The Videogames Tab

Tools    





there's a frog in my snake oil
So this is mainly about the VR stuff, but figure it's a flat game, it can go here

FIRST LOOK: OUTER WILDS (VR MOD)





This mod is pretty exceptional. The opening sections and tutorials have all played like a native VR game. And a pretty great native VR game at that.

There wasn't one function, from hopping free-form around the starter village, to tracking distant audio signals via handtools, to repairing satellites in a zero-G cave, that didn't feel totally robust.

You soon forgive the little budget aspects of the core game, like characters communicating through text alone, as the little living solar system, and the little lore world you inhabit, are all so damn charming. With just the right amount of lurking danger, seemingly

There are a few oddities though. The controls in the star map are a complete mystery. Getting seemingly flung out of a telescope catapault into this was disconcerting




Mod here:
https://github.com/Raicuparta/nomai-vr

First attempts at flight here

__________________
Virtual Reality chatter on a movie site? Got endless amounts of it here. Reviews over here



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
So I finished Ghosts of Tsushima. It happened just a day or two after my last post. I'm still in a state of denial that it is over. I'm not sure which, between Ghost and CONTROL is my favorite. Both have excellent controls, animations, story, and replayability (IMO). Both have minor issues where the difficult spread is too much between generic level goons and pseudo boss fights. CONTROL may have the advantage there because at least you have access to all your skills and moves during such combat, where Ghost removes your ghost abilities---abilities that you come to rely on in the open world combat. In Ghost there are also a few siege progressions that don't move the same way as 95% of the rest of the game. It was hard to understand the objective, where to go, and how to get there for every instance of this type of encounter. That said, the cutscenes, transitions, and cinematics are movie quality so they cancel each other out I suppose. CONTROL's story is great sci-fi X-Files quality with a bit of humor thrown in if you bother reading all the collection items and documents, but the ending was not a satisfying closure at all. One might argue that Ghost has a nifty option to play in a black and white "Kurosawa Mode," complete with Japanese voicing and English subtitles. Though it's a clever novelty with a film grain texture overlaying your gameplay, the contrast is too high in my opinion and makes combat very difficult in distinguishing enemies from the environment. Also, there are combat cues that are much harder to see in black and white and one stealth feature skill you learn to "sense" nearby enemies is made near useless in this mode. So I'm note sure how much of a point that adds past a not-really-usable, novel idea.

Perhaps Ghost just barely wins out for the ending and more open world environment. I'm talking like 1/16th of a point kind of clearance here. Not by much, and I image my opinion will slide around each time I think on it. As I type this, I remember a gap in how trophies are earned. I was able to collect all trophies within CONTROL by in-game knowledge alone. In Ghost, however, I was able to earn all but three by the end of my game. Regrettably, I had to turn to Google to gain clues for the remaining trophies. One was a red herring and I believe I would have found it on a second play through re-experiencing a particular storyline. The second was an obscure real world reference that I personally feel would have been impossible to accomplish without 1) being specifically aware of this real world event, or 2) literally clicking every possible combination of the requirement until you just happened upon the correct one. I suppose that's a nice nod to a specialized fanbase, but frustrating all the same. I can't remember for sure, but I believe the third missing trophy was triggered by collecting the previous two. Probably the platinum "collect 'em all" type of trophy.

I recorded several videos of the last battles, but for anyone that owns a PS4 knows, that internal video recorder glitches and randomly skips several seconds of gameplay. I probably lost around 20 seconds of intimate combat over the course of the main fight there near the end. That REALLY sucks watching my playback and wondering how on earth I got out of that with only a fraction of life remaining only to jump 4 seconds into the future with half life returned. sigh. I may still put them on YouTube because I know these last wall-of-text posts of mine must be boring to get through without a visual reference. Just know it's 100% laziness. More 60/40 laziness/technical difficulties.

