Calvarok

Skyrim has never felt like a living world to me in comparison to something like assassins creed origins. you have lots of options for how to play, but they all feel very similar and kinda clunky. completing a quest almost always looks exactly the same no matter who's doing it or how they approach it, and when there is a difference it's usually because you chose a fork in the road that sends you to Dungeon A instead of Dungeon B. I feel far more situated in a world as a defined character with several fleshed out and well-crafted playstyles, and several varieties of potential things to do. It makes the hidden or unusual things off the beaten track feel more like discoveries and novelties, rather than just more content to consume. When you're infiltrating yet another fortress, but something goes wrong or right in an unexpected way you've never seen before, that feels genuinely exciting. It's the calculated use of mundanity and routine that gives the feeling of living another life, at least to me. And I love the chaos that can be laid overtop of such a comparatively structured base. It creates moments that are far more memorable to me precisely because they have something to contrast against. If a game that has microtransactions allows me to play it and have fun without ever investing in them, I don't really care about them. I recognize that's probably more a factor of me not really playing games until that type of thing became widespread, of course.

Well to be fair i mentioned my complaints about brotherhood's gameplay as well as its narrative. (and I don't agree that it's mostly gameplay-focused considering how many heavily scripted events it has.) I've found that lists, popular opinion, and the majority of reviews are a very bad way of determining whether i'll like a video game, but that's just me of course.

I mean, it's a perfectly playable game, I understand that. It definitely condensed and simplified and sanded down rough edges. And like, that's the problem. It's just a watered down version of something more interesting and ambitious, which makes far less use of the idea of an "open world". It's fine to kind of absently make your way through it, but if you ever try to return to it there's really nothing for you any more. The best AC games in my opinion are those where you can come back to them and learn and discover new things about them, and where you can attempt to solve problems differently than you did before. (or maybe some historical analogue for a grenade rolls down a hill) Even if you never return to a game, there's a sense of satisfaction that comes with executing a plan and knowing you could have done something completely different; that what happened is something that you have personal ownership over.

wow, just saw this now. Brotherhood is actually my number 1 least favorite assassins creed ever. Ezio loses pretty much anything resembling a personality during that installment and just becomes The Guy Who Shows Up And Is Right About Everything, the plot is a messy generic open world bread-crumb trail (think GTA) the combat is extremely easy and stealth/any type of creative approach to missions is less often an option than in pretty much any other game in the series. There is not a single aspect of that game where a direct comparison with any other entry would hold up except perhaps the modern/sci fi intrigue, which introduces some new ideas and has some good writing (and also is not what most of the game is about)

I assumed it was DLC and was surprised that i even got to play it on a timed schedule. I was like level 38 and I turned the difficulty down to normal and got through it. (did it again on hard when i hit 40, for fun) It's a pretty fun fight, it introduces mechanics that seem simple at first but get harrowing as they are combined and intensified. speaking of levels, i've spotted at least one level 41 enemy. (higher than the player's level cap) anyone else seen this? it might have been because it was a generic grunt class

there is a loading screen tip that advocates lighting forts on fire to distract enemies. this game rules

I have definitely accidentally lit an encampment on fire while trying to sneak through it

started playing this the other day and was surprised to find a lot of the qualities Thumbs folk usually bring up when talking about a Far Cry 2-like. Yes, it has hunting and crafting, but it's fairly simple and mostly just encouragement to stalk new kinds of prey through the dunes/savannas . It's heavily inspired by The Witcher 3, though its rpg elements fall more on the action/stealth side, (numbers shoot out of people when you hit them) though there are also similarities to what MGSV was doing. --- Here's a story about the attached image. I was hunting some lions and hyenas for their pelts to craft better armor. near one of the lions i killed i found a cave, in this cave was some money and a shrine, alone with a note about how some dude wanted to start a new life living with lions on the hill west of there. ( i should point out a previous quest established that this region worships a lion-god) I made my way up the hill, found and fought the pride of lions, and found the poor dude and this note. on my way back to the city I was scanning the area with my pet eagle, Senu (she's basically a drone and can mark targets) and noticed an armed convoy of gold heading into town. I decided to attack it. just as i started shooting arrows and swinging my sword on horseback, a lion also attacked the convoy and split their attention. I hacked up two guys, and the final one had gotten knocked off his horse somehow and was cornered by the lion. He was the one carrying the gold. The lion finally noticed me, and turned on me instead as the soldier watched on, occasionally firing an arrow at me. I'd already built up my adrenaline gauge from fighting the other two guys, and while slicing at the lion it finally got high enough for me to trigger it. for the weapon i was using, that basically meant i started flailing wildly and hacked the lion to death in seconds, then as my character literally roared, i rushed at the final man. he was a level below me (the lion was my level) and didn't stand a chance. --- the game controls a lot better than some previous ones, and stealth is pretty fun too. you can light things on fire (if you want to light your arrow on fire you literally stand in front of fire and nock an arrow, it's great) which works as a great distraction, and do typical stealth stuff like whistle or hide in tall grass and bushes. But I personally think the types of readers on this forum will be most interested in the kinds of things that can happen when stuff doesnt go according to plan or weird systems collide, like a rival group of bandits raiding the bandit camp you're trying to sneakily steal something from, or a sandstorm rolls in when you're in an isolated area. (you can't use your scouting eagle in a sandstorm) Uh, also, if you play this game at all, play it on the hardest difficulty. anything below that really won't challenge you to use everything you have access to.

