The Video Game Thread v3

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

I'll also note that while many complain about Odyssey having enemies above your level that you can't insta-assassinate, it felt really satisfying once I leveled up far enough and into the right build where I could perform a one-hit stealth kill on some of the harder enemies. And when you run across a mercenary several levels above you, but manage to take them down through battle it makes you feel like a badass

Even though I fully knew I was going to die it never stopped me from giving it the old college try when I ran across a higher level assassin and as you say the odd time you could isolate and take them down strategically would be very satisfying.

[SuperMatt18]

What I think would be awesome in games is the ability to pick your "Play through time" at the start of the game.

Be great if for a game to let you choose approximately how long you want to play, and then scale the difficulty of the story, the side quests shown to you, and the grinding for items required to meet that play time.

So for example you could pick the 20 hour "Story" mode, which would feature no side quests, and scale the difficulty accordingly since you wouldn't be grinding to level up your character.

Or a 80 hour "Experience" mode that ties all the side quests into the story of the game, and will make the main story more difficult since you are grinding the side quests to level up your character.

Feel like it would potentially make some of these open world grind fests a bit more approachable right off the start.

[photon]

That's an interesting idea. Or story mode would just scale the enemies to your level.

I usually try to do something like that anyway, I'll sometimes cheat myself extra game currency to save some time and grinding if it's a longer game.

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by photon

That's an interesting idea. Or story mode would just scale the enemies to your level.

I usually try to do something like that anyway, I'll sometimes cheat myself extra game currency to save some time and grinding if it's a longer game.

I want the other way. Let me side quest and level up to my heart’s content so that when it comes to story mode I am an unstoppable god of carnage and wanton destruction. What good is it to give me a cool new power or gadget to use when I’m 3/4 of the way through the game and it’s mostly useless? Let me get the death blade of doom early and rain terror down upon my enemies.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Even though I fully knew I was going to die it never stopped me from giving it the old college try when I ran across a higher level assassin and as you say the odd time you could isolate and take them down strategically would be very satisfying.

I got good enough to where I could reliability take out mercenaries 10-15 levels above me as long as I got the initial stealth attack in to hit them hard. That is unless they had a lion or bobcat with them, then it was just me flailing around wildly with an ####### cat on my back as the dude one hits me in the face with a mace

[ResAlien]

The stupid lynx/bobcat in odyssey is one of my least favourite enemies in any game ever. Goddamn those things straight to hell.

[Captain Hair]

Well, I've had a very bizarre week in gaming, and thought I'd pass on a cautionary note regarding Activision, especially for PC gamers.

Monday, July 6th, I had the day off, so I loaded up COD Warzone to play a round or two. Afterwards, I went on to do other things.

Then, in the late afternoon, I went back into Warzone, and discovered that Activision had banned my account.

Permanently.

No warning, no e-mails, nothing. Just a note when I entered the game stating that I've been permanently banned. Blizzard's Battle.Net program also indicated that.

Like a few hundred other users, I went through twitter, and eventually the Activision support forums trying to figure out what happened. Turns out Activision banned a lot of people that week. The support forums were loaded with posts about it. Some people were brand new players who were banned in very short order.

I did post a message, stated everything coherently and asked why I was banned. An Activision Ambassador did respond, but really only showed me the links where the enforcement rules are posted, and that permanent bans cannot be appealed or even discussed with Activision themselves.

Afterwards, I did start loading Warzone on my XBox, thinking I could try to play it that way, but realized I had linked my accounts. So I gave up on that.

Then, on Thursday, as I was going to remove Blizzard's Battle.Net launcher from my PC, I noticed something. The 'account banned' icon in the launcher was no longer present. Rather than downloading it again on PC, I resumed the download on XBox and found out my account was restored!

There was no notice, no e-mail, no response on the Activision Support page, regarding all of this. I was dumbfounded that I was banned to begin with, and equally dumbfounded that my account was restored. I did see in some forums that others also were restored, but not very many.

