Michael*

25 minutes ago, Cult Icon said:

No, never heard of it.  Apparently no man's sky has been a shxtshow.  There was also the steam error of refunds.  Watch dogs 2 has some parts on youtube already.

 

I have been revisiting Bioshock remastered as of late.   It is such a good game that needs to be re-made.  The graphical upgrade is noticeable but not that much TBH.

 

 

Bioshock 2 was an improvement in the gameplay/graphical elements but the story/writing and environmental concepts were not really at the same level of impact as the original.

Oh, most definitely.  I was regrettably slow off the mark in giving Bioshock a try (it was actually our very own Donbot who introduced me to the series, which I'll be forever grateful for), but I can honestly say that only a few games have impressed me as much. To this day, I think it's the benchmark for what can be achieved in terms of storytelling, characters, presentation and voice acting.

The second game, while it didn't really raise the bar in any particular area, looked and felt like you were in the exact same world, which was great for me as I jumped straight into it after finishing the original.

22 minutes ago, Michael* said:

 

Oh, most definitely.  I was regrettably slow off the mark in giving Bioshock a try (it was actually our very own Donbot who introduced me to the series, which I'll be forever grateful for), but I can honestly say that only a few games have impressed me as much. To this day, I think it's the benchmark for what can be achieved in terms of storytelling, characters, presentation and voice acting.

 

The second game, while it didn't really raise the bar in any particular area, looked and felt like you were in the exact same world, which was great for me as I jumped straight into it after finishing the original.

You know what I'm going to say- like a broken record- the Witcher 3 and its expansions win the title lol.  But bioshock is among my top 5.

Have you played bioshock infinite and the burial at sea expansions?  The burial at sea expansions add more to bioshock story and link them to infinite- however loosely.  

Andrew Ryan is basically a skinny Orson Welles (the voice and even the face is the same).  I really liked the writing and voice acting for the various citizens of Rapture.  I think the whole concept of exploring a recently fallen city- and piecing the clues as to 'what happened?' as to be a very effective aspect of bioshock. 

But the political/visionary element of depicting a fallen libertarian utopia makes the game timeless.  That's why it should be re-made.

Mafia 3 is pretty good.  I don't like Gear of War 4.

On 9/28/2016 at 7:29 PM, Cult Icon said:

You know what I'm going to say- like a broken record- the Witcher 3 and its expansions win the title lol.  But bioshock is among my top 5.

 

Have you played bioshock infinite and the burial at sea expansions?  The burial at sea expansions add more to bioshock story and link them to infinite- however loosely.  

 

Andrew Ryan is basically a skinny Orson Welles (the voice and even the face is the same).  I really liked the writing and voice acting for the various citizens of Rapture.  I think the whole concept of exploring a recently fallen city- and piecing the clues as to 'what happened?' as to be a very effective aspect of bioshock. 

 

But the political/visionary element of depicting a fallen libertarian utopia makes the game timeless.  That's why it should be re-made.

As silly as it probably sounds to choose something non-playable as a favourite part of the series, I just loved the scene in which Ryan reveals the truth to the 'hero'. That was the precise moment where collecting the tape diaries and all the seemingly flippant comments from Atlas suddenly made perfect sense, and it all just interlocked so well.

Infinite really was magical stuff, too. I distinctly remember purposely slowing down my progression through the game in order to take it all in. That feeling of genuinely wanting to savour everything is one that I've only experienced a few times in my gaming career.

I only ever played the first part of Burial At Sea, and found it really enjoyable for the most part. It was very cool to get a hint of what Rapture was like in its prime, although I must say, the knitting together of the two locations felt a bit awkward at times. Even now though, I can't help thinking that a Bioshock game set before or during the downfall of Rapture would be a terrific adventure, maybe one where you pick a side and play through the civil war.

On 10/8/2016 at 11:34 PM, Cult Icon said:

Mafia 3 is pretty good.  I don't like Gear of War 4.

