OK, please do keep me updated on those, @Pizzamorg ....
I played another hourish this morning. Everyone made it to the spooky ghost ship alive. I am not sure if it is possible to get anyone killed before you even get there, but assuming you can, I'll take this as an achievement. Although I left Brad to hide on the ship, so he might have drowned and Conrad took one hell of a beating, already.
I don't think you can, @Pizzamorg .... Still, plenty of choices made that do all factor into stuff I don't remember exactly what decisions I made 1st time now, anyway
The Dark Pictures series as a whole is just forgettable and just feels like it's missing something. Supermassive can't quite capture that "lightning in a bottle" they did with Until Dawn. I still remember Until Dawn. I tried Man of Medan. It was boring and dull. The second game ran so poorly that I gave up on it. The third game was a lot better in terms of pacing, but the characters were awful and corny and, once again, super forgettable. I am hesitant about The Quarry, but the reviews make it sound like it's closer to Until Dawn.
I don't think you can, @Pizzamorg .... Still, plenty of choices made that do all factor into stuff I don't remember exactly what decisions I made 1st time now, anyway
Alright, good to know. Given we had that scrap with those pirates, I wondered if I could have got some characters killed before we even made it to the ship!
But yeah the weird British Curator dude has said I have made good choices so far.
The Dark Pictures series as a whole is just forgettable and just feels like it's missing something. Supermassive can't quite capture that "lightning in a bottle" they did with Until Dawn. I still remember Until Dawn. I tried Man of Medan. It was boring and dull. The second game ran so poorly that I gave up on it. The third game was a lot better in terms of pacing, but the characters were awful and corny and, once again, super forgettable. I am hesitant about The Quarry, but the reviews make it sound like it's closer to Until Dawn.
Good point about performance actually, that is another tick for Man of Medan. The Quarry ran like ***** for me, it seemed very poorly optimised, as I had to lower the settings and resolution far below settings and resolutions I use for what I would consider far more intensive games, to get a semi stable and acceptable experience out of The Quarry. I am playing Man of Medan in 4K basically maxed out and it's nice and smooth. Now it isn't as photorealistic as The Quarry was, but it's still a pretty game and given people have also talked about issues with The Quarry, I deffo think it is more on their end than mine.
@Yoshi2 I don't understand it either. I have everything. Consoles, handhelds, PC gaming. I have a $6,000 PC setup, but I still play my PS4 Pro and Switch regularly. I don't understand locking yourself out of something just to be a snob. I also don't understand the hate towards pre-builds. Not everyone wants the hassle of building a computer. It can be pretty daunting for someone who is new, especially with nuances of TDP, different storage options, clock speeds, cable management, RGB, different RGB ecosystems, wireless stuff vs wired, water cooling vs fans only, AIO water coolers vs DIY coolers, different types of thermal pastes, vertical vs horizontal GPU mounting. All that is mostly elitist snobbery BS that confuses a lot of people and mostly is trivial at best.
Hmm, I thought most of the characters were good enough but perhaps I haven't watched as many films as some of you or something ....? Also, I never played Until Dawn, which I've head lots of good things about, so perhaps that helps, too
While there are PC gaming elitists for sure, like there are with anything, I think it's more frequently console only gamers who exaggerate the complexity of PC gaming to justify their purchase decisions to themselves rather than the other way around. It creates this air of complexity around PC gaming, that doesn't really exist, or is at least mostly optional.
Console gaming is by and large easier and it is on the developers to make sure the titles work, not you. But if you are okay with paying a premium, a prebuilt PC is gonna get you much further than a console will and the games will generally be cheaper as well. It is more of an investment, a higher up front cost, but it could quite as easily last you as long as a full console cycle, and beyond, without needing to worry about multiple hardware freshes like a console will potentially have. As long as you are buying them from legitimate sources and willing to tweak your settings occasionally
That isn't to say PC gaming doesn't come with some seriously granular weeds if you want to engage with them, but a lot of it is just noise you can ignore, as long as you are buying for a legitimate company. You can even find companies who will build to specification, it is more expensive than building it yourself, but usually cheaper than buying a prebuilt directly from like Dell or whoever (and will probably be a better machine).
I think people are fixed in the sorta 90s PC gaming world, where it was like a Russian roulette every time you used an app to see if it would work. It really isn't like that on PC anymore, unless you are either trying to play niche, old, unsupported titles (although platforms like GOG are trying to resolve this problem, a game at a time) or trying to run the newest game on ***** hardware (but that would be no different than trying to stick a PS4 disc into a PS2 really, if you need a frame of context).
@Pizzamorg These are good points. PC gaming can be finicky rather than complex I think. About half the games won't run right at launch or require tweaking that you don't need to do on consoles. However both sides I think take away the most important thing about gaming: Fun. Just play the damn game and be happy. Those days are for sure long gone. Console fanboys tend to forget that consoles and PC have a very small gap now and the gap between Xbox and PlayStation is razer thin. The only difference is the physical build and UI at this point. Exclusives are becoming a thing of the past. At least it's switching to timed exclusives just to sell some consoles that year. This part scares me the most. The core reason why you would get one console over another is vanishing? It's funny how PC gaming is going to win in the end when people used to think it was dead back in the late-2000s.
As for consoles, Nintendo fans are benefiting the most. Nintendo is the only company left that keeps its IPs exclusive to its consoles. You could argue they have a force similar to Disney's IPs that are profitable enough to be its own ecosystem. The universal appeal to all ages also helps with this. While Xbox and PlayStation have to market to more adults and teens Nintendo still has the kids in their pocket including non-gaming parents. It's crazy seeing this whole thing change growing up with 16-bit consoles. The death of handheld systems, the rise of mobile gaming, microtransactions, live service games, and the rise and fall (and rise again?) of single-player staying power, the MMO boom, online gaming in general maturing, digital-content, the death of expansion packs. What a rollercoaster!
