I bought a DS so I could play a single 13 year old game.
Marvel's Spider-Man
I've put a bit more time into this now, the weekend goes fast when you're ripping through New York, snapping photos and handing out concussions.
I'll preface this by saying Spider-Man is far and away my favourite superhero so I am slightly biased here. When the Arkham games came out, I loved them but in the back of my head I couldn't help but want the same treatment for Spider-Man. Insomniac have got as close as they could to that while making this about our friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler.
The main story is engaging though mostly involves a villain that I'm not super familiar with and haven't particularly come to like as a villain as I play, it does break things up by letting you control Peter as Peter and very occasionally MJ oddly while throwing some lesser villains at you occasionally. There is enough familiar Spider-Man lore here while altering a few things keeps that lore fresh and interesting. Collecting various suits from across the comic and movies ties the game further into established lore. These often come with a themed power that can be swapped out to the other suits, just because you like the power from one but not the look doesn't leave you locked into using that look to make use of the power.
Most of the overworld generated missions are go beat those guys up, stop a car theft/joyride safely but there are a few that break those up, like saving folks trapped in a car wreck and helping rescue kidnapping victims, though those eventually devolve into beat those guys up, the kidnappers not the victims! There are then the marked side missions ranging from Harry Osborne's research stations, something he started with his Mom that Oscorp is working to shut down unless they can prove to generate beneficial research or be financially viable, that will task you with things like monitoring and relieving water pressure in steam pipes, taking air pollution samples and curing ailing urban wildlife. Others include challenges given by the Taskmaster, finding Riddler trophy like Black Cats placed by their namesake(Not nearly as many as the Riddler trophies nor as frustrating!), taking landmark photos and helping a man chase and catch his late wife's pigeons. You also perform small puzzle tasks to wire circuit boards and perform spectrum analysis on unknown substances in your day job. The range of these missions do a lot to help cement the kind of person and hero Peter is, 8 years into his career as Spider-Man having put down and locked up much of his Rogue's Gallery that he's encountered by this point, he's still willing to help out the citizens in their day to day lives.
I wasn't sold on the one-handed web swinging initially but as time has gone on, as I've gotten better with it, it's become in my opinion the best version. This was reliant on getting a few skill upgrades for me, however. Point launch is essential and allows you to quickly traverse over rooftops that may lack anchor points to swing from. Also, initially Peter's standing and running jump are anemic by superhero standards and you need to unlock the chargeable jump asap. There is a nice transition between swinging and wall running that lets you maintain a lot of speed and a quick web that lets you turn corners very quickly and smoothly. That these are all controlled by holding down the web swinging button feels a little automated initially but you can still play with things enough to develop your own style. There are points where you get hung up on world geometry and that will stop you dead in your tracks. Those are will be frustrating as typically the swinging is very consistent.
Fighting is fast and fluid, with the various gadgets mixing up the hand to hand fighting nicely. Building up a focus bar allows you to rapidly heal mid fight or use stylish finishing moves. There are loads of environmental triggers to utilize during a fight. It's funny the game places such an importance on Spidey not killing his foes, if you kick someone off a building they...usually...will get webbed up to the side of it automatically. Then you'll pull several tonnes of pipes on to others and violently smash another's face on to a support beam. Reminds me of the College Humor Batman skit. "Doctor Fishy! NOOOO!
The sound design is superb. Music will rise and fall in volume in line with your swing speed. Peter's voice lines change how they are delivered depending on whether it's done while swinging, more strained and laboured, or standing still, more relaxed.
Digital Foundry has an excellent video discussing the graphics and the claims of a downgrade that emerged a few weeks before release. It's long but worth a watch. For my part, the game is beautiful as can be seen in the various screenshots I've posted using photo mode. I've spent a lot of time just swinging, fighting and trying to get some great pictures because the game is gorgeous. I don't have a PS4 Pro to comment on the difference there.
