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PaperclipPerfector
13hr ago
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Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Video game thread
What are you playing these days?
I will be playing through Half-Life soon. I noticed I didn't have it in my Steam library so I picked up the Anthology bundle for a couple of dollars. Only a couple of years have passed since the last time I played HL, but for some reason I'm drawn to it again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Still waiting for a reasonably priced 5120x2160, 39 inch ultrawide monitor to show up. I'm sort of holding off on some games until I can upgrade my monitor. Some games aren't well suited for playing on the TV.
PRAGMATA - enjoyable enough to finish, mildly disappointing on most fronts. Stunted by the indulgent approach to the core character dynamics. You'd think the obvious route, in a world where bots are an expendable commodity, would be for the player character to default to brutal, cold treatment initially, in particular in the emergency. Relationship then could predicably grow from "tool I will sacrifice as needed" -> "tool I need to be nice to to get results" -> "actually a gifted 'child'" -> "a child I am attached to" -> "my sweet angel I will die for without second thoughts". They apparently did not think the audience would want/could handle this, so straight to 'gifted child' we go, pacing jarring enough to lose me instantly. Examination of Dianas nature and limitations is off-limits beyond sentimental babble with predetermined conclusion, so the plot is padded with painfully stupid, shallow crap.
Life Below - pleasant, pretty, somewhat unusual. A little too railroaded, you can't overbuild and breeze past some bottlenecks, must simply wait. Ecology and reclamation themed, but not preachy at all (pollution bad, but humanity remote & not bad). Missed opportunity, for the Heart you begin reclamation from, and the Sprites that drive it, to be magical in nature (spirits or whatever), rather than an engineered, autonomous ecosystem building tech. The game is meant to be kid-friendly, why not instil some optimism? Guess that is too much to ask for from Norwegians?
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Following last week's discussion on Darktide, I reactivated my gaming buddies and we actually played a few rounds yesterday.
It was okay. I like the changes they made to the game, regarding the progression and gear. Getting away from pure RNG and letting players tweak their equipment relatively freely feels good.
But at the same time I find the game a little too fast-paced for my liking, and the missions drag on for far too long. I found myself quite tired very quickly.
And the more narrative elements they add, the more I dislike the writing. Of course it's all very woke, the devs being Swedish, and at times it can be funny to entertain the idea that actually, the Imperium's famous right-wing aesthetics and philosophies are all really nothing but propaganda and the non-noble baseline human population is overwhelmingly 21th-century progressive leftists, but in the end it's more grating than anything.
How is that going for you so far? Sadly your timezones don't line up with mine.
For all the faults in the writing, the character of Kayex more than makes up for it. He's one of the first mechanicus characters I've seen that really nails the religiosity and pure wonder of the machine cult. Things that 40k would normally paint as malice come out as alien benevolence, and I love it.
Kayex is alright. He's certainly the least annoying mission control.
Zola is tolerable. Marrow overdoes his act. All the others make me understand why people defect to Chaos. Annoying to unlikely degrees.
Boring as hell, to be honest. One of us is new, so we're playing throught the new campaign with him, which means starting on the lowest difficulty. One-shotting a mission boss was fun for a moment, but doesn't make up for the trivial challenge. I'm using the opportunity to try new weapon types and to grind for achievements.
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The early access scene is looking remarkably healthy these days. Subnautica 2 and Slay the Spire 2 have released to widespread audience acclaim. The gamers who insist on being patient and waiting until release are clearly in the minority. While Slay the Spire 2 is very close to feature complete, Subnautica 2 still needs a lot of time in the oven to really live up to expectations.
While chapter based releases have seemingly fallen out of fashion, Deltarune shows this model can still work. While the most recent chapter did not quite live up to the insane hype, Steam reviews are still overwhelmingly positive. I imagine it helps that you only pay for the game once instead of for every chapter individually. With how well the game has sold already, it surprises me a bit that Toby Fox has not just decided to take the money and run. Continued development is a sign of clear passion from the developers who must be driven in large part by intrinsic desire to finish the game, even though they have already earned most of the money it is likely to earn them.
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Genuine question since I haven't played the first half life game. Is Half-life good by modern gameplay standards? Or is it one of those games that was great for its time and era but feels dated now?
IMO it's still good. I don't play anything purely for nostalgia vibes. If you like old school FPSes at all, you'll probably have fun with it.
One of the things I still value about it is that it is "no BS". You don't have to deal with listening to shitty characters in cutscenes or anything. There are no cutscenes. It's all in first person mode from start to finish.
It has lowres and lowpoly graphics, of course, but it was well designed artistically. You can find pretty good graphics mods for HL1 and HL2 to increase the texture resolutions.
The gunplay is good. It's very satisfying to unload on an alien with a double barrel shotgun blast, or to fire the big shiny revolver that does high damage and has pinpoint accuracy. I like how they don't let themselves get stuck to realism needlessly. The sound design is great.
The main downside with the game is that the second half, and especially final part of the game is far less good than the first half. The level design takes a nosedive at times. But I don't remember myself or anyone else feeling really let down by the game at the end. It doesn't stick the landing, but you still look back at a great experience. The whole setup, universe, design, and first half of the game is so damn good. Especially for its time. So there might be a little bit of "goodwill" involved due to remembering how the rest of the game scene was in 1998. Valve made huge strides with both HL1 and HL2 and the Source engine.
One decision to make is whether to play the original, or the third party remake Black Mesa. The latter looks a lot more modern, but they had scope creep going on. And, very annoyingly for me, you can't disable their mouse acceleration. They force you to have a slow mouse for minor movements and a fast movement for major movements.
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