While is looks great, Ghost of Tsushima it's still behind Last of Us Part 2 and Cyperbunk 2077 for what games I'm excited for this year.
By the way, I recently purchased a year of PS Now for $80 CDN and I have to say it's quite good value right now. I decided to sign up once they put Control on it since I never played it before. For PS4 games you can download them and the streaming for PS3 games is solid for the most part. You see the occasional hiccup, but not enough to turn you off. Some games are only on the service for a limited time so you need to watch out for that.
While is looks great, Ghost of Tsushima it's still behind Last of Us Part 2 and Cyperbunk 2077 for what games I'm excited for this year.
By the way, I recently purchased a year of PS Now for $80 CDN and I have to say it's quite good value right now. I decided to sign up once they put Control on it since I never played it before. For PS4 games you can download them and the streaming for PS3 games is solid for the most part. You see the occasional hiccup, but not enough to turn you off. Some games are only on the service for a limited time so you need to watch out for that.
I am excited for both of those as well, but I dunno, if you sat me down and told me I could only get one game in the rest of 2020, I'd probably pick Ghost. TLOU2 has always looked very dour and hyper-violent, and I worry it'll take itself so seriously and just end up being a downer. And Cyberpunk is still a wildcard to me, lots I don't really know about it, I'm not a big first person game fan, but The Witcher 3 was fantastic so I'm assuming this will be as well.
It has JRPG tropes, but it's a good story in general. Sky 1 is pretty straight forward, but it ends on a cliffhanger
Ok, done the first one. That was pretty quick... probably 30ish hours of game time. My thoughts are, in a word, "charming". A really good old school JRPG. The characters are pretty standard JRPG fare, but other than maybe Olivier, they have enough actual personality that they're not cheesy. I certainly didn't actively dislike any of them, and (other than the two principals) because they come and go, they never have a chance to wear out their welcome. If anyone had the potential to be an obnoxious JRPG protagonist it's Estelle, but because of the sheer volume of dialogue in the game and its generally lighthearted tone, she usually just ends up being endearing. That extra writing in the English translation is pretty much what makes the game, I think. It doesn't have that "ESL" feel that every Final Fantasy game has. I read a review beforehand that suggested that it was too much - that the game takes a hundred words to say what could be said in ten - and that is simply not the case. If you're going to do a text-based RPG, this is the right way to write dialogue. I haven't ever seen a game do that aspect quite so well.
Story-wise,
Spoiler!
there's not a hell of a lot here. Most of the game is formulaic - go to a new area centered around a city, meet the people in charge of said area, discover that something seems to be rotten in the state of Denmark, add in a local temporary party member or two, solve the local mystery, oh hey what do you know it has something tangentially to do with the main plot, temporary party member leaves, move on to the next area, rinse, repeat.
The main plot was solid, the stakes were high without being apocalyptic, and the villain was actually not over-the-top at all. I thought Col. Richard's motivations made all the sense in the world, aside from the whole "I wouldn't have had to do this if only Cassius hadn't quit the army" piece. That was pretty silly. But Liberl being overrun ten years prior, having its bacon saved by a major technological leap that allowed it to repel its enemy, and then seeing that advantage quickly fade as other nations caught up and started using the same new technology... yeah, I get it. The writing's on the wall, your nation is about to be overtaken, and you want a nuclear deterrent. That makes perfect sense. It was almost sort of a cop-out that it turned out he was basically incepted to do all of it. I wished we'd spent more than just the last chapter with him as the bad guy, because it would have been nice by the end of the game to feel like you knew him. He really doesn't get much screen time - just a few cameos. That might be my biggest gripe.
The ending, which is really a teaser for SC (as the main conflict of the game was actually resolved), I'm undecided about. It sort of came out of left field. Turns out the real power behind the scenes who put the whole game in motion is a minor NPC who is basically a passive observer in a couple of minor quests, and even that character is really just a front, because he's actually a totally different person who has never been mentioned? Did I miss something, or was the name "Weissman" or the "Ourobouros" organization mentioned at any point in the game before that? That was a missed opportunity. It also felt like a bit of a rip-off that there was really no payoff to who Lorence was. I had a suspicion throughout that it was going to be Cassius himself, or maybe Cassius's illegitimate son, or something. I also thought there was a missed opportunity to have Joshua be the one who gave Richard the Gospel in the first place (under the influence of mind control, obviously). Anyway, some of these issues may simply be dealt with by playing the next chapters.