Been playing LEGO Star Wars: the Skywalker Saga and it's fun, but performance can be a bit of a mixed bag & I'm not sure if it's my laptop or just the game.
To be fair, whenever I'm just running around the open world spaces or flying around space (even during hectic battles) it stays at 60FPS like 98% of the time (with like 40-something% GPU usage), however entering the bespoke levels is more of a mixed bag. The factory level on Geonosis was the first one I noticed any issues with, with the frame rate wildly fluctuating between the mid 50's down to the mid 30's. The Yoda level on Kashyyyk seemed to run fine (I didn't have the frame counter on, but if felt fine) however the cutscenes we're noticeably choppy. Then there was the big fight on Mustafar (Obi-Wan VS Anakin) where the frame rate was stable in the low 50's (I wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for the counter), however I noticed the GPU usage more than doubled from what it usually is to around 90% usage!
Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)
Similar to @RR529, I'm playing a Star Wars game on PC, though, I started playing Squadrons. So far, I'm liking it, and it's reminding me of another game series I like called Wing Commander. I never played Wing Commander in its heyday, but I have played the games thanks to GOG.
Similar to Wing Commander, you control a spaceship fighting enemies in space. Obvious difference is being set in the Star Wars Universe. You have to accelerate and decelerate your X-Wing or Tie Fighter. You have a targeting system. Between missions, you talk to others at the base, which was a major element used in the Wing Commander games.
On second thought, I wouldn't mind if Motive (the developers behind Squadrons) did a reboot of the Wing Commander games after playing some of this game. I really like this game so far, and it reminds me of a modern version of those games, with a Star Wars theme.
The resident Trolls superfan! Saw Trolls Band Together via early access and absolutely loved it!
I ended up picking up Shadow Warrior 3 in the Summer Sale. I know the main issue with the game was the length, and that even at a budget price, the price still felt too steep. But at £17.50, that pill seems easier to swallow, especially as there is a New Game Plus mode now too. I might end up coming back and saying I still felt ripped off, but I guess we'll see.
So I think I am further now in Man of Medan than I ever got before and I got my first death - ironically, face of the game, Conrad. I dunno whether it’s because of the choices I made, but Conrad ends up becoming separated from the group for reasons never explained and due to narrative developments since then, I feel like his death was probably avoidable. Usually the supernatural is made real in these games, so when it asked me to confront some sort of hag, I thought that was a sure way to get myself killed. However, I am starting to wonder if maybe everyone is just tripping balls and there is no supernatural element at all.
Interestingly I have also had some scenes where it looks like The Curator is in the background, I guess this is a hint that characters could have died here? But no Curator when I got Conrad killed.
Honestly, in general, my story feels quite fragmented so far. Characters are discovering things which the game tells me are important, only for those characters to lose those items moments later without ever using them. Again, maybe it’s because of my choices, but every time this has happened there has been no obvious alternative path.
Also, just in general, while Man of Medan is full of cool imagery, the worst part about it is playing it. The fixed camera tank control thing does allow for some really striking visual moments, but it just feels horrible. I also wish they put more time into the animation, especially the body animation, god some scenes look so weird.
The seeming randomness of QTEs makes them I suppose appropriately stressful for the subject matter, but it just feels more frustrating than anything else when the game will suddenly change the rules with no warning, forcing a mistake only avoidable if you knew it was coming. Like for example, I dunno whether Fliss always gets separated from the group, but in my playthrough she ended up separated as they threw two different types of QTE back to back, tricking me. Not really much of a story to share with my friends.
Oh and the constant jump scares can ***** off. I eventually just took my headphones off and played with subtitles.
Just had a quick go on Shadow Warrior 3 and boy, I know I am not in for a long ride, but I kinda feel that might be fine based on my initial experience. The game is absolutely stick your tongue out, FPS, awesomeness but the combat also feels very messy, so I hope as the novelty runs out, the game does as well. The movement, gun feedback, environmental kills, epic finishers and using the powers of the enemies against them, just all feels so damn good.
Finished my playthrough of Man of Medan. Kind of annoyed as I feel like I made just one bad choice that cost me one of the best endings. The ending I did get was Brad chose to fight Olson, Olson died in the process but the cap was saved. This meant the remaining four playable survivors could ride off into the sunset on the duke. It turned out Danny had survived, so when the military arrived to follow up on my SOS, they were seemingly killed by Danny high on the Manchurian Gold, but no further consequence is given beyond this.
Reading around, it looks like based on choices Man of Medan can go in more overtly supernatural routes, but my playthrough seemed to hint at absolutely nothing supernatural going on at all. I actually kinda liked that in the end, as Supermassive have coded us to expect the supernatural and for there to be seemingly nothing supernatural at all is kinda clever in context.
Overall, I really didn't enjoy this a whole lot. But I did enjoy the setting and the story overall and like I said before, I think the dialogue/relationship/trait system is so much better here than in the Quarry, I just really didn't like the act of having to actually play this which is kind of damning in a videogame. The QTEs are so punishing - and not in the right way - and the horrid tank controls undermined a lot of the visuals, as I couldn't appreciate my surroundings when I was fighting with the person I was controlling just to get them through doorways and stuff. Oh and the constant jump scares can get in the sea.
Still planning to play Little Hope & House of Ashes, then, @Pizzamorg ....?
May as well since I have bought them and installed them already! Not sure when I will make a start on Little Hope though.
I see Little Hope and House of Ashes have slightly better reviews than Man of Medan, I just hope Little Hope controls/plays better, if nothing else. If they can also improve some of the animation/performances then that'll be the icing on the cake.
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