Big Boss killed Dumbledore.
System Wars Lounge V.66: Happy Manly New Year Edition
This topic is locked from further discussion.
@charizard1605 said:
Big Boss killed Dumbledore.
I think that was actually the nanomachines.
@Blabadon said:
@ConanTheStoner: I gave it an 8/10. I'll divulge into it more later.
Word.
Yeah, 8/10 sounds fair though.
For me it's the most conflicting game ever. The core gameplay loop is just so fucking great. When the game is doing what it does best, it's one of the finest games I've played. And it's not as if those moments are few in number either, the game was constantly wowing me with tense scenarios of stealth and action, better than the best set pieces around and all very much organic. It's the poster boy for emergent gameplay. It gave me more satisfying moments than any of the previous games in the series and it was doing it over and over and over again. In that sense, it should be 11/10, best game of all time type shit.
But then it comes with so much fucking baggage, so many missed opportunities, and straight up stupid design choices.
Mother base is a total drag. It's just boring. I'd almost rather have mother base relegated to a menu like Peace Walker. For a while I wondered why it was this way, but then I gave FOB's an honest chance and realized that that's just it. The base was designed specifically for super tense sneaking scenarios. It was designed for FOB, not to be a home and hub for the single player experience.
The open world is dead. This game is an amazing sandbox, but it's a lifeless open world. And I don't mean that in the sense that I want civilians, towns, merchants, or any nonsense like that. I want a battlefield. A war zone. What are all of these soviets posted up for? Where are the Mujahideen forces and why aren't there skirmishes playing out at random? There should be some guerrilla warfare going down. Similar deal in Africa, we have these rival PMC's, yet no face offs ever. And to further that point, it would allow us to deploy our own Diamond Dogs onto the field and bring to life the fact that we're running a small army. Why do tanks, walkers and choppers only show up during active missions? Why aren't there deadly convoys moving through the field at random, doing there own thing? Why aren't there search parties out there, when these bases are alerted to your presence there should be people hunting you down. When you've been wrecking bases and stealing resources there should be a price on your head.
Instead, all we get is the occasional pair of radio men walking down the road, or the same old armored truck moving from base to base. Oh and the occasional bear. It's ridiculous. Everything that would make the world more engaging is already in the game, but never put to proper use.
Then there is the environment itself as well as a lack of player interaction. So somehow Venom Snake can't swim. Every body of water is conveniently ankle high, but if it happens to get deeper than that it's instant death. Immersion breaker and an option denied. Or how about when you know you should be able to traverse to lower ground (the cliff and lake next to OKB Zero, or some of the areas in Lufwa valley), but Snake instantly dies in mid air because the game says you can't go there. You also have all these high ground areas that you simply can't go to. I get it that in some ways the game has to funnel you in certain directions, but it's overkill really. The amount of map space that serves as boundaries rather than vantage points is way the **** too much. Combine this with all the other invisible walls and "Snake that's outside of the designated mission area" and you end up with something unconvincing.
I know some of that sounds nit picky, but it all adds up to make the world feel very unnatural.
And on the topic of environments, Africa. Man oh man. So maybe this is just personal preference. The other night I was playing that mission where you have to get Code Talkers cargo crates out of the jungle. It was amazing! Stupid goal, but super tense and very immersive. It felt like MGS3 on steroids. Every spot in Africa that has you trekking through dense jungle is just amazing... yet those spots are so damn limited. Most of Africa is just an open field with next to nothing in it. Why? Honestly, the majority of that map should have been dense jungle with varying elevations. That shit is great. Even if the map was only half the size, I would have been cool with that.
