thepaulhoey

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Posts posted by thepaulhoey

  1. Posted

    Turning off Shadow Cache improves things for sure, there's still hitches when loading but it's less frequent and less bad. I'm still having fun and I think I'm getting close enough to the home stretch in it after about 4.5 hours.

     

    I've just finished the Greenhouse area, so spoilers for that and just after it.

    So I think what I dislike most about the story is that it feels like they have no idea what they're trying to do with it. After the Greenhouse where I kill a weird insect woman which is a brilliant Resident Evil style boss fight and totally monster horror. Then I got to the old house to find the arm and the piano is making noises by itself, there's some spooky little girl who appears then vanishes and lots of ghostly things going on, it's all supernatural horror style stuff, then on the way out I'm fighting monsters so it's back to monster horror again! Then I go back to the Caravan and I answer the phone and now it's that some hill billy has kidnapped my friends and he wants me to go to some place to play a game with him and now it's sort of The Hills Have Eyes style horror, this all happens in the space of 10-15 minutes, it's just all over the place in terms of tone, there's no consistency to it. I really wish they would have picked one and ran with it instead of constantly changing the style of game they want it to be, I think that's the biggest failing. It does feel predominantly like a Resident Evil survival horror game, but then every now and again they try something else and it just doesn't fit in or work for me at all.

  5. Posted

    I'm about 3.5 hours in and hitting the mid point I think, going by the stats on how many coins and files I have. I like the game, I don't think it's quite as good as a lot of other people do. First up what I do like, the graphics are fantastic in every way. Great design work on the house, incredibly atmospheric lighting and texture work, the subtle reflections and shines on surfaces, it's all just brilliant. Performance is appalling though, and I've seen others online having issues. I'm running an RX 480 and get constant stuttering when entering new areas and turning corners as it loads in data. I can get over it but no matter what settings I use it persists. :/ For the gameplay, the return to puzzles is great and I don't really get anyone saying the puzzles aren't tough enough, were they ever in Resident Evil? They were all mostly item hunts and remembering where something you pick up might be useful and I've found 7 to be no different, I really like just exploring an area and getting something new that sets off that spark of "Oh I can go open that door now and I know that opens up a while new area to me! Maybe I'll get Item X there!". Combat as well I think works well depending on the situation. It's slightly fiddly and the areas are claustrophobic enough that you don't really have enough room to take your time lining up a perfect short so it's often about lining up shots under stress and hoping you get to take them, or luring enemies to a good position to get a good shot at them. I think the fear for me wore off after about 2 hours, I think the game is not at all scary anymore and it actually feels a lot like a modern take on Resident Evil, I definitely wouldn't compare it to something like Outlast or even Alien Isolation.

     

    Onto what's putting me off of it, and I'm going to spoiler it just in case. I'm in an area referred to as the old house, so if you're at that point you're safe to read.

    I wish there was zombies so much. I don't like Uncle Jack, and I'm at a part now where Margaurite is walking around and I don't like it either since it's kinda the same. I'm talking purely from a gameplay point of view on this, I don't think it's done as well as I think it could have been. So the first reason is the telepoting, it's just so annoying to me. In Alien Isolation the Alien moved around the level, there was never really a shock that the Alien was there but it maintained the terror throughout for me. In this though, they fudge the AI of Jack too much. I was in Grandma's room getting the shotgun and I knew Jack was near so I was laying low until he left or I could get past him when suddenly he yells "Peekaboo!" or something and beelines for the room. There was no way he could find me, so I run away and go to the room with the shotgun which I can't because of a lack of room in my inventory(that's another complaint). I know he's about and decide to lay low and again he just suddenly knows where I am. Same thing happens when you get one of the dog heads, Frank is magically in the room to grab it before you. It just takes me out of the World. So now at this point, and I worked it out with Jack quite early on, just run to where you need to go. It works every time, the sneaking gamepaly isn't very engaging for me so I just run. I'd much rather be dealing with what ammo and weapons I have as I make my way through the house adjusting my route based on where the zombies are and if I have enough ammo to take them out. Maybe introduce noise as a distraction considering the rooms are contiguous and keep Uncle Jack as a recurring boss fight. The enemies don't have to be actually zombies, but along those lines. I'd much prefer that. The other small thing with Uncle Jack that annoys me, if he's knocking around the area you need to do something in it can be annoying having to lure him away and then run back. It feels like busy work to me. The boss fights so far have been a mixed bag. The one in the garage I quite enjoyed, it became clear quite fast that I had to get into the car and then that I had to run over Jack, I thought it worked well(how useless was that cop though? Hilarious. ). The one when you're getting the dog's head though, that one I didn't enjoy at all. For a start, I don't think it was very clear what I had to do. The way you just have to dodge attacks until the axe breaks isn't something that's you can pick up on before it happens and they could have telegraphed that better. I saw the chainsaw and thought I had to get Jack to attack that area to break something but that wasn't the case. Once I got the chainsaw... well the first time I didn't because my inventory was full and since the inventory management is in real time and you don't really have any time between Jack's attacks I just ended up dying. The second time it went better, but the mechanic where it randomly turns off was kind of annoying and made me have to go through another cycle as it happened just when I got him down. I think making an essential item in a fight hat you lose at the end of the fight anyway to having a free slot is a bad move, that was really annoying. The way a key takes as much room as a handgun is just super a annoying and yeah it's a Resident Evil staple but it's just a frustrating element to me since there's times when you're getting the dogs heads, you have a key, I found a photo in a room and I thought I was just going back and forth to the safe rooms very often.