I've run into a few bugs so far. One character's dialogue didn't load for a cutscene and continued to be absent during the small section I played them as. The in-game camera's viewfinder got locked on the screen forcing a reload of the last save. In one mission, the entire exterior of one floor of a building disappeared and I was able to walk around it when I assume it should have been only viewable through the window based on what I was seeing. They aren't detrimental but are there. I've yet to encounter anything game breaking.
I'm not finished yet, roughly 50% according to completion in the game. Like with Spider-Man 2 before, I definitely see myself going back after finishing just to roam, swing and do various crime-stopping missions.
I've put a bit more time into this now, the weekend goes fast when you're ripping through New York, snapping photos and handing out concussions.
I'll preface this by saying Spider-Man is far and away my favourite superhero so I am slightly biased here. When the Arkham games came out, I loved them but in the back of my head I couldn't help but want the same treatment for Spider-Man. Insomniac have got as close as they could to that while making this about our friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler.
The main story is engaging though mostly involves a villain that I'm not super familiar with and haven't particularly come to like as a villain as I play, it does break things up by letting you control Peter as Peter and very occasionally MJ oddly while throwing some lesser villains at you occasionally. There is enough familiar Spider-Man lore here while altering a few things keeps that lore fresh and interesting. Collecting various suits from across the comic and movies ties the game further into established lore. These often come with a themed power that can be swapped out to the other suits, just because you like the power from one but not the look doesn't leave you locked into using that look to make use of the power.
Most of the overworld generated missions are go beat those guys up, stop a car theft/joyride safely but there are a few that break those up, like saving folks trapped in a car wreck and helping rescue kidnapping victims, though those eventually devolve into beat those guys up, the kidnappers not the victims! There are then the marked side missions ranging from Harry Osborne's research stations, something he started with his Mom that Oscorp is working to shut down unless they can prove to generate beneficial research or be financially viable, that will task you with things like monitoring and relieving water pressure in steam pipes, taking air pollution samples and curing ailing urban wildlife. Others include challenges given by the Taskmaster, finding Riddler trophy like Black Cats placed by their namesake(Not nearly as many as the Riddler trophies nor as frustrating!), taking landmark photos and helping a man chase and catch his late wife's pigeons. You also perform small puzzle tasks to wire circuit boards and perform spectrum analysis on unknown substances in your day job. The range of these missions do a lot to help cement the kind of person and hero Peter is, 8 years into his career as Spider-Man having put down and locked up much of his Rogue's Gallery that he's encountered by this point, he's still willing to help out the citizens in their day to day lives.
I wasn't sold on the one-handed web swinging initially but as time has gone on, as I've gotten better with it, it's become in my opinion the best version. This was reliant on getting a few skill upgrades for me, however. Point launch is essential and allows you to quickly traverse over rooftops that may lack anchor points to swing from. Also, initially Peter's standing and running jump are anemic by superhero standards and you need to unlock the chargeable jump asap. There is a nice transition between swinging and wall running that lets you maintain a lot of speed and a quick web that lets you turn corners very quickly and smoothly. That these are all controlled by holding down the web swinging button feels a little automated initially but you can still play with things enough to develop your own style. There are points where you get hung up on world geometry and that will stop you dead in your tracks. Those are will be frustrating as typically the swinging is very consistent.
Fighting is fast and fluid, with the various gadgets mixing up the hand to hand fighting nicely. Building up a focus bar allows you to rapidly heal mid fight or use stylish finishing moves. There are loads of environmental triggers to utilize during a fight. It's funny the game places such an importance on Spidey not killing his foes, if you kick someone off a building they...usually...will get webbed up to the side of it automatically. Then you'll pull several tonnes of pipes on to others and violently smash another's face on to a support beam. Reminds me of the College Humor Batman skit. "Doctor Fishy! NOOOO!