Ultimately, it felt like the whole game is less about the game's story and more about world-building, and that's fine. The music was good, nothing too outstanding, but did the job. Combat is solid, again, nothing blowing me away - it wasn't a situation where I was looking forward to getting into my next fight to try out a new skill or new weapon or a new spell, but it also wasn't exasperating (I think having visible on-screen encounters a la Chrono Trigger rather than FF-style random battles is helpful in that regard). I don't think I could really give it a score out of ten, because I don't think it's a stand-alone product. And that's fine, it doesn't claim to be, it's just the first chapter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
Ome other thing I'll add about Trails in the sky is to follow a missable hidden quests guide (GameFAQs). The missable quests actually have more meaning/setup to the overarching plot than the main quests.
I did this, and I found that these quests were really pretty meaningless. There were a couple that were sort of interesting I guess, potentially important going forward, but the rest... well, helping decorate for the festival or finding books for a librarian doesn't seem like it'll have any payoff, frankly. Maybe you meant this to apply to SC or Third?
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I did this, and I found that these quests were really pretty meaningless. There were a couple that were sort of interesting I guess, potentially important going forward, but the rest... well, helping decorate for the festival or finding books for a librarian doesn't seem like it'll have any payoff, frankly. Maybe you meant this to apply to SC or Third?
Third for sure, and I'd say Azure. SC is more of the mundane quests IIRC.
For First, I was mostly referring to the tower quests, because they tie into the second game's plot. But yeah, I may have oversold their importance. It's been a while since I played First.
For second chapter, do beware that the first half of the game has a bit of backtracking through places you went in first. It's not the whole game, but it's definitely the worst part of it.
Quote:
Ultimately, it felt like the whole game is less about the game's story
Yeah, this is why I called First a "prologue" to second. Or, if this were an old PSX game, it'd have been "Disc 1 of 3" with Second chapter being discs 2 and 3.
Quote:
Spoiler!
It also felt like a bit of a rip-off that there was really no payoff to who Lorence was.
That is a strong part of the plot in Second.
Quote:
Combat is solid, again, nothing blowing me away - it wasn't a situation where I was looking forward to getting into my next fight to try out a new skill or new weapon or a new spell, but it also wasn't exasperating (I think having visible on-screen encounters a la Chrono Trigger rather than FF-style random battles is helpful in that regard)
THat's fair. I'd say the combat's a good bit better if you play on Hard difficulty, especially for boss fights, but that also makes regular encounters a bit drawn out. I wouldn't say it has the best battle system by any means but on Hard, I do enjoy the bosses.
__________________
"May those who accept their fate find happiness. May those who defy it find glory."
Last edited by GranteedEV; 05-16-2020 at 08:55 PM.
While is looks great, Ghost of Tsushima it's still behind Last of Us Part 2 and Cyperbunk 2077 for what games I'm excited for this year.
By the way, I recently purchased a year of PS Now for $80 CDN and I have to say it's quite good value right now. I decided to sign up once they put Control on it since I never played it before. For PS4 games you can download them and the streaming for PS3 games is solid for the most part. You see the occasional hiccup, but not enough to turn you off. Some games are only on the service for a limited time so you need to watch out for that.
its a good idea; its what xbox does i think?
i think there's a bit of lag time, like how Blockbuster when they started, you'd have to wait a year or 6 months for a movie to move from the theater to video.
As that accelerates, or games do go digital only, it will really take off like Netflix did (for playstation... i believe xbox now has a lot of subscribers)
one concern is seen the tech demo of the PS5 being able to process 5gb per sec? not sure how that works with bandwidth?
anyways, seeing that tech demo is making me excited for the next gen... considering waiting for the next gen for Last of Us as the gap in time is only 6 months now, and you'd have to think LoU 2 will be a PS5 launch game
All the players getting GTA V for free broke the Rockstar servers on PC lol
I just want to play RDR2 singleplayer...
Rockstar: We don't want people to pirate our games.
Also Rockstar: Our DRM is so stringent that a server outage means you can't play our games, not even the offline single player component.