Bosses. Now to be fair, I'm not in the camp that thinks these bosses are cancer. Eli wasn't a great boss fight, but he's far better than many of the other similar fights in the series. Better than MGS1 Liquid. Better than MGS1 Gray Fox. Better than Rockem Sockem MGS4 Ocelot. Quiet sucks as a Sniper fight compared to The End, but it's still a better fight than Sniper Wolf that everyone raves about. And those Skull Snipers on extreme? That's some intense shit. And Sahelanthropus? I don't care what anybody says, that's the first Metal Gear battle in the series that I actually enjoyed, it was a legit boss fight. Man on Fire was a total fucking missed opportunity though. That shit hurts me, they could've done so much more with him. And the other skull battles? Those guys should have just been deployed on high alerts or as random events in the field. They had no place being actual bosses imo.
My biggest disappointment with the bosses in this game is that only one of them really made good use of the open environment (Sahel). So much potential for some great bosses, given the scale of the environments and the quality of the mechanics, and they blew it.
Tons of other small nit picks too. Like why the **** do I have to wait on items to develop when I worked to meet the staff requirements, spent the resources and gmp, and in some cases acquired the blueprints and/or specialists? I already put in the work, give me my shit guys. Why does d horse even count as a buddy? He should just be a default...
Ok, good lord man, I just realized that typed up a fucking monster here lol. I was going to keep going too. I don't blame you if you don't want to read that haha.
Long story short, the game is excellent, but fucking hell did they squander its potential. I want to say it's a 10/10 because of how much I thoroughly enjoyed it, but then I recognize how much better it could (and should) be. I just can't boil my opinion down to a number on this one.
So I'm playing Fallout 3 (I'm going to try and see it as something else after playing New Vegas and researching it's dev/dev team history) and I got a couple nitpicks.
-"Big gun, small gun"? Is Bethesda trying to satirize the series? Because a description like that makes me think of a song AC/DC contributed to the soundtrack for a panned Arnold Schwarzenegger movie (a film I actually really like, but still):
Loading Video...
-So far, the Capital Wasteland doesn't feel as "homely" as the Mojave Wasteland does to me (probably because I was born and raised in the Western US and when I played New Vegas, including the Honest Hearts DLC which was set in Utah made me feel a little bit at home while I was in the UK).
@Blabadon: I'm still at mission 30 since November I went on a hiatus lol. Right now it's Dark Souls 2 and hopefully soon MGSV. It's gonna take a while to 100%. I'm replaying the same missions to get all objectives in them. This was such a terrible design. Also since its been a while I'm afraid I'll suck ass when I return to it. Game is so long that it works against it. It doesn't help that the second half according to people is a recycling of the same first half missions just in higher difficulty. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? The game is clearly unfinished and in some parts a mess. And Konami and Kojima are to blame. The gameplay sort of makes up for it but the potential of what it could have been. Sigh..
@ConanTheStoner: I read your post even if it's spoilers and I %100 agree with everything you said. There is so much potential there
I felt like a badass sneaking in dense jungles. The code talker rescue mission where you have to either sneak or take out the sniper skulls was so awesome I replayed it five times to perfect my play style and I loved it. then you sneak into their base and it's just great feeling and sense of satisfaction to get by and smirk all my way there haha.
The open world does indeed feel lifeless. There is no gun fights or battles or anything but animals and soldiers. You said it better. There is a huge potential in ever area that they missed on.
1. Beat Ori and the Blind Forest - 8/10
I love me some Metroid (in case you didn't know), and where Axiom Verge lost me in 5 seconds, where Strider made me question why the **** is it even Metroid, and where Guacamelee was just bad at that stuff, Ori is the shit. Ori gets the type of stuff I want other Metroid-like games to get, a lot of the upgrading and opening up a new area in the world, isn't go here, open this color coded door. It's a simple thing, but because the game is a platformer, it's more about you can reach higher elevation, or you have the bash technique, and it all helps to make the Blind Forest a legitimately Immersive 2d setting.
It doesn't feel nearly as artificial, nor tedious to go back and forth, it's mechanically sound in a way I want. It's a bit more on the slippery side, and I could deal with a better wall jump feel, but everything feels nice and tight. The combat isn't a liability, even if bosses are pushovers, but the platforming challenges are consistently enjoyable, sans the orb carrying segments. Those are lame as shit because they inherently mess with the thing that's cool about it: it's core mechanics, and dealing with a heavier more limited Ori is dull. The misty forest, interesting concept for a level in a Metroid-like game, but I can't say I enjoyed it as much as the rest of the sequences in the game. The Ginso Tree? God damn.