Oh well.
GREAT game. I highly recommend both and I am always tickled to death how far games have evolved over my lifetime. I started with the Atari 2600 to the Commodore 64. I've had one console or another since the Sega Master System to my first PC game of the original UnReal, followed by Tribes team play. Ghost is just insane with the environmental details and weather effects that the developers were able to cram into the PS4. Mind blowing. I waited perhaps a year for this release, broken hearted by delays and eventually resigning myself to the idea that at some point it would likely delay for a PS5 release instead. Even when it did come for the PS4, the game's load screen was so long users assumed it crashed their systems and couldn't get in for that fear and constantly rebooting. A few patch updates later and the load was till pretty slow, but at least you could see the information blocks sliding through to show some level of progress. Now it's nearly as fast a load as any other game. Excellent work and support. I cannot say that enough.


ynwtf,
Posted, not read. It's lunch time.
__________________
"My Dionne Warwick understanding of your dream indicates that you are ambivalent on how you want life to eventually screw you." - Joel

"Ever try to forcibly pin down a house cat? It's not easy." - Captain Steel

"I just can't get pass sticking a finger up a dog's butt." - John Dumbear



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
Had the past couple of days off, as Lisa was away with the ladies for some much needed relaxation. When Stella was napping, or after she went to sleep at night, I ran through Journey a few times. Probably the most relaxing and pleasant video game experience I have had. I had played the game once through several years ago, during a short stint on PS NOW, and I had picked up a copy when it hit Steam, but just never got back to it. Glad I did! The game puts me in a mellow mood, which is nice when I need to unwind after a few hours of toddler chasing!




Teh heck!!


I have this game and no idea when I bought it. Maybe it was a covid thing? Idunno, but I DO know once I started it I couldn't stop. I'm in the bluey under watery looking level now. Wow.just wow. I spent like half an hour on stage two chasing what I wondered was another player. SO WEIRD!! It acted so natural and random and newbish that just kept trying to ping/communicated with it. Come follow me, lil fella! This is the way out, here! Come oooon!! Then it clicked. I'm not even on the network, duh. Beautiful game so far. Dream-like, even, and so fluid and smooth.



So I finished Ghosts of Tsushima. It happened just a day or two after my last post. I'm still in a state of denial that it is over. I'm not sure which, between Ghost and CONTROL is my favorite. Both have excellent controls, animations, story, and replayability (IMO). Both have minor issues where the difficult spread is too much between generic level goons and pseudo boss fights. CONTROL may have the advantage there because at least you have access to all your skills and moves during such combat, where Ghost removes your ghost abilities---abilities that you come to rely on in the open world combat. In Ghost there are also a few siege progressions that don't move the same way as 95% of the rest of the game. It was hard to understand the objective, where to go, and how to get there for every instance of this type of encounter. That said, the cutscenes, transitions, and cinematics are movie quality so they cancel each other out I suppose. CONTROL's story is great sci-fi X-Files quality with a bit of humor thrown in if you bother reading all the collection items and documents, but the ending was not a satisfying closure at all. One might argue that Ghost has a nifty option to play in a black and white "Kurosawa Mode," complete with Japanese voicing and English subtitles. Though it's a clever novelty with a film grain texture overlaying your gameplay, the contrast is too high in my opinion and makes combat very difficult in distinguishing enemies from the environment. Also, there are combat cues that are much harder to see in black and white and one stealth feature skill you learn to "sense" nearby enemies is made near useless in this mode. So I'm note sure how much of a point that adds past a not-really-usable, novel idea.

Perhaps Ghost just barely wins out for the ending and more open world environment. I'm talking like 1/16th of a point kind of clearance here. Not by much, and I image my opinion will slide around each time I think on it. As I type this, I remember a gap in how trophies are earned. I was able to collect all trophies within CONTROL by in-game knowledge alone. In Ghost, however, I was able to earn all but three by the end of my game. Regrettably, I had to turn to Google to gain clues for the remaining trophies. One was a red herring and I believe I would have found it on a second play through re-experiencing a particular storyline. The second was an obscure real world reference that I personally feel would have been impossible to accomplish without 1) being specifically aware of this real world event, or 2) literally clicking every possible combination of the requirement until you just happened upon the correct one. I suppose that's a nice nod to a specialized fanbase, but frustrating all the same. I can't remember for sure, but I believe the third missing trophy was triggered by collecting the previous two. Probably the platinum "collect 'em all" type of trophy.

I recorded several videos of the last battles, but for anyone that owns a PS4 knows, that internal video recorder glitches and randomly skips several seconds of gameplay. I probably lost around 20 seconds of intimate combat over the course of the main fight there near the end. That REALLY sucks watching my playback and wondering how on earth I got out of that with only a fraction of life remaining only to jump 4 seconds into the future with half life returned. sigh. I may still put them on YouTube because I know these last wall-of-text posts of mine must be boring to get through without a visual reference. Just know it's 100% laziness. More 60/40 laziness/technical difficulties.