I have bought that game twice already (360 and X1), and I wanted the PC version for some graphical enhancement mods (NaturalVision Remastered) and of course now I can't play it because the damn game relies on two different launchers and has no ability to play offline, period.
Thanks Rockstar.
Aside, if anyone's curious what NV:Remastered looks like:
Why would someone make a mod that can't be played? Or can it only be played if you buy the game through a particular platform?
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Why would someone make a mod that can't be played? Or can it only be played if you buy the game through a particular platform?
I think you're misunderstanding what's up.
Rockstar made GTA V for PC free through the Epic Games Store until the 21st (cool). I already own console versions of GTA V (physical on X360, digital on X1) but I claimed a free copy of GTA V through the Epic Games Store because I wanted to try some graphical mods, which you can only do on PC versions.
However, GTA V on PC has an incredibly restrictive DRM scheme that requires both a) the distribution platform (Steam, Epic) and b) the Rockstar Social Club / Game Launcher be online in order to play, period. If either one of those goes down or your internet is offline, you can't play the game, period, not even the offline campaign.
So with a massive influx of new people downloading / playing GTA V for PC plus the people who were already playing it, RDR 2, etc., Rockstar's notoriously sh-t servers have been living up to their reputation meaning I got to play the game for about 4 minutes yesterday and it hasn't worked all day today.
The mod has nothing to do with the game not working, it was just the reason I wanted to play the PC version over the console version.
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GO FLAMES GO.
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Ah, I see - I thought you were saying that the mod was only playable in offline single player, or that the DRM was somehow interfering with it. I was asking because that mod looks outstanding and I was thinking, when I end up playing this game (as I have now downloaded the free version), I probably want to play it using that mod. Sounds like I will be able to do so... by the time I get to it, hopefully the server issue has resolved itself. Thanks for pointing out the mod.
That actually gave me the idea to see what mods were available for the Trails games I was just talking about starting, and there actually are a couple on steam... including one for voice acting, of all things. There are more written lines in these games than in the complete works of Shakespeare, how the heck did they get them all (apparently competently) voice acted for a mod years after release? Only in Japanese, mind you, but still. Craziness.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
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Yeah, I've been pretty blown away by the visual fidelity of the mod and like that it doesn't require Reshade to get the above results (though you can use it if you want). I also like that GTA V is actually a well-optimized title, unlike GTA IV (a 2008 title) which is a dumpster fire even in vanilla. I can run V at full everything with zero slowdowns... on an i7 4790k (2014) and a 1080ti.
But the stupidly restrictive DRM just makes no sense to me, it's being punished for playing the game legitimately. All the while, software pirates can play the game offline unencumbered by this crap.
If you own Mafia 2 or 3 you're going to get a free upgrade to the definitive editions on Steam or if you own 3 on the PS Store or Microsoft Store. 3 is obviously too new for a remaster but 2 is getting one.
They're also remaking the first with expanded gameplay and story which comes in August.
If you own Mafia 2 or 3 you're going to get a free upgrade to the definitive editions on Steam or if you own 3 on the PS Store or Microsoft Store. 3 is obviously too new for a remaster but 2 is getting one.
They're also remaking the first with expanded gameplay and story which comes in August.
Very stoked for this, I don't really even care about 2 or 3 but I've been wanting a full remake of the first Mafia for years now. I spent so much time on that game, the world building they did was unrivaled at the time. Really hope it lives up to the hype in my head
Very stoked for this, I don't really even care about 2 or 3 but I've been wanting a full remake of the first Mafia for years now. I spent so much time on that game, the world building they did was unrivaled at the time. Really hope it lives up to the hype in my head
Hopefully that damn racing mission isn’t as frustrating as it was. lol
I beat Mafia II on PS3 but never got around to playing the DLC and ended up getting a free Steam key through a giveaway so it’s nice not having to buy the DLC again. I still haven’t finished 3 but I already had pretty much everything except the car pack.
I somehow missed the boat on this before, finally started watching videos about it last night. Looks awesome!! Glad its coming out during quarantine summer too, that'll come in handy.
I've been playing a ton of MLB The Show. Diamond Dynasty is a blast - it's the only ultimate team mode that I've played where I continually unlock cards by just playing, and don't feel any desire/need to spend money.
It's one of the best sports games I've ever played - so much content, and so much to do in it.