Too bad the money I was considering spending on Modern Warfare (1 or 2) went to Steam sale games instead. Just a really odd thing for Activision to go through. My Warzone stats are not very good (3 wins in total), and I still don't know what happened.

TL;DR: Activision has a heavy enforcement hand, and will take and give with no warning. Being permanently banned also meant not being able to play the single player games for Modern Warfare 1 and 2. You lose it all apparently, although you might get it back...

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I find AC games are only a grind if you choose to go the route of completionist finishing all the side missions. If you stick to the storyline you can finish the game without it feeling like a chore. As said above I put easily 80-100 hours into Odyssey and while there's a bit of a marathon feel it's such a genuinely fun game that you just want to keep going. Nothing like Last of Us 2 which was a grind because the game just wasn't fun.

I'm sorta speed running TLOU2 right now on NG+ to see if my perspective changes and try and see if platinum trophies on this game is really as easy as some people are reporting (I rarely get more than 30% trophies). Holy hell I didn't realize how much time I sat around watching cinematics the first time around.

2.5 hours in and skipping all the cinematics, I'm in the middle of Day 2 Seattle with Ellie. The more I play this, the more I think Ellie has become Joel in TLOU2. There seems to be more and more parallels I'm picking up on. TLOU1 Ellie I believe has manifested in a different area of TLOU2, but I'll have to confirm that later.

I haven't gotten to the parts that annoy me yet, but I'm definitely feeling like I'm still picking up little random things in the game I didn't notice before, even though I'm skipping through the cinematics. I think I'll add another 5 hours to this game and then go back to FF7 remake.

FF7 remake has been very neat. I'm not generally an eye candy type of person, but even I pause on occasion to look at the environment in FF7 in a weird awe/nostalgia/comparison manner.

[OutOfTheCube]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I'm sorta speed running TLOU2 right now on NG+ to see if my perspective changes and try and see if platinum trophies on this game is really as easy as some people are reporting (I rarely get more than 30% trophies). Holy hell I didn't realize how much time I sat around watching cinematics the first time around.

2.5 hours in and skipping all the cinematics, I'm in the middle of Day 2 Seattle with Ellie. The more I play this, the more I think Ellie has become Joel in TLOU2. There seems to be more and more parallels I'm picking up on. TLOU1 Ellie I believe has manifested in a different area of TLOU2, but I'll have to confirm that later.

I haven't gotten to the parts that annoy me yet, but I'm definitely feeling like I'm still picking up little random things in the game I didn't notice before, even though I'm skipping through the cinematics. I think I'll add another 5 hours to this game and then go back to FF7 remake.

FF7 remake has been very neat. I'm not generally an eye candy type of person, but even I pause on occasion to look at the environment in FF7 in a weird awe/nostalgia/comparison manner.

Really? Yeah that will stop at some point. FF7R has some of the worst looking environments I've ever seen in a AAA game this gen (and some of the best). It's a weird game.

[photon]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

I want the other way. Let me side quest and level up to my heart’s content so that when it comes to story mode I am an unstoppable god of carnage and wanton destruction. What good is it to give me a cool new power or gadget to use when I’m 3/4 of the way through the game and it’s mostly useless? Let me get the death blade of doom early and rain terror down upon my enemies.

Hm yeah, I kinda like the progression of getting new weapons and unlocking new skills, and I can see how that progression can help teach to play the character effectively, but I like that idea especially for some games.

I think you can buy a boost to top level in WoW, so something like that. And games that are more complex with big skill trees could just have prebuilds that are effective and fun.

Cool idea!

[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

I'll also note that while many complain about Odyssey having enemies above your level that you can't insta-assassinate, it felt really satisfying once I leveled up far enough and into the right build where I could perform a one-hit stealth kill on some of the harder enemies. And when you run across a mercenary several levels above you, but manage to take them down through battle it makes you feel like a badass

It also helps to perform the stealth attack using the critical stealth attack (hold down A when assassinating) and upgrade it to level 3 as soon as you can. Then throw down the X+Y special combo right after (when you have enough special bars) and you can take out pretty much anybody regardless of their level.