     

    None of it is totally putting me off the game, I'm enjoying it but some things are making me turn it off and I think with a few tweaks we'd have a real classic. Overall though, I'm enjoying it. About an hour in it totally feels like a Resident Evil game and as threadbare as the story is so far I'm looking forward to seeing how they tie it to the other games.

     

    Something I'm hoping now is that Resident Evil 2 is remade in this style, I think that would work really well and make the game feel fresh.

  6. Posted

    43 minutes ago, Trip Hazard said:

    Y'see, I would be really into this aspect of the game, but there's quite a lot of people and I don't find them visually distinctive enough to be able to remember who is who, and where they live etc. There are some obvious exceptions, of course.

     

    Yeah I'm kinda in the same boat, I'm open to that stuff but nobody stands out and it's not clear what I can gain from interacting with them. Same goes for the various festivals, some of them there's something to win or a main thing to do whereas with others other than getting to see the town done up special for them there's nothing to them. I just walk about and talk to everyone to see if there's something to trigger and if there isn't I head home.

     

    43 minutes ago, Trip Hazard said:

    Also, I can't wait to get a mega watering can, 'cos watering the crops is tedious, even with my fairly modest starter garden. I find myself looking forward to rain days, so I just forget about watering stuff and go do some fishing. Man, I love fishing!

     

    That was my first upgrade and I am the same with rainy days. I got the recipe for sprinklers but I don't have the materials for them, so I focused on raising animals as it's a lot less hassle. Over the winter I plan to make some proper fields with sprinklers so I can easily plant a pile of peas or strawberries next Spring and wheat for Summer & Autumn.

     

    Also I agree with some of the earlier comments about the Walmart style store in the town, it feels totally tacked on and really heavy handed. Same goes for the intro with the guy working a job he hated in a dull office. Bleugh.

     

  7. Posted

    I was gifted this over Christmas and finally got around to playing it over the weekend. I wound up playing for about 9 hours yesterday, it's incredibly difficult to stop. There's always a reason to just play the next day, a crop will be ready, I'll have the money for a barn, oh there's a festival on! I've just started my first winter and wow it looks harsh out there, glad I invested in animals and filled my silo! My farm is still tiny compared to the space that I have so I can see myself losing a lot of time to it.

     

    It's not perfect and there's a pile of tiny quirks that get to me(planting seeds, watering, hoe-ing can all be very bizarre with the square you do the action on) and the game generally does a bad job of explaining anything to you. Had myself and my flatmate not played the Harvest Moon games over the years I'd be very lost at times.

     

    I'm glad that I seem to be able to get by just fine without interacting with the village much, that was never something that interested me in the Harvest Moon games and this is the same. I just want to build a nice farm! I'm really happy that the game is easy going with how you play and the pace at which you play.

  11. Posted

    I'm going to see how it performs over its first year before considering buying it. Zelda is the only launch title I'm interested in and I'll be able to get it on WiiU, otherwise it's a tad on the pricey side and Mario Odyssey is the only other game that has me interested right now. Mario Kart and Splatoon look fine but pretty much the same as the WiiU versions.

     

    The cost of the Pro Controller and other peripherals is absurd, I wonder if the WiiU Pro Controller will work with it?

  12. Posted

    Yes, that's exactly how I feel. I was watching the Super Mario Sunshine race this morning and the glitches they use are interesting because it's usually to get into a level early or get a Shine without finishing a fetch quest. Also they often require some really cool platforming to make happen. The runs where they're using a glitch to skip every level are just incredibly dull to me. I get that there's skill in making the glitch happen, but when I see essentially the same glitch over and over and a guy carefully walking to the exit in near infinite black I tune out quick.

  13. Posted

    I've been tuning in when I can. Saw some of the DOOM run yesterday but it was very heavy on getting an out of bounds glitch then carefully walking to the exit which wasn't really that interesting to watch after the third level. Waiting on some of those Mario races to be uploaded now.

  15. Posted

    Jedi Knight 2 is really annoying! I'm ok with the guns, got used to them after a bit but the level design is just nonsense. I feel like I'm just running around pressing buttons to see what door it opens and hope there's a switch for another door in that room.

