The Gamers Arms

Yeah, it's on my (fairly long currently) list.

Right, just clicked install on Mafia 2 again. I too cannot remember any of it so it'll feel fresh.

Enjoy

My work life this year ended up taking a turn for the intense for most of the last six months, and my time engagement with gaming has changed quite a bit.

I've pretty much ditched Guild Wars 2 as the direction it's taken in the last year has not been to my liking, but probably also because the content i used to enjoy (instanced content) has ceased to be developed, and the new content and achievements are now grind fests, like every MMO. The old design made it so you could jump in, play it to enjoyment, have a few things left to follow up IF you wanted to, and then you moved to the next goal. The new design is do the mindless ******** meta events of 2 hours+ until your eyes bleed and repeat 100*. No thank you.

All of which created a little time for other things.

I had a go at Far Cry 5, mainly because I could squeeze an hour in here and there. Ok game, nothing spectacular, and bloody annoying random teleports for story reasons and annoying cliche cult leader storylines.... just no thank you. So i got my fill of gun toting mercenary and camp liberator and then moved on when the formula go stale.

My big surprise was Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Again, because I can pick it up for an hour here or there. But MAN is this a beautiful game... I love seeing ancient Greece, exploring it, experiencing little stories here and there. Some repetition in the random generated missions, but the quest missions are, mostly, well done. Not on a witcher scale, but enough that I can do them while enjoying the environment.

I'm not persuaded Valhalla is picking up on this formula, or that it will make the landscapes and architecture as fascinating as Greece has been, but I've certainly enjoyed this game.

I agree on odyssey, need to go back and finish it.

Just platted Battlefront 2. It was a good trophy list in the sense it gave you a good overview of the whole game. But christ did it drag on.

Now playing Ghost of tsushima. This game is seriously beautiful.

elgaucho wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 01, 2020 5:25 am

My big surprise was Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Again, because I can pick it up for an hour here or there. But MAN is this a beautiful game... I love seeing ancient Greece, exploring it, experiencing little stories here and there. Some repetition in the random generated missions, but the quest missions are, mostly, well done. Not on a witcher scale, but enough that I can do them while enjoying the environment.

I'm not persuaded Valhalla is picking up on this formula, or that it will make the landscapes and architecture as fascinating as Greece has been, but I've certainly enjoyed this game.

This is the game that has got me through lockdown (that should have been Cyberpunk ofc). 260 hrs in and on the final chapter of the final dlc. Not going for 100%, I'm just a bugger for side quests. Lvl 96 atm.

Completed Witcher 3. The Blood & Wine expansion I actually enjoyed way more than the base game (just a much nicer/more interesting location and less oppressively downbeat overall); definitely a requirement for completing the series. Sorta wish they'd expanded that side of things and centred the base game more along those lines to begin with, but anyway.

Witcher 3: 8/10
B+W: 9/10

..

Just started Civilization V. I bought it donkey's years ago for a fiver but only played it for 10 hours in total for some reason. I've never quite understood why the Civ games never really clicked with me in a big way; I usually love strategy games. Très bizarre, non?

Perhaps I'll find a way into it this time.

Oh yeah just to give you some idea of an average 15 minutes in farcry 5 watch this.

Recently completed Hyper Light Drifer on the Switch. Playing that in portable mode was a treat, and quite immersive with headphones too. Wish I played the game earlier.

I've begun playing Darkwood on the Switch, and as expected it's even more terrifying when playing in portable mode.

Hellsign
This is quite neat. You take supernatural jobs from a wing commander style bar or find some randomly generated ones on the map and go do them in a real time isometric Nox vision gloomy, spooky environment. It’s kind of like Witcher in that there’s detective work to be done. You have multiple gadgets from PK meters to black lights and you have to find out what you’re dealing with and what it’s weaknesses are. If you find a victim you can analyse their body and essentially get a buff vs that baddie and find their location. Get money, upgrade, repeat. The levels, so far at least, are fairly small but look great and really quite atmospheric.

My only gripe so far is the bullets land where you click and there’s no line of sight bullet travel. You click behind a creature and the shot misses even if the creature is between you and where the bullet hits. It makes the combat feel less nice. It is early access to could get better. Oh and the dialogue mate, it’s just that mate, it’s kind of bad mate, don’t you think mate?


Borderlands 3
Free weekends. Normal or easy, easy let’s you experience the story. Well where the shit is the difficulty that switches off the shitty writing and just lets you shoot stuff? 80gb download, 20min game time and probably uninstalling. Fuckin’hell it’s irritating!

Rossell wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 06, 2020 8:08 pm

Oh yeah just to give you some idea of an average 15 minutes in farcry 5 watch this.

Yeah FC5 is batshit nuts from the get go. I came so close to bailing on it at the start when every step I took was dogged by swarms of cult loonies - I thought the game was broken

Thankfully they soon pile you with guns that let you carve your way through the game, but it is definitely one of the weakest in the series.

Doom 3
Bethesda are currently having a sale so I picked up this piss poor conversion for the Xbox One for cheap. I know it's an old game now but they didn't appear to put much effort into the conversion with very clunky controls and mediocre visuals. Unfortunately there was also nothing they could about the gameplay itself with enemies spawning directly behind you and inconsistent hit detection. At least the torch works with every weapon now, so that's something...

Solitarica
Folk used to sing the praises of this and I was looking for something to play at work so gave it a shot. It’s an RNG nightmare of a game. It’s maybe 10% skill and 90% odds. It’s awful.

So I played through a campaign of Civ V. I'm like "Yeah... I get it, it's nice," but there's something constantly flat & uninvolving about it I can't put my finger on. It just doesn't blow up my skirt. Perhaps multiplayer is where it's at, but I only like to 'go solo' these days so I guess I'll never find out.

Civ V: 7/10

So anyway, I moved on and fancied replaying the Grimrock games. Been around 5 years since I played them so I've forgotten all the dungeon layouts and secrets. Fun stuff!

Civ 6 is a pretty significant improvement over 5. It restores a bit of charm to the series which I think was lost with the more plain graphical style. The new gameplay systems are huge improvements too both in giving you more variety for victory conditions and how you actually manage your cities. I tried going back to 5 for a multiplayer game a while ago and just couldn't get on with it at all.