The sound design is superb. Music will rise and fall in volume in line with your swing speed. Peter's voice lines change how they are delivered depending on whether it's done while swinging, more strained and laboured, or standing still, more relaxed.
Digital Foundry has an excellent video discussing the graphics and the claims of a downgrade that emerged a few weeks before release. It's long but worth a watch. For my part, the game is beautiful as can be seen in the various screenshots I've posted using photo mode. I've spent a lot of time just swinging, fighting and trying to get some great pictures because the game is gorgeous. I don't have a PS4 Pro to comment on the difference there.
I've run into a few bugs so far. One character's dialogue didn't load for a cutscene and continued to be absent during the small section I played them as. The in-game camera's viewfinder got locked on the screen forcing a reload of the last save. In one mission, the entire exterior of one floor of a building disappeared and I was able to walk around it when I assume it should have been only viewable through the window based on what I was seeing. They aren't detrimental but are there. I've yet to encounter anything game breaking.
I'm not finished yet, roughly 50% according to completion in the game. Like with Spider-Man 2 before, I definitely see myself going back after finishing just to roam, swing and do various crime-stopping missions.
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My GF is out of town for a week, and I'm looking around at things to play in the mean time. I don't actually have time to play anything, but, you know. And my back log is huge, but still. So. I was looking at Shadow of War, now that all the micropayment bullshit is out...And there's something slightly off about the pricing. See if you can spot it.
(and no, it isn't that Steam *still* hasn't managed to put the € sign in front of the numbers)
(and no, it isn't that Steam *still* hasn't managed to put the € sign in front of the numbers)
I bought a Wii to play Mario Galaxy (and that was basically all I ever played)
I bought a Wii-U to play Mario Maker.
I bought a Switch to play....I still don't know why I bought a Switch.
Because you like rooftop parties where 12 people gather around a 4.5 inch screen to play?
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Ditto. I played it and said to a friend "it's just Yakuza with fist of the North Star added in... Meaning it's the best thing in the world"
Official review of Spider-Man PS4: it's the best Spider-Man game ever made. Is it the best game ever made? No. Is it perfect? No, but it's the first game in a long time that I just can't stop playing.
The common faults of open world games are all there. Lots of collectathons and random crimes to give you something to do when swinging around the city. They can get formulaic as they'll quickly become one of a set of scenarios that get mix and matched with different enemy types thrown in. But zipping around the city is so fun I still do them all. The collecting stuff is also much more achievable than in most other games. There is a side quest involving black cat where you have to find her little cat figurines to track her crimes. It works much like the riddler trophies in Arkham. But instead of hunting for a bazillion question marks, there's only like 15 of the cats. Finding them all took me about an hour, and I got a sweet costume for my efforts.
If I were approaching this from a critical perspective, it would be a very solid 7/10. As a Spider-Man fan, it's 11/10.
Pro-tip: Spider-Man is not Batman. I died a lot in the beginning because the combat looks like Arkham combat, meaning I tried to take it slow like Batman. You need to stay on the move, flip around, stay off the ground and use all your Spidey tricks. I'm also playing on spectacular (hard) and highly recommend doing this.
The common faults of open world games are all there. Lots of collectathons and random crimes to give you something to do when swinging around the city. They can get formulaic as they'll quickly become one of a set of scenarios that get mix and matched with different enemy types thrown in. But zipping around the city is so fun I still do them all. The collecting stuff is also much more achievable than in most other games. There is a side quest involving black cat where you have to find her little cat figurines to track her crimes. It works much like the riddler trophies in Arkham. But instead of hunting for a bazillion question marks, there's only like 15 of the cats. Finding them all took me about an hour, and I got a sweet costume for my efforts.
If I were approaching this from a critical perspective, it would be a very solid 7/10. As a Spider-Man fan, it's 11/10.
