Hogwarts Legacy has given me a chance to go out into the world, my performance is lower in the world than in Hogwarts itself, but more consistent and close enough to 60 fps that it is fine, it is just Hogsmeade which seems totally busted.
As a game though I dunno whether I am feeling this. To use Dying Light 2 as an example yet again - and to make it clear, it isn't like a pillar of it's genre or whatever, it is just a recent open world game I have played, it is full of your usual busy work open world crap, but the traversal and combat elements of the game are so strong, coupled with things like how the day night cycle works, just getting into a building to retrieve a book or something can be a nail biting adventure in entirely emergent ways. And that is in a game somewhat grounded in a real world. Despite this being a magic world, I am often being tasked with doing the same kinds of busy work crap, and it is often far less interesting to do. A lot of side content is just walk a couple of steps, press one your spell buttons which requires no actual aiming or mechanical involvement, it just does what it needs to do automatically, then walk back to the NPC and say you are done. Super boring stuff.
Combat is certainly strong here, for sure, but I dunno how much of that is just the flashiness distracting my brain. Not sure what it is like to play on a controller, but the controls are pretty overwhelming on PC. They start off okay, but then when you get into combat encounters where you need to fire off three different types of spells to break various shields, dodge some enemies and parry others, I just start forgetting where I put everything. Especially as you can't do things like double bind the space bar, for one tap jump and two tap dodge, or whatever way round, it needs to have a dedicated binding. I've moved the controls around, and moved a lot of stuff to extra buttons on my mouse, over about 6 or 7 tweaks, I think I have it somewhat comfortable now, but if they throw any more mechanics bound to specific keys at me I am not sure I am going to be able to cope.
The loot system is also pretty weird. I love loot in games, but at least so far despite tripping over Legendary pieces which I assume are the highest rarity? My brain has been coded for that, anyway, everything has just been stat sticks, there are no like perks or even build options I have seen. It is also odd because in the context of who your character is, being in the middle of a sea of school uniforms while wearing an opera mask, cape, armoured gloves and riding chaps just absolutely rips me out of the story. I understand they included the transmog system probably for this purpose, but if I am going to constantly transmog everything to look like my school uniform what is the point of this.
I'm now tenish hours into Hogwarts Legacy, which according to the game is about a third of the way through the main story.
I will say once I found a more comfortable control scheme, and unlocked the skill tree, combat I was kinda back and forth on really came alive for me. The skill tree isn't really that interesting on it's own, but between the more powerful versions of spells and the growing mastery of how everything weaves together, I just started to find this very satisfying flow to combat where you can just absolutely overwhelm the enemy with really awesomely animated offence.
Everything else about the game though... eh. It does sorta feel like their ambition is sorta fighting with itself, as the game is sorta like three games that sorta sit on top of each other. You've got this open world loot game. This virtual tourism Hogwarts simulator. And you've got this action adventure narrative game.
Talking about the world first, I zoomed out for the first time and was kinda blown away by how mind bogglingly massive the map is, and how I am apparently a third of the way through the story and rarely have been required to venture much further than Hogsmeade. I could just make my way to the furthest point of the map I suppose, but that isn't really how I play open world games, I like them to give me a reason to visit a far off location and then I take the long way around to see what I find along the way, and if I find nothing, it is okay because I know I have a properly curated end goal either way. Who knows, maybe the game will start using the further points of the map soon, but at least so far based on the story there doesn't seem to be a clear reason as to how.
The traditional action adventure narrative stuff is really where the game sings for me the most, but it really comes at the expense of the Hogwarts simulator side of the game. As you go out on these story quests, a lot of the time they'll take you away from Hogwarts to little curated spaces outside of the map, which aren't distinguishably Harry Potter in any real way. They are more like generic fantasy stuff utilising Metroidvania elements and elements from games like BOTW.
You will be faced with things like puzzles that are satisfying to solve and require your understanding of your abilities, but never too complicated or long winded where they end up overstaying their welcome and become frustrating. Then this is usually followed by a brief combat encounter which are really designed more for you to show off your combo skills, rather than being something the player is meant to sweat out and show off their mastery. This is all great to me.
But then you come out the other side and that piece of story wraps up, and then you get like three messages from teachers with assignments for your classes. But this'll literally be just like 'go drink three different types of potions' or 'use these combat items in your next battle' or whatever, MMO style busywork stuff. Once you do these, you then walk into their classroom, get a really brief cutscene where your creator character stands out ridiculously in a crowd of bland NPCs, you do the trace the line minigame, get a new spell and you are done.
I won't say the opening couple of classes which were made up of a couple of minigames were necessarily amazing or whatever, but they at least felt like I was taking part in actual classes and school life. But the stuff that follows is basically just busy work to distract me for half an hour before I go and do the next side mission, and you quickly lose any real sense of you being an actual student on Hogwarts, having to balance your school life with this grander purpose you discover you have.
I dunno, I just kinda wish they put more effort into making the classes feel like classes, rather than fetch quest collectathon busy work checklists that reward you with a brief cutscene of some kind of class. And really put more effort in immersing you in life in Hogwarts, which just sorta ends up feeling like a static movie set in the end, which doesn't really do anything outside of specific story missions. I get no real sense of life in this place.
Going to tag @neonpizza (as an outspoken fan of glasses free 3D) & @JaxonH (as a fan of cool gaming tech whatever it may be) in on this.
