The Videogames Tab

Ok I found the tips guide on what not to do. (That guy is a lunatic fanboi attack dog, but does at least seem to be a network engineer or comparable . Seems to be solid info.)

Do you know which vids you saw that made the game look stable on top of pretty? I'd be interested to check some out. (My suspicion is fan montages that cut frequently before the frames betrayed themselves. Visiting Twitch livestreams tends to show the real horror frames :/)

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I would try and restrain my ridicule of the project's scope & delivery in the meantime, but that's impossible soz

The latest thing to tickle me was this adventure of a box:



No idea how I missed that. Box delivery sure is sexy. Sizzle reels do not lie

Also I revisited the Kickstarter page a while back. Not that that's where the real money was generated (that's the ongoing job of RSI's own site: The First Person Universe that will allow for unlimited gameplay...). But the tells man, the tells of blather and overreach were there right from the off...



(I'm pretty sure I read that one at the time, and that's what convinced me to let it do its thing and see what came out the end).

Anyway, sorry to be a **** and bang on about this stuff. I just find it kinda fascinating

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

I've been primarily following Dan Gheesling's videos on YouTube. It's encouraging that his vids (though short) never cut, but I'm starting to suspect he's running a hacked version of the game on a private server and staging his content. But hey, at least I get to experience Star Citizen vicariously through his exploits.

Here are some examples:

Aha, cool! I have heard positive things about him and his 'butter servers' . (The SA Goons have a soft spot for him and his freeflow take on both bugs and features). As far as I'm aware he did actually play online, but the 'butter server' thing refers to him always looking for good performance. (I believe he only uploaded footage from stable sessions where he'd found a good server, which meant a lot of dead footage. I think he actually cited the time-to-success ratio as one of the reasons he stopped doing SC vids :/)

EDIT: Ah ok specifically he says: The viewer figures have dropped off, and the current build is empty and lacks interaction. He cites the latter as the reason he ends up with a lot of dead footage he doesn't use.

So hmm, not sure on whether he's faking or not. His footage does seem much more consistently playable than most, yet he does seem to have occasional online interactions.

Hmm, I'll give Sea of Thieves a bit more time but the game on release plays like an early Beta. What Rare had been holding back during the actual Beta seems to be a couple of extra factions to do missions for - Each faction gives you one kind of mission and one kind only - Kill something, dig up a chest or collect something and deliver it somewhere else.

Mission variety is awful, only cosmetic (and prohibitively expensive) gear meaning no character progression, a total lack of any kind of tutorial and unsatisfying combat.

It's reminding me very much of No Man's Sky at launch, and it took them a year to make that game something approaching what it should have been.

What's making me cling on to hope is that the sailing feels so good and the game looks so lovely, but that's nowhere near enough for a full price title.

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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

Damn, this is not what I wanted to hear. I was thinking about buying it next month. Now...I might hold off.

In other news, I started playing COD: WW2 again, and I've surprisingly been having a ton of fun. For a while I thought I'd completely lost my taste for FPS games, but I guess it's starting to creep back up.

Friend of mine's been counting the days until Sea of Thieves and streamed it for like five hours this morning. Seemed decent, he liked it, at least. Really get the impression the fun part is a) taking on the tougher quests with b) a group of friends. Hopefully be able to test that theory on Sunday.

I'm down for some questing if you're up for it.

@GrantD2 - If you've not used the Xbox Game Pass before, you should have a 2 week free trial where you can play Sea of Thieves. Even if you have, a month is something like $8 so it's a pretty good deal.

EDIT - A screenshot I took on console. That is some of the best water I've ever seen in a game.

Ok I've bought a flatgame again finally. Thinking this could be fun to play with the kidling on holiday laptop...

This should make anyone who's bought Star Citizen feel a whole lot better.

It's probably ****ed, but morally it's about average for the industry

(Soz, there's going to be a lot of this. For the next 1-4 years. Apologies in advance )

I've got Everything on console despite hating the guy's last game, Mountain, for being up its own fundament.

It's weird enough but not oppressively so, enough of a game that you can sense a progression and relaxing enough that you can completely zone out and take in the .. well ... the everything.

I liked it.

Should I get Burnout Paradise Remastered when I already have it on my PS3?

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

If you want to play online, then yeah. I think they shut down the PS3 servers a few years ago and you can't even buy the game in the PS3 store now. It's also got all the DLC, although selecting one of the legendary cars at the start kinda breaks the game's difficulty.

I'm having a total blast with it - You can just pick up and play in a way that's so rare in a driving game. I set 11 road rules records last night in a 20 minute session just messing around while waiting for my dinner to be ready.

EDIT - Although you have to keep in mind that it's a 10 year old game and some of the decisions which looked new and fresh at the time are a bit clunky in 2018.

Cool! It was reading the reviews that said there are actual mechanics, and encouragements to play + 'advance', that tipped me over in the end. Stuff like:

Good to know it's not just a freefrom mess of novelty physics

Star Citizen 3.1 has gone live for a select few! [EDIT: Aha, those who've paid an extra $10 ]

This is Port Olisar:



So it seems they are gonna launch to a strict schedule from now on, regardless of whether the scheduled stuff made the cut.

Here's 3.1 as it stands (EDIT: I'd expect a few more of these to get ticked off when they update the page)



And the broader picture is: Here is what was originally scheduled for 3.1, back when it was supposed to arrive in 2017...



Bespoke mining ships, giant rotating trade ships, actual mining, missions that weren't just fetch quests etc etc. None of that's anywhere. They got interdictions in. (And they no longer spawn asteroids into star bases. They do kinda mess up frame-rates at the moment though. Pros and cons.)

Performance stories so far are a mixed bag. Lots of chat about crashes. Some claims of marginal gains, others saying it's somehow worse. Needs a bit of time to shake out, plus apparently it's currently in stress test mode.

As always, it's easy to take the piss out of glitches and stupid patch notes. So I'll do that too

3.1 has stopped being live...

Kinda disappointed in this, but A Way Out looks bad.



Exceptionally neat idea (from the guy behind Brothers) and one that you can play online with your friends without them having to own the game, but apart from the co-op aspect this looks devoid of inspiration.

All the reviews have been glowing. The 5 million different control schemes are apparently clunky, but the story and ending are superb. You can even play co-op with an internet friend who doesn't have the game???

You have to finish Overcooked before you buy anything else...

*shrug*

I've seen a couple of lengthy gameplay videos and while it may be the best David Cage game ever made (ie: one without David Cage's involvement) it's not something I'd consider buying without a large 50%+ discount. Tons of neat ideas wrapped up in an uninspired setting.

Bet it's better than Detroit though.

Just some amateur Star Citizen maths that amused me



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I don't spend all my time sneering at the creative efforts of others though y'know. Currently I'm working on a ludicrous psyops fan vid to try and get a game mechanic added to a game. Presently it looks like this.