Pro-tip: Spider-Man is not Batman. I died a lot in the beginning because the combat looks like Arkham combat, meaning I tried to take it slow like Batman. You need to stay on the move, flip around, stay off the ground and use all your Spidey tricks. I'm also playing on spectacular (hard) and highly recommend doing this.
fade
Staff member
After watching too many "oh no I'm stuck in an MMO" animes, I decided to try SWTOR again. It seems like they've made leveling faster yet again. I tried an imperial for the first time really. A) there are so many more people playing on the imperial side. Wonder what that says about people. B) My master's name is Darth Bare-Ass. Oh, they can spell it Baras, but all I hear is Bare-Ass.
Oh yes. Darth Cartman. You're going to hate him a lot.
The thing is, the Imperial side generally has better companions and better story. All of the classes are pretty good to play through.
Sith Warrior? Both Light Side and Dark Side give you a compelling character and the companions are pretty decent. Vette is great, Malavai Quinn is kind of hypercompetent adjudant type who isn't really a kiss-ass, Dark Side Jaesa is a riot, Light Side Jaesa's a bit bland but not horrible, Pierce is your fill in for Canderous Ordo or Zaeed - your experienced vaguely psycho-for-hire military guy, he's alright, and Broonmark. Broonmark sucks.
Sith Inquisitor? You're sort of like a Sith Indiana Jones, a lot of your adventures involve delving for Ancient Sith Relics and coming into contact with the spirits of your ancestor and other ancient Sith Masters. You have some truly unique companions. Khem Val is sort of like having a Predator on your team, he's tanky and melee focused while the Inquisitor is frequently AoE, so they can clear enemy groups *quickly*. Andronikos Revel is a space pirate voiced by Steve Blum, nuff said. Ashara Zavros is a Padawan taught by some seriously fucking stupid Jedi, to the point where she loses confidence in the entire Jedi methodology and spends most of her time trying to find a middle ground between Sith and Jedi methods. Talos Drellik is surprisingly likable, he's an Imperial historian who's quest for relics makes him a good match for the Inquisitor. He's got a kind of goofy personality with a bit of "stiff upper lip" way of dealing with things. And then there's Xalek. Xalek is pretty cool looking with a menacing voice, but he joins the party so late there really isn't a lot of time for him to develop.
Imperial Agent? James Bond in the Empire. The only companion I'm not crazy about is Vector Hyllus, a Killik Joiner. It's not that he's bad, but he's kind of dull compared to Kaliyo (violent mercenary bad girl), SCORPIO (murdery fembot), Eckhard Lokin (mad scientist, spymaster, and were-monster), and Raina Temple (clever young officer with an unusual backstory that never really plays too much of a role).
Bounty Hunter - professional gunslinger and people finder. You can join the Mandalorians or not. The story arc is basically an action movie - Act I is building your rep, Act II is benefitting from it, Act III is taking revenge when it all comes crashing down. Mako's the techy good girl, Gault's the silver-tongued con man, Torian's Johnny Yong Bosch, Blizz is a Jawa with a rocket launcher, and Skadge is a big toad-looking motherfucker that you'd undoubtably kill instead of recruit if it were an option.
Playing through the original Dishonored after quitting very early on a long time ago when I got obsessed with perfecting every area. Forcing myself to not adopt that mindset this time. Still doing a low chaos no kill play-through and it's been pretty fun.
Really, REALLY beginning to dislike all of my allies and I'm getting stoked to do a high chaos play-through where I leave a fucking ocean of blood and tide of corpses in my wake.
Really, REALLY beginning to dislike all of my allies and I'm getting stoked to do a high chaos play-through where I leave a fucking ocean of blood and tide of corpses in my wake.
fade
Staff member
I finished the Consular and Smuggler class stories. I found the Consular's story much more interesting than the Smuggler's. It was pretty easy to build influence with the Consular's companions, but half the Smuggler's companions seemed more evil than roguish. I did like Guss, though. Risha was beyond irritating, disapproving anything even remotely noble. Oh, and the gunslinger smuggler was ridiculously overpowered. Basically 'Sweeping Gunfire' kills almost everything. Even bosses later on.
