Ben X
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Everything posted by Ben X
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'The Swindle' from Size Five Games for PC and consoles
Ben X replied to Ben X's topic in Video Gaming
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'The Swindle' from Size Five Games for PC and consoles
Ben X replied to Ben X's topic in Video Gaming
I've asked Dan here, will let you know if/when he answers! -
Correct! Spoilered in the OP is a list of the games I'll be playing. I'm only doing this to clear my backlog out, so unless someone buys me a game (as Paul did with Allied Assault, actually!) I'll be sticking to those on the list.
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The Idle Book Club 22: Wuthering Heights
Ben X replied to Argobot's topic in Idle Book Club Episodes
Hooray, the first book I've already read! I read this in my early twenties and really liked it, but can't remember all the details of it now. I also like the song. -
Come on and stream and welcome to the jam
Ben X replied to SuperBiasedMan's topic in Wizard Jam 4 Archive
I dunno, I guess something along the lines of what I generally posted in the dev threads on this board - some positive feedback and maybe a note or two on what could be improved for the next time or something you'd be interested to see expanded on. I know you have a ton of games to get through so you won't want to do five minute in-depth reviews, but just like a couple of sentences maybe? So for mine you might say "the engine's really interesting. I found it a little hard to spot all the objects, but the story was fun." That and/or just comments while you play - "oh, that's fun" or "mmm, this is a bit frustrating" . Like I say, this is mainly from the POV of a jammer seeing their game played. Perhaps others just want to see all the games that were made without any subjective commentary... -
In case admin miss this thread, these things normally go here:
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Idle Santa 2016! - giftees sent out! Please PM me if you didn't get one!
Ben X replied to N1njaSquirrel's topic in Idle Banter
I thought they looked like lebkuchen! I love those, I've been stuffing myself with them all Christmas. -
Come on and stream and welcome to the jam
Ben X replied to SuperBiasedMan's topic in Wizard Jam 4 Archive
Good streams, thanks y'all! A suggestion for future streams: as a jammer watching my game being played, it would be nice to get a bit of critical feedback, either while you play or just like 10 seconds at the end, even if it's just "that was cool!" or "that was very frustrating!" I don't know how other jammers would feel about that, but I would guess at least non-jammer viewers would find it interesting too... -
Mount Your Friends is a really fun, funny (not mean) competitive game, although possibly only good for 10-20 minute bursts.
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Thanks SS! Paul - I'm playing on normal. It's been pretty easy so far except for those occasional spikes. I think my next tactic will be to comb back through the level for any lingering enemies and optional objectives, then head back to the bottleneck and try again. Then if no further luck, check a walkthrough, failing that I'll quit! It's a shame these games don't let you change difficulty setting midway through - I know Half Life 2 did, I'm not sure if it became an FPS standard at any point.
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Okay, I'm enjoying this a lot more in general. It doesn't look quite as nice, but the shooting is a lot more satisfying and there's a bit more variety to stuff. There have been stealth and escort missions but they haven't been too annoying. Also the objectives and compass markings are really helpful. Again, the story isn't up to much - it's a rather dry history lesson - but there are lots of nice moments in the game, like being told your mission is to follow a senior officer through a level giving him back-up, only to have him get shot two minutes in and telling you to go on without him. The main problem is that there are regular sections where you're pinned down in a tight area and suddenly all the enemies are crack shots and near impossible to get a shot at, there's unavoidable explosions going on, and the game wants you to take a very exact route - it's really frustrating. The famous Omaha Beach section is one of these - it's very atmospheric and dramatic, but also quite unfair as a game level, and having to quicksave every three steps kind of deflates the drama. I've got pretty far through, but I'm currently stuck on a bit where I have to progress up a road but there are invisible snipers ahead and what may be infini-spawning enemies behind. I think I'm supposed to clear out those in front so I can get to a sentry gun for those behind, but I'm finding it pretty much impossible. It's weird, the game occasionally seems to forget what the limit of your abilities are. I might have to watch a playthrough to see if there are any tactics I'm missing.
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Yeah, I've had enough of this now. Endless grey corridors, having to reload every 2 minutes because someone fired a rocket launcher at me as I moved through a bottlenecked section. Onto Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault
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Just looked that up, sounds like it goes a very different route with its weapons.
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Alien: Covenant (and all other Alien-related stuff)
Ben X replied to baekgom84's topic in Movies & Television
Looks like a weird mix of Alien, Aliens and Prometheus. Mostly seems okay, except it seems to have a thing going on, which was crap back when William Gibson did it in his unused Alien 3 script. -
Okay, I'm close to giving up on this now, I'm not actually enjoying it that much. The AI and sound design are good, but there are a lot of cheap deaths and the shooting is just not that fun. I guess maybe it's a byproduct of being a WWII shooter, but the weapons aren't very satisfying or useful. My next game is Allied Assault so I'll be able to directly compare the two...