The whole Gears of War/Call of Duty genre has never really been my cup of tea, if I'm honest. I've sampled both games (albeit briefly) and was completely underwhelmed. It's obviously a taste that I've yet to acquire.

I haven't played the Mafia series yet, but this latest one seems to be getting a lot of praise for the story, direction, writing and style. Some of the reviews I've read make it sound like Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, only set in sixties America instead of Victorian London.

I played Mafia 2 back in the day.  I liked it.  I think I need to withhold my opinion on Mafia 3 as I haven't seen much.  It's a bit too much GTA.  But it has very good motion capture and the story is solid.

Call of Duty and Gears of War have very 'simple' gameplay (single and multi) and are very much ten years outdated even with the 'new skins'.   I like the whole space marine aspect of Gears though; but I feel like with G4 they didn't do anything particularly interesting.  All the aliens are basically the same and even with less variety.  Story is very weak.

With COD it's the very dumbed down gameplay.  The last shooter I played was Red Orchestra 2 back in 2012/2013 ish and it was far superior.

On 10/12/2016 at 8:28 AM, Michael* said:

 

As silly as it probably sounds to choose something non-playable as a favourite part of the series, I just loved the scene in which Ryan reveals the truth to the 'hero'. That was the precise moment where collecting the tape diaries and all the seemingly flippant comments from Atlas suddenly made perfect sense, and it all just interlocked so well.

 

Infinite really was magical stuff, too. I distinctly remember purposely slowing down my progression through the game in order to take it all in. That feeling of genuinely wanting to savour everything is one that I've only experienced a few times in my gaming career.

 

I only ever played the first part of Burial At Sea, and found it really enjoyable for the most part. It was very cool to get a hint of what Rapture was like in its prime, although I must say, the knitting together of the two locations felt a bit awkward at times. Even now though, I can't help thinking that a Bioshock game set before or during the downfall of Rapture would be a terrific adventure, maybe one where you pick a side and play through the civil war.

Bioshock had amazing level design in the first 1/3rds or so.  

I liked Burial at Sea but the budget kind of shows.  The beginning part is my favorite.  Burial at Sea part 2 was good.

There is also Minerva's Den, which is the expansion for Bioshock 2.

Yea, Ryan is a great antagonist.  

The next big release is Battlefield 1.  I'm on the fence on it- it has great graphics and effects but the historical details are comically bad and worse, they are trying to pull on 'war is bad' trope.  It's not an re-creation of WW1 but an alternate reality version of it.

I'm stunned at how much MGS5 story I missed from not listening to this:

I am currently catching up with "Dark Souls"- really a masterpiece.  I have the art book and it's excellent. This narrator is very helpful as he goes into the lore and also the development process for the game.:

With Demon Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3, and Bloodborne, Miyazaki is done with this type of game.  I have seen Bloodbourne and Dark Souls 3 and they are amazing.  DS2 is often considered the weakest of the Dark Souls and Demon Souls is rather dated/preliminary. Dark souls is good and displays a wide variety of environments.  It appears to have the best story and characters of the souls games but Dark Souls 3 has the best bosses, gameplay, and graphics.  Bloodbourne has probably the best art direction, story, and bosses out of all of them.

the much delayed game, the last guardian is out!

This thread is almost as dead as mine  

On ‎16‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 7:53 PM, Cult Icon said:

I'm stunned at how much MGS5 story I missed from not listening to this:

 

 

It wasn't half a long time coming, but I finally got around to playing through it. Overall, I think my feelings on the game are almost as convoluted as the game itself, which I suppose in some ways is probably what Kojima would have wanted.