As for the Warrior, one thing that's annoying is that I want to build dark side points, but a lot of the dark side dialogue choices are downright stupid, and the light side choice seems more Sithy. I do like that it gives you the choice, because I never quite understood why most of the Sith in the Star Wars 'verse are evil. There's plenty of room for good Sith in the mythos. I get that the Sith code is self-focused, but that doesn't mean evil. There are plenty of passionate good people in the world. It'd be harder to have an evil Jedi, but you could certainly have a cold, dispassionate neutral one.
The thing is with Sith Warrior is that you're in a time where the Sith are powerful and they've kind of lost perspective. It's all power plays, backstabbing, reckless violence, and self-gratification. A LS Sith Warrior isn't necessarily *good* but they've mastered restraint, patience, and thinking for the long term. That even plays out in the overall war - the Sith are aggressive and offense minded, so they can conduct devastating assaults and make large gains in short amounts of time. But instead of being able to consolidate their holdings, they almost immediately fall to internal squabbling over the spoils, while the Republic builds up a counter-offensive.
The thing is, the Sith have been taught to rely on anger, fear, hatred, and base passions to fuel themselves. Those are easy, but they're also limited and short-sighted. They take away mastery of self, which is where true power in the Force comes from.
"It's a lie. Fear is a lie. Passion, a lie. Fear gives only temporary powers, and passion is easily manipulated. Real strength in the Force comes when one is no longer afraid."―Kel'eth Ur, Sith Lord executed for heresy.
That's why the Sith are 'evil' - they use negative emotions to drive themselves, which lead them to making destructive and self-destructive choices. Yes, a Sith with self-control (ie Light Side) is entirely possible. But the culture of violence, deceit, paranoia, and cruelty that they have fostered is hardly compatible with it.
The Imperial Agent plot even highlights how *difficult* the Sith make things in terms of keeping things running. Oh, you've been slowly working on turning a powerful gangster into an ally so he'll take down his boss and align his resources with the Sith in that sector? Too bad some Sith having a night on the town killed his son for kicks.
It's telling that ALL of the non-Jedi stories are about cleaning up after the Jedi/Sith or about avoiding them entirely.
There won't be, because this game was bankrolled by Sony. But that's a conversation for another time (I actually have come around to thinking console exclusives can be a good thing)
Put a whooping on my no kill playthrough of Dishonored.
Oh. My. God. Who. Could. Have. Predicted. Thaaat? Twist.
I am now going to play the DLC. And then maybe do a quick murder spree turbo high chaos run where I get to actually sink knives into all these pieces of shit.
Also, I can tell you this much, there are A LOT of guards going to get their own squad after last night.
Oh. My. God. Who. Could. Have. Predicted. Thaaat? Twist.
I am now going to play the DLC. And then maybe do a quick murder spree turbo high chaos run where I get to actually sink knives into all these pieces of shit.
Also, I can tell you this much, there are A LOT of guards going to get their own squad after last night.
I personally think the DLC is on par with, if not better, than the base game. Daud is just so much fun to play as.
Tried playing Transformers Devastation today and I still can't get past my initial gripes with it. It tries so hard to be like the original series in some ways and just skimps the fuck out in others.
I want my God damn Transformers lasers to sound like this:
And I want this God damn music playing:
Now I'm not saying Devastation had a bad soundtrack, since the music would fit in fantastically with something like the War for Cybertron games or something more modern it absolutely DOES NOT fit with 80s aesthetic.
EXAMPLE.
The sound effects on the other hand are crap. They sound piddly and pathetic.
I want my God damn Transformers lasers to sound like this:
And I want this God damn music playing:
Now I'm not saying Devastation had a bad soundtrack, since the music would fit in fantastically with something like the War for Cybertron games or something more modern it absolutely DOES NOT fit with 80s aesthetic.