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It was referred to as a gimmick on Slack too, and I think that's a bit unfair. It's not a trick to get you to watch the film, it is the film. Also, I thought the story fit perfectly - it's very video gamey and also has just the right amount of intrigue to keep the film going but doesn't get in the way of the action and technical showboating. (The film is quite sneaky in that any flaws it has enhance the FPS pastiche.) I finished Dirk Gently and am upgrading my opinion to very good. I kept thinking it was going to run out of steam but it actually paced itself really nicely, hidden segments kept unfolding, and the emotional stories all struck. It reminded me a fair amount of Utopia. Finally, I was staggered to find out that London Has Fallen is actually a really solid, brutal action movie. I don't remember the first one being this good. Gerard Butler is fucking hilarious in it.
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as a fan of over the top action movies, i thought this totally earned it's conceit. constant escalation right to the end, and a few moments of charm, mostly through his friend, my fiance almost blasted a puke once or twice, so i'll cosign the motion warning. I just watched this and loved it. Technically it's very impressive, the way it captures so many FPS mechanics and tropes is hilarious, and yeah Sharlto Copley is great in it.
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There are some fun bits here, particularly when they throw a bit of variety in. Gradually making your way down a cable-car line, and a relatively well-made stealth section that felt very Far Cry. But there are a lot of frustratingly difficult sections; I've got it on normal and am regularly getting slaughtered - lots of snipers, supersoldiers and the like, and not really any way to deal with it except for brute-forcing your way through. I'm basically waiting for them to give me a high-powered gun with no cool-down time and lots of ammo. The cutscenes are incredibly dull, too, almost as if they're trying to emulate dozing off in front of an old war movie on a Sunday afternoon. Funnily enough, you don't seem to spend much time in Castle Wolfenstein - the first few levels are about escaping, then you're off on a jaunt around Germany.
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Just saw Star Trek 13, it was... boring! Same as Superman 7 and Bond 26! The entire story was utterly indistinct - there's never a clear goal or threat, it just feels like a load of random pieces stuck together.
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No joke; he smuggles his partner onboard and they have a very similar sex scene except they use space candles and space oils.
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Okay, this is quite fun so far, they nicely capture the feel of old war movies and it all looks nice. However, there doesn't seem to be much skill to the combat, and I'm already getting a little bored of running round the same corridors trying to unlock doors - at least it's true to its predecessor!
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Arrrgh! People keep thinking this is the story about many Bothans dying to get the information! That was regarding Death Star II (Mon Mothma says it in ROTJ). itsamoose - that video takes 6 minutes to say one thing, but the splitscreen of all the movies with the exact same fakey emotional moment was v good.
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I got it working! I couldn't handle the Ultra Realism. I have died about a million times already, and I'm not really giving the game a chance, I guess, but I can't be bothered to crawl over a huge green polygon for ten minutes over and over again just to get popped in the head. The cut scenes are buggy and awful, like a 6 year old retelling a Tom Clancy novel with their teddy bears, and the objective marker system is FUBAR. So! Onto Return To Castle Wolfenstein!
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Okay, I played up to the Oasis level and am getting a bit bored of being stuck in a big room and consta-strafing until all the enemies are gone. So I'm going to put this aside. Seems I got about halfway through it. A fun game, though, and I prefer Sam to Duke as a character - he's definitely more of a Jack Burton type who gets undercut regularly. Now to see if I can get Operation Flashpoint working and if I can handle the Ultra Realism.
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Just saw this, and didn't enjoy it very much. I'm repeating a lot of points that others have made, here, but: It never gets around the fact that it's a prequel based on a single goal which we know from New Hope is achieved, and it also makes the same mistake as Force Awakens of being far too complicated - too many characters, too many locations, too many things going on in a single sequence so things have to be constantly explained throughout - he has to press this button and they have to shoot that shield and we have to get that disc and then broadcast it from that dish. Films like New Hope and Back To The Future know that you need this shit set out beforehand so when stuff goes wrong the viewer immediately understands with no explanation. It reminds me of the Marvel movies that want to be a spy thriller or war movie or whatever but don't have the balls to step away from the standard franchise beats, so everything gets diluted. Here we have to watch the same rebels vs star destroyers battle that we've seen so many times, and the stuff like the Empire bureaucratic wranglings, Alliance politics and team-gathering don't have any time to breath and end up feeling very mechanical. Also, agreed on too much Tarkin and Vader. That last scene with Vader was fucking magnificent and pointed to the movie I was hoping for - Rebels scrabbling around in the face of this terrifying and brutal regime, snatching small victories by the skin of their teeth. Too much fan service in general, same as the Ghostbusters cameos - stopping for 10 seconds to gaze at the droids or *Googles* Ponda Baba and Dr Evazan does not serve the film at all, and they wouldn't do it for unknown characters. No restraint. And yes, that Tarkin voice was completely off, I don't understand it.