small, fast hard drives for the sake of people with improbably poorly speced PCs.

[CrazyDude]

Just add a 1 or 2 TB internal or external Drive, they are pretty cheap by now.

I did that for my 500GB PS3.

[mikeszekely]

Not to mention that the people with computers so crappy that they can't handle compressed audio are the people who are most likely to have an under-sized hard drive in the first place.

Just add a 1 or 2 TB internal or external Drive, they are pretty cheap by now.

If you're going to invest on improvements to run the game, might as well start with one that isn't so underpowered that it can't decode the compressed audio in the first place.

[the white drew carey]

BTW- Did anyone else notice that Titanfall's developers were so lazy that they skinned half of the combat suit, and then mirrored it for the other half?

The picture I'm posting doesn't have the left hand, but it was onscreen and I can confirm that the right glove has a mirror image of the left glove with the letters NGER and then some strange symbol/character.

*bonus points to the team for skinning the LEFT half of the body and then mirroring it to the right side.

Edited March 13, 2014 by the white drew carey

[anime52k8]

Worst game ever, pre-order cancelled.

Edited March 13, 2014 by anime52k8

[azrael]

Worst game ever, pre-order cancelled.

You want actual problems, here ya go:

Multi-GPU problems, loss of progress plague Titanfall launch

I hear people are still having connection issues. Not as bad as launch day, but still, problems. There's a help page for the common problems.

[GU-11]

Can anyone give me tips on how to beat Bhunivelze in Lightning Returns? I haven't fought him yet, but after getting my ass kicked all the way back to the ice age by Earth Eater Omega in the Ultimate Lair, I'm not sure if I'm ready to take on the final boss. Too late to do any more side quests, and I don't have enough money to buy any of the superior rank weapons and shields.

This late in the game, I don't want to have to restart and hope to complete more quests the second time around, in order to strengthen myself for the final battle.

Any way to start a new game + and double my stats through redoing side quests?

I really miss level grinding.

[Duke Togo]

Can anyone give me tips on how to beat Bhunivelze in Lightning Returns?

The only winning move is not to play.

[GU-11]

Never mind. Totally owned the fight after getting the Ultima weapon and shield before the final fight.

Sort of off-topic, but has anyone ever experienced crackling sounds on their home theater systems when playing certain games? During the FMV's in Lightning Returns, there was an annoying crackling sound whenever the characters spoke words containing T's and S's. It's the same thing with the in-game cut scenes in Fall of Cybertron.

I initially thought it was a loose wire, but this never happens on other games or DVD/BD movies.

Is it normal for home theater systems that this happens with certain audio sources?

[Chronocidal]

Heh, dunno about the sound problem, but since I'm just using an hdmi cable to the tv, yeah, I would guess it's something in the speaker setup.

Grats on finishing btw, I skipped the trials on my first run, and didn't even do the ultimate lair since it was so nasty. New game + will get significantly easier though, since it unlocks weapon upgrading.

One thing they don't tell you though... even failing your first run will unlock new game +. You can't actually acquire the highest level upgrade and synth materials unless you play on hard mode though.

[GU-11]

Yeah, I'll connect the PS3's audio to the home theater system using a digital optical cable instead of the HDMI cable and see if it makes a difference. I'm hoping a different audio connection might solve the issue somehow.

LOL! Yeah, I only found out about that new game plus device after I realized I couldn't stagger Bhunivelze enough without Aerora on all 3 schemas, and escaped to equip them. After returning to the cathedral, there it was.

Ultimate Lair isn't that bad when you're dealing with the small to mid-sized enemies. It's the giant monsters and magic spammers that are a headache. A large portion of them are pushovers if you've sufficiently leveled up, and have set up a schema that you use exclusively as a shield (Snow's Ghost Hood or Preta Hood are the most invaluable items for this).

Too bad your default weapon and shield don't remain as their Ultima forms when you replay the game--then again, they'd probably be overkill, what with the ability to upgrade your weapons.

I'll do one more normal or easy run, and then take on hard mode, next.

[Einherjar]

Titanfall has a plot?

http://kotaku.com/yes-you-can-complete-titanfalls-campaigns-without-fir-1546014795

[Chronocidal]

Too bad your default weapon and shield don't remain as their Ultima forms when you replay the game--then again, they'd probably be overkill, what with the ability to upgrade your weapons.

I'll do one more normal or easy run, and then take on hard mode, next.

Once you do hard mode, those weapons don't even come close to the max upgrades for some weapons. The crossover weapons you get from FFXIV for opening the walkways between areas max out around 3200 in either magic or strength. The trick is just farming the hard mode upgrade materials.

Even after one run of new game + though, you should be plenty equipped to finish everything on easy, maybe normal too.

Anyway, as far as Titanfall goes, that's hilarious. Now I'm curious if we'll see a bunch of machinimas based on the game where everyone runs around doing nothing.

[Black Valkyrie]

Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi leaves Konami.

[GU-11]

Once you do hard mode, those weapons don't even come close to the max upgrades for some weapons. The crossover weapons you get from FFXIV for opening the walkways between areas max out around 3200 in either magic or strength. The trick is just farming the hard mode upgrade materials.

Even after one run of new game + though, you should be plenty equipped to finish everything on easy, maybe normal too.

I'm currently breezing through easy mode on new game +. I wanted to take on normal mode, but the only piece of gear I've got that you might consider "strong" is the Stigma sword. I've still got a ways to go in buying some better swords and shields.

In case you haven't noticed, yeah, I love overkill!

[Vepariga]

Played some TitanFall at my brothers house, quite fun. enjoyable title. But after a few hours all the maps and gamemodes start to feel very samey and almost 'been-done-before' feeling. Maybe its too heavy on the COD mechanics,but it wears thin after a few hours.

The Titans are fun,but again. there isnt much diversity between the different types. Design wise feels very uninspired and flat. Everything is just orange,brown and grey.

Good game to spend a few rounds in,but not something I'd buy personally.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Vepariga