It's really too bad that the story, and perhaps even the whole series, ended on something of a sour note because the gameplay is so fantastic that I would honestly recommend it to anyone. In terms of how it fits into the MGS saga, so many things are left unfinished and unexplained. My biggest hope was that we'd see Big Boss slowly descend into anti-hero territory and transition into the out-and-out villain who Solid Snake has to face later on, but it doesn't really materialise. By the end bit, it’s sort of just implied that Big Boss has settled on the idea of creating Outer Heaven as the right path, with very little exploration of how or why such a radical change from his Peace Walker/Ground Zeroes self came about. At this point, it would probably take a remake of the original Metal Gear game for some of those questions to be answered and maybe paste in some new lore, like Big Boss’s first interactions with Solid Snake, although given the extent that Kojima's relationship with Konami went down the pan during MGS V's production, I can't imagine it happening anytime soon.

That being said, I thought Kojima's exit from Konami gave the ending a weird new kind of significance in some ways. It was almost like he was stepping away from the narrative to tell the player that together, he and us had created the 'legend' of Big Boss, and going forward, it was up to us as players to carry it on. So although the finale was perhaps sub-par in canon, it still delivered a big 'passing of the torch' moment that really meant something and actually felt very moving, albeit in the form of a slightly contrary fourth wall blast.

What did you make of Eli? He turned out be a pre-Foxhound Liquid of course, which a decent number of fans predicted ahead of time, but quite a bit of his backstory put me more in mind of a young Raiden instead.

On 10/16/2016 at 7:53 PM, Cult Icon said:

I am currently catching up with "Dark Souls"- really a masterpiece.  I have the art book and it's excellent. This narrator is very helpful as he goes into the lore and also the development process for the game.:

 

With Demon Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3, and Bloodborne, Miyazaki is done with this type of game.  I have seen Bloodbourne and Dark Souls 3 and they are amazing.  DS2 is often considered the weakest of the Dark Souls and Demon Souls is rather dated/preliminary. Dark souls is good and displays a wide variety of environments.  It appears to have the best story and characters of the souls games but Dark Souls 3 has the best bosses, gameplay, and graphics.  Bloodbourne has probably the best art direction, story, and bosses out of all of them.

 

 

 

I don't know a great deal about the Dark Souls series, but looking at the video, I can see straight away that the presentation and level design are quite brilliant. I'll have to try and give it a whirl at some point.

I remember reading rumours that the next Red Dead game might turn out to be a prequel and perhaps not even feature Marston, although I suspect that if it the story took place in some other totally unrelated wild west setting, they probably wouldn't have called it Red Dead Redemption 2, but Red Dead something else instead. Either way, it'll be another one to really look forward to. At long last, it feels like the next-gen consoles are starting to hit their stride a little.

On ‎09‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 1:58 AM, Cult Icon said:

the much delayed game, the last guardian is out!

I'm having a blast with GTA Online and Uncharted 4 at the moment, but I plan on making this my next port of call. I can't believe it's finally here, feels like years since I watched that first E3 preview.

Have you seen much of it yet?

On ‎15‎/‎01‎/‎2017 at 0:02 AM, Limerlight said:

This thread is almost as dead as mine  

So if this post were a game, it would be Dead Thread Redemption?

For Honor is probably the best sword fighting game ever made

another new one:

On 2/18/2017 at 3:27 PM, Michael* said:

 

It's really too bad that the story, and perhaps even the whole series, ended on something of a sour note because the gameplay is so fantastic that I would honestly recommend it to anyone. In terms of how it fits into the MGS saga, so many things are left unfinished and unexplained. My biggest hope was that we'd see Big Boss slowly descend into anti-hero territory and transition into the out-and-out villain who Solid Snake has to face later on, but it doesn't really materialise. By the end bit, it’s sort of just implied that Big Boss has settled on the idea of creating Outer Heaven as the right path, with very little exploration of how or why such a radical change from his Peace Walker/Ground Zeroes self came about. At this point, it would probably take a remake of the original Metal Gear game for some of those questions to be answered and maybe paste in some new lore, like Big Boss’s first interactions with Solid Snake, although given the extent that Kojima's relationship with Konami went down the pan during MGS V's production, I can't imagine it happening anytime soon.