Apparently the dream of glasses free 3D isn't dead yet, as Acer apparently has a series of stereoscopic 3D monitors & (gaming) laptops. Dozens of games are supposedly compatible with the effect & they claim to support new titles every week (including games like God of War, Forza Horizon 4 & 5, Octopath Traveller, & Abzu).
Appears to be super expensive though, as the monitors are around $1,100, & each laptop model over $3,500.
Wild Hearts is looking like another high profile PC port dud. Really bad year for us so far. Fingers crossed Atomic Heart is our saviour, they had some very reasonable PC specs, so we'll have to see if this game is actually properly optimised when it finally comes around.
Sadly, despite Atomic Heart being seemingly the first well optimised PC port we got this year, as a game it looks like another clanger. Some of the stuff I've seen people talking about makes me wonder what the hell the devs were even thinking, and whether it is even working as it should. Even if it is working as intended, it is clearly pretty ***** and assuming it isn't baked in too deeply, I am crossing my fingers a massive rebalancing patch will be dropped post launch. Either way, I am glad this is on Gamepass. I feel like I can pretty safely give this a miss, and then later in the year if there is a more quiet stretch I can jump into this with really nothing to lose. Other than my own time.
I would love to present to you guys 2 PC games that are absolute HIDDEN GEMS!
1. Kingdom Under Fire: War of Heroes - This RTS was forgotten and almost unplayable because it was a hell to install on a modern PC. I just found out that in December 2022 they released in STEAM! I really hope they make a GOG version as well!
2. Rising Kingdoms - This is another wonderful 2D RTS game that looks hand drawn! It made my the studio that is responsible for Tzar: The burden of the Crown, Celtic Kings, Tropico, Victor Vran. This game is really close to me because the studio is Bulgarian and we do not have many game development studios here, except for some Ubisoft branches that focus on AA games. I also wait for a GOG version
FlatOut
FlatOut 2
FlatOut 3
FlatOut 4: Total Insanity
FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage
Grow Home
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (yes I did get the widescreen fix)
Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb
Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine
Portal
As anyone who cross posts between here and Push Square has already heard me moaning about a lot since, after a hyper fixation on The Last of Us Parts 1 and 2 over the last several weeks, I have been wandering around lost ever since not sure what to play.
I grabbed Gamepass for PC again, tried a bunch of stuff, none of it clicked.
Then I remembered bought Red Dead 2 on PC ages ago (I played through it on release on PS4 and never since again). Maybe going into something like this after The Last of Us is not the best idea, but palette cleansers through contrast weren't working for me either, so going for maybe my third favourite character arc in a video game after Joel and Ellie's might tied me over until the new releases start picking up again.
The game looks, and runs, great on PC which I appreciate as I feel like 2023 has been like a two decade regression so far of brand new PC ports that all run like absolute *****, even when running a rig that costs as much as my down payment for my house.
Red Dead 2 already blew my mind on PS4 from a technical standpoint, now playing it in 4K 60ish fps at highish settings 'insert that guy saying OMG Wow' meme here.
Sadly, while it is technically great, it is one of many PC ports where the game clearly had a lot of care put into it on a controller, but the PC key bindings just seem to be shat out all over the place kinda randomly. You can rebind all your keys, but there are so many inputs in Red Dead 2 for some reason that require dedicated inputs, rather than just allowing you to overlap inputs. So like for example I got into a brawl and it wanted me to use like the F key to do punches and then some other key along the keyboard to block? Yeah, no thanks.
You could probably resolve some things by making a series of macros so you can bunch inputs together with modifiers like you could on a controller, but I find it annoying whenever a PC Port basically leaves it to the player to make it work on a keyboard and mouse.
I didn't want to switch over to a controller because I knew there was no gyro (or at least none in game, you can try and create a gyro scheme through Steam directly or 3rd party apps, but they are often not the easiest to set up and getting working in as a complete way as properly implemented gyro by the devs).
However, I also forgot that despite the game featuring a lot of shooting, the shooting in Red Dead 2 is sorta more of a quick time event where you just press a button to snap to a target and then click the shoot button to kill them. This isn't about precise headshots, or specific target weak point stuff, they have created a shooting system which has kinda removed the need for aiming entirely. Kinda weird, but it means I can just enjoy the game on a controller.
Enjoying on a controller also means I can be unshackled from my desk, throw the game onto my PC TV, jump into my recliner and play like a king, so winner all around.
And... Call of Duty just dropped the 3 missing games onto Steam (Modern Warfare, Vanguard and one other), all of them on sale for $29.99 each. Not sure which of them support mouse gyro with analog and which don't.
Bout time. Man I hope this Microsoft deal goes through so we can get CoD on Switch 2 with gyro aiming. Who knows if that'll ever happen though with Sony on the prowl desperately trying to screw us out of getting it.
@RR529
Didn't see your post til now. I didn't know they were still making them and certainly didn't know they were glasses free. Without it working well for every game though, I doubt it'll ever catch on. Unfortunately.
Psalms 22:16 (1,000 yrs before Christ)
They pierced My hands and feet
Isaiah 53:5 (700 yrs before Christ)
He was pierced for our transgressions
Well this machine looks mighty impressive. 2x as powerful, 1080P and 120Hz, it looks like the Steam Deck might have some hefty competition on its hands..
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