clyde

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Posts posted by clyde


  1. Let's have a discussion about Frozen 2's treatment of its themes!

    I particularly enjoy thinking about how the various characters are motivated. Christoph being motivated by his need of Anna; Anna being motivated by her compassion for Elsa; Elsa being motivated by a potential self that removes the veils of ignorance' Olaf motivated by a similar potential-self that is hinted at by a sense that others know more than they do. There are a lot of neat ways to graph the patterns and permutations. Other/Self, Past/Present/Future, Awareness/Ignorance and so on.

     

     


  2. Slay the Spire allows for much more strategic and tactical choices than I expected.

    Yoku's Island Express is very much not my thing; it feels like a game made for people who don't like pinball who want to like pinball. But they removed a lot of what makes pinball enjoyable. Learning a playfield is a huge part of the game, the way Yoku's moves you around constantly feels so bloated and boring for me. I never get a feel for the playfield. And you can't dead-flipper pass. I could have ended up eventually buying Yoku's in a Steam sale so gamepass is doing a great job for me.


  3. I isn't clear to me whether or not you can go back to regular gamepass after subscribing to Ultimate, so I just went with that and found out they have a 3 months for $10 deal which is pretty much what I was hoping for.

    I didn't realize Slay the Spire is on console. Looking forward to trying it out.


  4. 13 hours ago, twmac said:

    Isn't the exploit something that Microsoft are advertising?

     

    Buying 3 years of a subscription service in bulk was not appealing to me since I don't use Xbox Gold.
    But after reading this message I got an ad for two months of Ultimate for $2 so... thanks? I'm a low-capital kinda guy.


  5. Thinking about resubscribing but it has become hard to justify again now that I'm not getting some incredible multi-month deal. Every time I'm about to do it, I decide I can just play Overwatch for free.


  6. I've fallen out of using gaming news sites. I feel like I get enough general information about what is available from checking Twitter, ResetEra, and listening to the Beastcast. 

    If I get curious about something in particular I'll search it out and that is usually the only time I'll read something on Polygon or Kotaku or Rock Paper Shotgun or PC Gamer or whatever.

    If I just want to browse through games-writing I'll check what's up on Critical Distance.

    https://www.critical-distance.com/


  7. Seems like we might need a thread to talk about Game Pass and the games on it since so many of us are using it.

     

    I was pretty much uninterested in it until they offered 3 months of Game Pass for $1. They totally got me. I'm playing Vampyr and Outer Wilds because the low investment allows me to excercise my curiousity. I haven't enjoyed every game I've downloaded, but since the investment is diversified it is fine. I wasn't a fan of Sunset Overdrive, Crackdown 3, Masterchief Collection, Samurai Showdown II.

     

    I did enjoy playing Abzu to completion.


  8. Vampyr is available on the Xbox One gamepass as well. That is how I've been playing it.

    I started playing Outer WildsWilds though. One I figure out how to make everything alright in the solar-system, I'll go back to Vampyr.


  9. Anyone playing/played Vampyr?

    I was interested in playing it when I heard some folks taking about how you essentially choose which friendly NPCs to suck dry, but it wasn't until it came out on GamePass that I gave it a try. I'm currently level 13 or so and I've come across 3 of the NPC hubs. Right now I'm headed to a church to confess my sins as far as the main story mission goes.

    Vampyr is the Bioware game I've wanted for a long time. The sense of consequence is really setting it off for me.

    At first I didn't understand the pacing of the game or the main systems of providing medical treatment, sucking NPCs dry to level up, and moving the story forward. The freedom that is allowed to the player was pretty confusing for me. I'm playing on hard (which seems like a must) and I am still not sure if I am supposed to have wandered into some of the areas I have wandered into by underleveling myself and just letting monsters fight vigilantes. But now that I have embraced a few NPCs and the story is moving again after I got bugged out of a main quest for a long time, I'm getting it and this game is a gem.