 

What did you make of Eli? He turned out be a pre-Foxhound Liquid of course, which a decent number of fans predicted ahead of time, but quite a bit of his backstory put me more in mind of a young Raiden instead.

I was expecting some sort of "hell is the road paved with good intentions" sort of figure: essentially a fanatical leader that has passed all boundaries to the road to power.   A transformation.  I have a book (Power Broker, Robert Caro) (which won the Pulitzer prize) that explores this type of person.

 The legend of Big Boss was a major (and menacing) narrative theme that was intentionally kept mysterious and the what I expected was a big payoff after two decades of loyalty to the franchise.

Overall, I found it to be a big letdown.  It's as if he and his team kind of gave up on the story and half-assed it.  It was also very disappointing to find out that Kojima never really had much of a story for Outer Heaven and Big Boss so the whole thing feels like a ton of red herrings. And yeah, there were a lot of developmental issues in the end that effected the quality of the narrative.  

Young Eli made little sense.  I thought it was just shoe-horned in.  BTW on youtube there is bonus footage of Eli.  It was deleted and half-completed so it never made it into the game.

Overall, to me the first three Metal Gear Solids were great achievements and they will stand the test of time.  The original Metal Gear Solid had the sharpest story and most original structure.  Kojima has moved to other projects (apparently a radical one from last I've heard)

On 2/18/2017 at 3:59 PM, Michael* said:

 

I don't know a great deal about the Dark Souls series, but looking at the video, I can see straight away that the presentation and level design are quite brilliant. I'll have to try and give it a whirl at some point.

 

I remember reading rumours that the next Red Dead game might turn out to be a prequel and perhaps not even feature Marston, although I suspect that if it the story took place in some other totally unrelated wild west setting, they probably wouldn't have called it Red Dead Redemption 2, but Red Dead something else instead. Either way, it'll be another one to really look forward to. At long last, it feels like the next-gen consoles are starting to hit their stride a little.

Dark Souls, Dark Souls 3, and Bloodborne were made by the original team.  Dark Souls 2 is considered the weak link.  Dark Souls 1 is last gen.  Dark Souls 3 is the next gen "spirtual sequal" to the original DS.  Yep, Dark souls is genius.

I liked the art style showed in the Read Dead trailer.  I haven't followed on recent developments though.  It would make sense since he died at the end.  Or they could use a new set of protagonists.

With the Last Guardian, I enjoyed skimming through the footage.  It appears to be a short, but high quality experience.

Apparently, 

Sony/Playstation is making Vgritte their next Mascot.  The game is wonderful, and there are sequels to be planned!

Kojima's "Death Standing" is going to use the same excellent engine as Horizon Zero Dawn.

also, the dark souls franchise has ended (8 years!) with the last expansion pack

  I like your new Scott Pilgrim gif.  

(Yes, I posted this somewhere else first, but it makes more sense here)

On 2/28/2017 at 10:52 PM, Cult Icon said:

Apparently, 

 

Sony/Playstation is making Vgritte their next Mascot.  The game is wonderful, and there are sequels to be planned!

 

 

Kojima's "Death Standing" is going to use the same excellent engine as Horizon Zero Dawn.

 

also, the dark souls franchise has ended (8 years!) with the last expansion pack

I'm certainly down for Horizon Zero Dawn. It looks beautiful, I love the setting and I feel like it's the right time to get my teeth into something a bit longer. From what I hear, almost all the characters are interestingly written.

On a slightly different note, it would appear, almost a full year later, that the developers of No Man's Sky are actually trying to deliver on some of the things that were promised in the run-up to the game's initial release. If nothing else, it should be interesting to see if they can work around the 'early access' conundrum, where people play it a lot before it's fully formed and by the time it's finally done, they've already moved on.