EXAMPLE.
The sound effects on the other hand are crap. They sound piddly and pathetic.
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My favorite thing to do was take a battery out of the electric wall, get a guard's attention, and then pop the battery back in just as he reached me.
I think the high chaos climax is more satisfying.
fade
Staff member
Ha. That's hilariously appropriate.
I still have great difficulty playing an evil character. I know these are all lights on a screen, and no one is real, but it just feels so morally repugnant nevertheless. What's more, the game itself seems to be pushing light side sith. Most of the dark side choices are disapproved by Vette (my only companion so far), and with the Revanite story line, light side choices seem to make plot sense whereas dark side ones don't. I know neither will hobble the story, but still. It just doesn't seem very canon-like. Vader may have fallen to the dark side, but he still thought he was doing the right thing in the end. The dark side choices just seem more chaotic evil.
Vader had a very different situation. Vader would probably have been a Light or Neutral Sith Immortal Juggernaut Warrior (literally, the designers said that's what they designed the class after). But he was a single apprentice to a master who needed a visible enforcer to invoke fear over the former Republic. The Sith Warrior in SWTOR is one of thousands in a thriving Sith civilization with an Emperor, Dark Council of Sith Lords, other Sith Lords and Masters, etc, all with their own ends in mind.
@fade I find the best way to look at the Dark Vs Light options in regards to the Sith Warrior are as follows: Are you the Champion of the Sith Empire, a force of nature intent on ensuring the domination of the Republic, or are you in this for yourself? Vader wasn't in it for himself; he was there to serve the man who had... broken him like the pathetic person he was. Compare this to Darth Maul in Clone Wars/Rebels; he's in this for REVENGE and he's gonna do whatever it takes to get it. That's the difference between Light Side and Dark Side from an Imperial perspective; one uses their power to advance a cause they believe in while the other just uses it to destroy everything in their way.
You're damn right they did and they used the motions from SWTOR as inspiration for when he shows up in Rebels. He's moving his saber to block before Kanaan or Ezra have even started to swing. That's what it means to be strong in the Force; Vader can literally see what they are going to do before they do it, just like he could when piloting a pod racer or star fighter.
You're damn right they did and they used the motions from SWTOR as inspiration for when he shows up in Rebels. He's moving his saber to block before Kanaan or Ezra have even started to swing. That's what it means to be strong in the Force; Vader can literally see what they are going to do before they do it, just like he could when piloting a pod racer or star fighter.
I've been working my way through Persona 3 for months, mostly because I stop playing every time my daughter complains about how long I'm farming Tartarus. 
So I bought her Persona 3 Portable so she can use FeMC and leave me alooooone. All she does is sit downstairs and yell at Junpei now. (@Hailey Zero Mission may be the only one who understands this tweet)
So I bought her Persona 3 Portable so she can use FeMC and leave me alooooone. All she does is sit downstairs and yell at Junpei now. (@Hailey Zero Mission may be the only one who understands this tweet)Yelling at Junpei is a moral imperative.I've been working my way through Persona 3 for months, mostly because I stop playing every time my daughter complains about how long I'm farming Tartarus.
Very often with Sith Warrior it's going to be "do we do this with intimidation and few needless deaths (Light Side), or do I just kill everyone (Dark Side)?"
You wouldn't be fade if you weren't being pedantic.
Susan Sarandon played Granny Rags?
Holy shit.
Here I was impressed that the game had Brad Douriff and Michael fucking Madsen (both of whom I could easily identify) in it and I read up that Lena Headey, Carrie Fisher and Chloe Grace Moretz all voice characters.
That's a helluva voice cast.
Holy shit.
Here I was impressed that the game had Brad Douriff and Michael fucking Madsen (both of whom I could easily identify) in it and I read up that Lena Headey, Carrie Fisher and Chloe Grace Moretz all voice characters.
That's a helluva voice cast.