     

    As far as the combat goes, I like playing under leveled in this and at first the combat seemed too simplistic and awkward. It is still awkward, but I actually really enjoy using a stake and a hatchet. In facte I just looked at the aggressive abilities that I haven't unlocked (I use the mist one) and I was like "I don't want to fuck with my flow." I imagine that if I was to play with a two handed weapon or a pistol it would be much different. The targeting system is still frustrating for me, but I've enjoyed my crowd-control methods and farming blood from one enemy so I can use it on another around the corner. I also run around the mobs when I can (which I think adds to the atmosphere). The only big problem I have (with the exception of targeting being clumsy for me) is that on the Xbox the loading times after death are excruciating. But I just check Discord on my phone.

    Spoilers regarding finishing the blackmail in WhiteChapel mission:

     

    I feel awkward recommending this game because it feels so creepy and predatory. Farming local gossip so that I can intimidate NPCs with my reverb voice and giving them medicine to groom these poor folks so I can pop-em like a tick for XP in a dark alley is creepy as fuck. So when I talked to Lady Ashbury about taking care of the blackmailer (the consequences of which I just discovered while playing more this morning) it suddenly clicked for me that the authors of this game aren't going to provide useful commentary on predation, it is just going to use vampires as a metaphor for the wealthy and privileged. At that point I felt weight from all these milked conversations where NPCs are skeptical of my intentions. Loving it!  

    additional spoilers if you want details about how I finished that mission:

     

    I don't know what i did to get a third blue dialogue option for Nurse Crane, but I did and I figured I should use it because it was blue and special. It said something like "Charm her so that she doesn't remember this." Seemed reasonable. I wanted her operation to continue, she's doing good work for White Chapel. So I finish the mission and Priven is downstairs killing patients. I'm like wtf? I clear them out and on the way I see Darius. At this point I've embraced the White Chapel landlord, the dude who has been getting blood hickeys in the Pembroke Hospital, and that's it, so I need some XP. I look at Darius's infographic and I'm like "Dude, I know everything there is to know about you, you ain't got no family, why are you still necessary?" When I embraced him he was like "Who will protect Dorthothea?" I'm like "whatever Pudding". Well I just got back to White Chapel and things are not looking good. Everyone is talking about how Dorthea has gone mad and there are skaals in the clinic. I don't know exactly which parts of my bad-decision making made this happen, but I am so enjoying how truly fucked White Chapel is because of my questionable motives and muted greed. 

     


  10. I now have a reliable workflow for creating really nice 3D photos for viewing on the GearVR that only cost $3 if you have a GearVR and a computer.

    I can make a guide if anyone wants to be able to do this.


  11. Nothing about the recent announcements seems like a reasonable upgrade to me, but there are people I know who have been on the fence for years and one hang-up seems to be removed per new device announced.

    I think they are just going to keep plucking away until on of these devices becomes the xmas-present of the year.

     

    I've been keeping my eye on 3D180 cameras. A few new ones came recently. I think I'll still wait another decade for some $300 8k 6dof camera, but I'm glad to see more cameras coming out for $450 right now (3d180 5.7k no 3dof).


  12. It's common for me to drop off a game after trying it initially and then coming back to it much later and it being my jam. I think what I want from games fluctuates and that initial part where I try it out is used as a reference for when I want something like it.

    Kayne and Lynch 2 is a great example of this. At first I was like "no". Then later I played all the way through it and loved it because I wanted something like that. I think that's what happened, I might have a false memory.

    Then of course there are games I have yet to get into. I guess I should name one of those.

    ...

    I haven't gotten into Yakuza yet, but I tried it out for a bit. The entire thing seems arbitrary and daunting even though I'm curious about it due to so many recommendations and my interest in the setting.


  13. Kinda enjoying thinking about whether or not a strategy game could exist without the ability of one player to coordinate multiple units. I don't think so. I think that the "strategy"  that is being referenced is the unified efforts of multiple pieces by one player. But what if you developed some sort of decision-making system for multiple players who all control one piece? For instance if you had a game of Chess with 16 players per team and players could on one team could ping their next planned move; that would be somewhat similar to Apex Legends and possibly a strategy-game.