Oh well.
GREAT game. I highly recommend both and I am always tickled to death how far games have evolved over my lifetime. I started with the Atari 2600 to the Commodore 64. I've had one console or another since the Sega Master System to my first PC game of the original UnReal, followed by Tribes team play. Ghost is just insane with the environmental details and weather effects that the developers were able to cram into the PS4. Mind blowing. I waited perhaps a year for this release, broken hearted by delays and eventually resigning myself to the idea that at some point it would likely delay for a PS5 release instead. Even when it did come for the PS4, the game's load screen was so long users assumed it crashed their systems and couldn't get in for that fear and constantly rebooting. A few patch updates later and the load was till pretty slow, but at least you could see the information blocks sliding through to show some level of progress. Now it's nearly as fast a load as any other game. Excellent work and support. I cannot say that enough.


ynwtf,
Posted, not read. It's lunch time.
have u watched the new DLC of Ghosts of Tsushima. im still playing the first one D=



A system of cells interlinked
Teh heck!!


I have this game and no idea when I bought it. Maybe it was a covid thing? Idunno, but I DO know once I started it I couldn't stop. I'm in the bluey under watery looking level now. Wow.just wow. I spent like half an hour on stage two chasing what I wondered was another player. SO WEIRD!! It acted so natural and random and newbish that just kept trying to ping/communicated with it. Come follow me, lil fella! This is the way out, here! Come oooon!! Then it clicked. I'm not even on the network, duh. Beautiful game so far. Dream-like, even, and so fluid and smooth.
That is odd...other players do often appear to share the journey, but I didn't think it was possible in offline mode. Meeting others is one of my favorite aspects of the game!
__________________
“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



The Adventure Starts Here!
That is odd...other players do often appear to share the journey, but I didn't think it was possible in offline mode. Meeting others is one of my favorite aspects of the game!
Ohhhh, you guys! Do I have to give this odd game another try? I honestly couldn't figure out what the heck was the point there in the beginning. Felt kinda, well, like the mechanics were annoying me so I gave up early.



A system of cells interlinked
Ohhhh, you guys! Do I have to give this odd game another try? I honestly couldn't figure out what the heck was the point there in the beginning. Felt kinda, well, like the mechanics were annoying me so I gave up early.
You must find your Zen space to complete the Journey!



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
That is odd...other players do often appear to share the journey, but I didn't think it was possible in offline mode. Meeting others is one of my favorite aspects of the game!
After I got to the level in which all those carpet dolphins were, I assumed the other character I came across was another AI to help me find a way through the level. I don't know, really. I don't have a PS+ account, but I was online.



A system of cells interlinked
After I got to the level in which all those carpet dolphins were, I assumed the other character I came across was another AI to help me find a way through the level. I don't know, really. I don't have a PS+ account, but I was online.
I play on Steam, and I think I am always online. Unsure how the PS Network handles things. That said, I've not heard of any AI bots in the game, but that doesn't mean they don't exist!



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
Ohhhh, you guys! Do I have to give this odd game another try? I honestly couldn't figure out what the heck was the point there in the beginning. Felt kinda, well, like the mechanics were annoying me so I gave up early.
Yes, I agree. I had to tilt my controller every which-a-way to try to calibrate (I guess?), but I never had to use that after. Weird. I'm also using PS4, so I don't know what a mouse and keyboard feel will provide.

My first stage was to climb the first dune and ping that area to reveal the next location of some weird glowing icon. That was tedious. I believe that once I clicked that glowing icon, that it extended the length of my scarf. The instruction then told me to hold a button to "charge up," so to speak. I did, and I jumped up pretty high. I then hovered for a moment and slowly floated back down to the ground. There are white glowing runes on the scarf that, if you still have any runes left on the scarf, will act as your uh.... float meter? The longer you float, the more runes disappear from your scarf. You can refill those runes by activating that weird Ping/musical bubble thingy any time you're near a 1) waving ribbing scattered around the world, 2) ping a ...ffs. a uh, school of fish-like group of small ribbons all swirling around, or 3) have another player character/AI character ping YOU when you're close to each other. Then you can fly again until your scarf is empty of runes. As Seds noted earlier in the thread, there are icons throughout that will extend the length of your scarf giving you more float time.