it was also very similar to a recurring dream of mine

When the bomb zoom came up on the screen I thought for a second that they were going to play that whole sequence again, which would have been amazing. the black and white fortress in the purple ocean appears to be where cooper talked to the giant in the opening scene of this season. the walls and general uncomfortable decaying yet preserved atmosphere. and like i guess the explosion created bob or released him or released all of the inhabitants of the black lodge with him? (there were other bubbles in the grey person's vomit that could have had their own faces) and laura was/is meant to combat him in some way, and is something like a good version of bob or a different but still supernatural being? Who knows if the bug frog was laura or bob or something entirely different related to the tar-feedback people? (have they always been on bob's side or are they just now working with him to thwart the lodge?) speaking of the tar people, they are insanely terrifying. in an episode designed to be constantly unnerving and uncomfortable, they still managed to make me feel genuinely afraid. and honestly I feel like this episode was meant to convey feelings more than lore. The actual facts of what is being conveyed are important, but it wouldn't matter at all if they hadn't been conveyed in a way that genuinely feels like something great and terrible and bigger and smaller than we could possibly imagine. I don't at all feel like the cooper and band sections of this were unrelated to the rest. The figures that rebirth him and the NiN song are our gateway into the rest of the episode, both tonally and metaphysically. Just because the roadhouse has been used as a neat and clean book-end a few times doesn't mean it's a mistake when it's used differently.

Maybe im weird but i think the Colorado level is visually striking and real atmospheric. Desolate farmland always fascinates me. And i like that there's a single mission thatsa more traditional infiltration thing. And 47's tactical leather jacket rules

It should be made clear that when chris talked about deus ex mankind divided ending with a "ten minute video", he wasn't talking about a ten minute cutscene. It was literally a slow zoom on a talking head news broadcast that lists all the results of your choices over the game with really really bad news broadcaster dialogue, for ten marfing minutes

Yeah. It's been long enough since I played one of those games that I feel like this one could be good for me, if it's aiming for anything along those lines. I also like the idea of a more multinational cast, since this is Earth versus a space colony. (Which someone pointed out is basically the plot of Gundam)

I forget if this is the episode where they talked about the call of duty space oddity cover, but I just watched that trailer again and I've decided I really like it. Like, it's just the same song but simpler and harder and kind of more mournful? It's more of a blunt instrument, but I feel like that's what that trailer needed. it seems like a very simple and maybe well-realized premise for some intense and emotional space-fighting, and when done well I'm totally into that. watching that new battlefield trailer and this infinite warfare one reminded me that sometimes call of duty is far less embarrassing in its tone and treating of its subject matter than most action video games are. Who would have thought that the crazy future war game trailer would have a lingering shot of a soldier walking past a memorial of fallen comrades, while the World War 1 game trailer would just be nonstop 'badass' action.

Personally, if you're trying to do everything perfectly sneaky, I think you should use everything you have at your disposal. Absolution had no mid-section save function, and that led to me spending upwards of 2 hours on gameplay segments that lasted about 3-5 minutes when finally completed correctly. It's hard enough puzzling things out and executing them, I don't think anyone would think less of you. I'm sure a lot of people like to play things out, but I always play these games on the highest difficulty so I can basically guarantee that I couldn't get out of a fight alive if I wanted to. But that's just the way I personally want to feel in most stealth games.