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Good to see that Tool made a game.

Knocked the sheen off STFU real quick. Been a long time since I played a 1shot/1kill game . That time mechanic is still not to my liking, but I will persist.

I can't stand the Borderlands franchise. I love shooters, but those games bored me to death.

I'm inclined to agree, having spent a few hours with Borderlands 2 on Saturday. My time with Destiny has taught me that I'm not averse to a loot-based shooter - These games are basically Diablo, and I love Diablo.

I think it's the writing and general humour that I don't like.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

It's pretty funny, because I don't typically like shooters (especially first person ones), but I love Borderlands.

So TONGO I guess your enjoyment of the other Borderlands games might depend on whether or not you normally like playing shooters haha.

Well that will make a huge difference, especially for Borderlands 2 where the characters you interact with all have very in-your-face gimmicks.

I found it really entertaining, but I also liked the youtube videos the lead writer for Borderlands 2 made with his sister (who voices Tiny Tina). I haven't watched them in well over a year or so, so I don't know if they're still making these videos or if they're still funny, but they're called "Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'?" for anyone curious.

Ah right, Ash's brother is the Borderlands writer?

Ashly Burch has a great career in voice acting these days, Chloe in Life is Strange being my favourite.

Yep. Anthony Birch didn't write the first one, but he was the lead writer of the second one and co-wrote the Pre-Sequel (though it was lead by 2K Australia's writer Maurice Suckling).

I've not played Life is Strange. My room mate has it for PS4 but apparently couldn't get into it. I think I'd like it more than he would, so I might at least play the demo.

It was my game of the year, last year, and by a substantial margin.

I mentioned Victor Vran during the Steam summer sale, but I ended up buying the Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing instead, because it looked similar to Diablo 3. I've been playing it for a couple of days, and finished it this morning (not a long game, total play time was only 17 hours). I really liked it. Beautiful atmosphere in all the outdoor areas.

When I bought it during the sale I also got the two additional character class DLCs (there is no choice of class in the base game) and the companion upgrade DLC (which I made use of in my first playthrough), so I'll probably play through again with one of the other classes. Will also pick up the second game when it goes on sale, because most of the negative reviews seem to be centred around the broken co-op system, which I wasn't planning on making use of anyway.

Before I started a second run through that game however, I decided to give The Vanishing of Ethan Carter a go. Game's very pretty, and the premise is interesting. I solved the first quick "puzzle", and what I assume the first major one was, since it involved putting events into chronological order and progressed the story. I was only playing for about 50 minutes total, but I had to turn it off because I was starting to feel a bit dizzy.

I don't get motion sickness in real life, and have never had a game start to make me feel unwell, so I'm not sure if it's Ethan Carter or if I'm coming down with something. I do want to play more of the game, but I guess I'll be doing so in small doses just to be safe haha.

Can you increase the FOV? FOV sickness is a pretty common ailment - At 1080p you should be aiming for a figure of 80+.

I'm generally fine when playing first person stuff but regularly feel queasy watching a video of someone playing.

I never even thought about that. I saw FOV options in the menu when I was checking out the settings before starting, but I didn't change it from the default.

Doing a quick google search returned quite a few results for people having motion sickness which playing the game, and there are quite a few suggestions on how to fix it, including your suggested FOV change, turning off "head bob" and turning the motion sensitivity down. Some people even said that turning the crosshair on really helped them, so I'll try and figure out what the best combination of options are for me next time I play...which may be fairly shorty actually. (:

So yesterday when I turned the game back on again, I increased the FOV. It was at 97 by default, I turned it up to 110. Any higher than that and it got fish-eyed. Turned the camera sensitivity down as low as it could go, and turned off the head bob. While playing, I realized my problem was that I was moving the camera around way too much looking at things. So I started playing by looking around with my real eyes and only moving the camera when necessary. It was infinitely better.

I got as far as the mines last night, then I finished the rest of the game this morning. It's a nice, short little game that I only guessed half the ending of. It had some really good atmosphere. I legitimately got lost in the Witch's Woods after triggering the scene there, and I found the lower part of the mines to be really tense. The whole thing was far more linear than I was expecting though, and the puzzles were actually really simple to solve without any outside assistance whatsoever.

At the end of the game I was only missing two achievements: one because I walked through a house too quickly and didn't trigger all the audio scenes there, with the other being an endgame secret that I did break down and look at a guide for, because it was added after the fact by the devs with vague clues supposedly hidden in the game's patch notes.

If you're afraid of trying it due to a lack of in-game direction, then don't worry because as long as you explore, you can't really miss anything. I don't even play puzzle games, and I found this to be easy. Even though it's a <5 hr experience (including time spend lost in the woods and aimlessly wandering about), it's worth checking out when it goes on sale.

I've never dealt with that problem before so I've always had difficulty empathizing with the complaint. I HAVE gotten sick playing games before, but it's usually due to certain repetitive synth music and/or persistent harsh visuals. Or staring at a bright monitor in dim light for several hours.

Thinking on it, I believe "Field of View" is just an incredibly misleading description of the problem. "Angle of View" makes much more sense and I could definitely understand someone with a low tolerance getting sick over it.

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"Well, at least your intentions behind the UTTERLY DEVASTATING FAULTS IN YOUR LOGIC are good." - Captain Steel

I liken my problem a bit to car sickness - I've never been car sick as a driver in control but occasionally am as a passenger.

That's weird. Something about not being in control makes you ill?

The only times I've gotten sick in a car is when it has that new leather smell or we're driving in the Scottish Highlands.

Same. Its the motion, when driving you constantly know where the motion goes, but as a passenger in a moving vehicle car, plane, boat, you run that inner ear risk. Ive had that problem, but its not consistent. Go figure.

Car sickness as a passenger but not a driver is not uncommon. I might be getting mixed up now but vaguely remember something about, if you're driving, your eyes are fixed on the horizon, cars ahead etc and when you're a passenger you're not. Well, not to the same extent anyway.

Yeah, I've never been sick on a boat, for example, and have been on some really rough crossings.

I regularly lie down in the back of moving vehicles. I think there's a degree of focus that's necessary to become ill like that. If you're constantly aware of your disorientation, then... you'll be disoriented.

I've never been sick on a boat or plane either. I'm pretty much sick-impervious and just take massive recurring unexplained headaches instead.

Tis nice when a game keeps giving...

As much as GTA Online is a Pay-To-Bling cashcow, I guess it keeps the free updates coming. The latest one formalises all those impromptu stunt tracks, but with ramps that don't hit you in the face, and no spawning upside-down on a mountain. Plus some bonus stupidity...



Some of the tracks are a bit meh, but there's a big spread of them, and the best are class chaos. Favourite so far has to be the bikes & offroaders wind-turbine course. The bikes can make it through the narrower trap gaps, but those trucks do own the roads. Much wheely-ing through melees and skipping over truck rooves . Also anything with ten pins has been good...

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