I didn't get a decent awareness of all that until maybe the second or third stage. And by stage I mean by doing what Sed described. You have to find a weird stone altar with small posts all around it. Pink all the posts with your music note bubble thing and then everything lights up. You see a cutscene, then a massive gateway will reveal itself to you.


WOW.

It's beautiful though and I feel like I'm swimming when I play, now that I have a better grasp of it.



The Adventure Starts Here!
After I got to the level in which all those carpet dolphins were, I assumed the other character I came across was another AI to help me find a way through the level. I don't know, really. I don't have a PS+ account, but I was online.
Wait wait wait...

CARPET DOLPHINS?



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
Wait wait wait...

CARPET DOLPHINS?
I ALMOST added a parenthesis there to say (surely me referencing carpet dolphins will get her curiosity up)....



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
I play on Steam, and I think I am always online. Unsure how the PS Network handles things. That said, I've not heard of any AI bots in the game, but that doesn't mean they don't exist!
I mean like those rofl..... carpet dolphins in that one level they all seem to be trapped in. They were all swirling and swimming around the game and would, sometimes, approach me and ping their music bubble things. I just assumed if those existed and could "communicate" then maybe that's what the other character was back around level 2. Maybe it was an online gamer? Cool stuff, if so, knowing someone else is playing this very old game.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
Wait wait wait...

CARPET DOLPHINS?
YOU LITERALLY GET CAUGHT UP IN A SWARM OF FLYING CARPET DOLPHINS AND FLOAT OVER A DESERT LANDSCAPE!!!!!! JUST RIDING THE CURRENT OF WTFEVER IS HAPPENING!!!!!1!11!



"How tall is King Kong ?"
Been murdering a few people in the latest Hitman (1 and 2). Did it a lot, so, I guess I enjoy it. It has pros and cons, though.

It's a pretty game. Very well designed, with a population that feels mostly alive and natural. The settings are varied and clever, the dialogues are fun and cheesy, the game walks a subtle, pleasant line between seriousness and self-aware silliness. And the interface is really welled smoothed out, without sacrificing too much freedom. The former games were below the quality of the underrated Death to Spies series, that one may be above.

But it's got a horrid business model, being episodic and DLC-based, and, as if this wasn't enough, walled behind virtual shop exclusives.

Also the game itself structured around "achievements". Its length come from incentives to re-play the few levely many times and explore their (rich and fun) possibilities. This completely shatters the narrative aspect of the former games in the series. It's very dramatic to advance a story by deviously murdering a criminal of sorts. But when you murder him 12 times in a raw, in various different way, before resuming the storyline, there's something vaguely disjointed about it. Each mission feels like a separate game, or toybox.

The gameplay is still fine. I wish it had been used for a more linear, self-contained story, instead of these oddly self-rewriting chapters that shatter over-arching immersion (but immersion within each separate playthrough of mission is fine). I also wish the gameplay was used for a more jamesbondish spy caper instead of assassinations. I've always regretted that James Bond videogames were simply shooters (well, the movies were becoming this at the same time), and Hitman represents pretty well what they could have been instead.



Re: Journey. I played it years after release, I think just last year? Anyway, beautiful. And yes, you end up sharing the journey with other players. I was so confused, the game seemed to be "responding" to me with its pings and movements. Somehow I'd managed to either miss (or forget) this aspect of it. What a delightful surprise, to realize in retrospect I was playing with another person. We did an impromptu call-and-response near the end that I think about every now and then.

Absolutely beautiful, can't recommend it enough. If the mechanics seem tricky, you might be overthinking it. Very simple game, if you do things intuitively it'll usually respond, and there's very little in the way of genuine challenge or difficulty. Just a few moments with some timing based things really.

One of the 10 games I'd pick if I had to convince someone video games are art.



Re: GIFs. Yeah, they work, but if you upload one over the file limit it'll break the animation. For anything sizable you'll wanna upload to imgur.com or something and then embed.



That elusive hide-and-seek cow is at it again
@Yoda
Was it you that shared a game a year or so back that was a puzzle type, minimal graphics, washed out colors and artsy. It looks like you unlock elevators to reach new platforms to create structural patterns or something. I can't remember the name. Maybe something ...melody?


Anyway. It's on sale on PSN and thought about but can't remember what was said of it. That's assuming it was your post AND that I'm making sense.