I do miss the double assassination feature in this game though. I dont' understand why it was removed, when it's such a vital move in the previous games. Plenty of scenarios in this game where it would have been useful. Hopefully it's back in Valhalla.

[sketchyt]

This could also probably go in the gear grinders thread... but I downloaded NBA 2K20 as part of the PS+ games in July. I haven't played a basketball game in years so was excited to get back to it:

1. Download the game
2. Press play. Wall of legalese. Click accept.
3. Press play. Must sign in or start a new account to play online modes. No thanks.
4. Press play. Another round of updates to download once game is started. Sigh.
5. Finish updating. Game restarts.
6. Press play. Wall of legalese. AGAIN. Click accept.
7. Press play. Must sign in or start a new account to play online modes. AGAIN. No thanks, I just want to play the GD game for now. Can I play the game yet?
8. YES, I'm through. I can now play the GD game. Maybe start a league, do a fantasy draft, the possibilities are endless!
9. Ohh look, 'GM Mode'. That sounds interesting.
10. Press play. Must sign in or start a new account to play online modes.
11. Delete game.

[ResAlien]

You’re not missing out 2k20 is trash. 19 was good but they really screwed up 20.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

Really? Yeah that will stop at some point. FF7R has some of the worst looking environments I've ever seen in a AAA game this gen (and some of the best). It's a weird game.

I think I'm mainly pausing and looking at the environment to mentally compare and appreciate how they decided to modernize the original. I agree some of the graphics renderings are pretty junky.

[CMPunk]

Originally Posted by sketchyt

This could also probably go in the gear grinders thread... but I downloaded NBA 2K20 as part of the PS+ games in July. I haven't played a basketball game in years so was excited to get back to it:

1. Download the game
2. Press play. Wall of legalese. Click accept.
3. Press play. Must sign in or start a new account to play online modes. No thanks.
4. Press play. Another round of updates to download once game is started. Sigh.
5. Finish updating. Game restarts.
6. Press play. Wall of legalese. AGAIN. Click accept.
7. Press play. Must sign in or start a new account to play online modes. AGAIN. No thanks, I just want to play the GD game for now. Can I play the game yet?
8. YES, I'm through. I can now play the GD game. Maybe start a league, do a fantasy draft, the possibilities are endless!
9. Ohh look, 'GM Mode'. That sounds interesting.
10. Press play. Must sign in or start a new account to play online modes.
11. Delete game.

Yup, my experience was similar. I was hoping there was a tutorial to refresh me, but right into game play. I deleted it 5 minutes into the first game.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

What I think would be awesome in games is the ability to pick your "Play through time" at the start of the game.

I really like this idea.

[btimbit]

NBA is such a good game designed and managed so damn poorly. Pisses me off because it could be sooooo good

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

You’re not missing out 2k20 is trash. 19 was good but they really screwed up 20.

Sounds like the WWE series. They screwed up 2k20 so bad that they're skipping out this year to get their #### together and instead are releasing an arcade WWE game.

Instead of playing 2k20 people are just playing 2k19 and downloading the missing wrestlers from community creations. I decided to buy the deluxe version for $18 since I think I can get that much worth with the story mode and DLC but after that I'll probably go back to 2k19. From what I've played it's not as buggy as other people say it still is but it's still buggy enough that 2k19 is better.

[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

You’re not missing out 2k20 is trash. 19 was good but they really screwed up 20.

The bar for me is still 2K13 for NBA games. That game was sooooo awesome then it seemed to slide downhill with each installment after that.

[btimbit]

I didn't mind NBA 2k20, but I also pretty much exclusively play career/be a pro type modes in sports games so can't comment on anything else, especially online play which I never ever touch