     

    I'm only on the first level but I was at the part where the bridge tunnel thing explodes the second time, I back pedaled a bit and fell to my doom because I guess the bit behind me fell as well? Oh well, I'll just load and wait it hasn't made a save since I got to the facility? Esc -> Exit.

     

    I loved this game when it was released and the combat is still fun but the level design is just plain annoying.

  16. Posted

    I just hope there isn't too many massive glitch runs, some of them are really rather boring. I think there was a Dishonored(or maybe Bioshock) one last time I was looking forward to, but most levels used a glitch to go out of bounds then walk to the exit.

  17. Posted

    Bah, it's back up to €20 on Steam. I bought AA for you because I feel it's a landmark FPS, as is CoD. They both set the bar for the trend of cinematic FPS campaigns which came off of them. So they're important points in the history of the genre.

     

    It's interesting replaying AA because it's definitely more of a Half-Life style FPS in that the levels are quite open and you're free to move around them, by the time we get to COD they've started to go into the more scripted more directed campaign. Then unfortunately by the time we get to MW3 if you took one step wrong at times you'd get a game over screen.

  18. Posted

    Disappointed there'll be no Mario Maker race this year, the previous two were big highlights for me.

     

    Looking forward to new Doom for sure, TASBot and any of the races.

  19. Posted

    Yeah AA and RTCW both released quite close to one another(RTCW a few months before I believe) and RTCW was the better looking game but AA was the more fun game. I remember magzines at the time sort of putting them up against one another since they're both WW2 shooters but there's really very little comparison.

     

    What difficulty level are you playing on? From what I remember you're quite far into it. I know the level you're talking about, and it is a bit of a pain alright. I don't remember it well enough to give you any advice though.

  20. Posted

    I played RTCW a few years ago and it's fun for a while but gets tired quick. Even on release the points you make were valid so it's not a case of aging badly so much as it is a case of it was never a fantastic game. When are you starting allied Assault? I think I'll play that along with you.

  21. Posted

    I had this gifted to me for Christmas and I want to like it more than I can, but the design is just so bad at times and I don't understand it at all. The main problem for me is the checkpoints. At one point I had to complete a button mashing sequence to move a bookshelf and then walk through a few rooms about 5 times because that's the checkpoint for the fight that starts after you do those simple bits that you can't possibly die at. Why have the checkpoint there!? It's not the only time I've had this happen, another one had me repeat a(admittedly brief) cutscene every time I hit the checkpoint but I just don't understand why you'd choose to have a player replay sections where you can't due to get back to the one they can die at.

     

    The other issue is that the combat has terrible feedback for numerous reasons. The chief one for me is that it's difficult to tell where enemies are, they blend too well into the scenery and it makes picking them out at a distance not easy. Another is that enemies seem to soak up a lot of bullets, a pet hate of mine already but sometimes it seems like they have regenerating health as well with the amount of bullets they take while they move between cover. Then there's telling that you're getting hit, I find it's one of those games where death comes fast because you had no idea you were in danger. I've been darting about just find and then suddenly I drop dead and it often seems to be because the effects from my powers are drawn over the effects from taking damage so I don't notice that I'm getting hit.

     

    Speaking of the powers, they're fun, they're fine I guess but they're so simple. I can time warp to dodge getting hit, I can set up a shield to block bullets and I can freeze time in a small spot. Like I said they're all fine but when you compare them to something like Dishonored, they're rather mundane and don't really take advantage of the time mechanic at all. I'd rather if my time dodge ability was something where time froze and I picked a spot to go to. I wish my time freeze mechanic was something other than a way to fill an enemy with bullets so he dies faster. I wish the bullet shield was more than a rather dull shield. For game that's about time travel and controlling the flow of time it really doesn't explore it very much as a game mechanic. Even the puzzles which use it resort to a press Y to make a thing be in a state so you can jump on/pass by it most of the time.

     

    I think the graphics and art are incredible and the story so far is interesting and the TV show parts surprisingly work, but the gameplay is just so frustrating and pedestrian. I'll carry on with it but I'm seeing now why this never made a big splash.

  24. Posted

    I'm about halfway through Mission 5 now. The two things that are bugging are that when I'm holding a guard if he gets shot or stabbed by another guard it counts as a kill. Kind of a annoying, but when it happens in a chaotic encounter it's rather cool as the other guards seem to curse over their fuck up. The other issue is that there's been a few instances where an objective is not at all clear and I need to pop on objective markers briefly. Had it on a mission where I had to interact with a specific corpse in a level and now I have to go to a room overlooking an area and there's a few of them so it's rather tough to tell where to go sometimes.

     

    Otherwise having a blast, getting the odd massive frame rate drop that makes the mouse movement really weird but not enough to be annoying. Really enjoying that I'm still working out new ways to deal with situations.