The story? The opening didn't do anything for me, ditto the ending. I guess they did a good job making me think the bird isn't butthole, but he was a butthole during the last part. I died a lot compared to my leaderboards, so I guess I suck at it, but **** you I actually really like this game. It's the best one of those Metroid styled games since Shadow Complex, **** I like it more than Shadow Complex, and I remember me liking Shadow Complex.
@a-new-guardian:
Yeah, it's a bummer man. Brilliant gameplay. Excellent sandbox. Poor open world. What makes it most frustrating is that all of the elements that could make it better are already there and just not put to proper use.
Considering it was Kojimas first go at an open world, as well as his team dealing with the shit storm from Konami, I'd say that they did pretty good. Still, that does nothing to change the game that we have and Kojima will never have a chance to build upon what he started.
Glad you agree on the jungle stuff haha. Really, it's like that's where MGS games are meant to be set.
As for chapter 2, it's best to just view it as post-game. They shouldn't even have divided the game into chapters tbh. Seven of the nineteen missions are brand new, the rest are just repeats with twists. To be fair though, those repeats aren't as bad as they sound. As a matter of fact, some of the most fun I had in this game was with those missions, particularly the Subsistence and Total Stealth missions. And if you thought the Sniper Skulls were intense, just wait until you play the extreme version lol. It's brutal.
Though on the flip side of that, they shouldn't have had to repeat missions with those variants. Extreme, Subsistence, and Total Stealth should have just been options for every applicable mission in the game.
I bought MGSV again, this time on PC with some mods downloaded. I think I'm having a much better time than I did on PS4. The mods I downloaded increase the challenge and simply make the game more tense and enjoyable. That was my biggest problem with MGS5, how easy the entire game felt. I had no desire to replay older missions, they were simply a breeze, especially with the end game level equipment. I unlocked my avatar from the start of the game, it's cool to see my own snake in the story. I also gave quiet clothes from the start, so now she doesn't look like an idiot in gameplay or cutscenes. I knew it would be obvious, but man, the PC version just looks so much better than the PS4. It's almost night in day, especially with sweetfx enabled.
Final note: I feel like such an idiot for not using phantom cigars more often when I first played through it on PS4. You can drop supplies and buddies and get them pretty much instantly. I use to think that traversing the world was a pain in the ass. Now, I don't have a problem now that I realize that I can call in D-horse instantly. I also use it to summon my helicopter instantly as well, no longer do I wait around collecting flowers, I can just leave missions immediately.
This game is still awesome, pretty much one of the greatest games of all time.
@JangoWuzHere:
Shit I still need to download those mods man. Every time I've played the game recently it's been in short bursts, so I keep forgetting.
And damn it I didn't think to use the Phantom Cigar like that either haha.
Aside from those graphics, I bet you're digging that draw distance too. That was the biggest difference I noticed between the PC and PS4 version. Especially with the light sources at night.
@ConanTheStoner said:
@JangoWuzHere:
Shit I still need to download those mods man. Every time I've played the game recently it's been in short bursts, so I keep forgetting.
And damn it I didn't think to use the Phantom Cigar like that either haha.
Aside from those graphics, I bet you're digging that draw distance too. That was the biggest difference I noticed between the PC and PS4 version. Especially with the light sources at night.
Yeah, the Infinite Heaven mod is pretty sweet. I don't even use 90% of the stuff in that mod and still love it. it gives so many options to change the core experience.
I use phantom cigars all the time now, it just speeds the game up so much faster. You can drop supplies on your character, use a phantom cigar, and then get a box dropped on your head the next second, knocking you out of the cigar animation. It's amazing.
For me, it was the texture filtering and shadow draw distance. A lot of the textures just look like pure muck from a distance, it's nice to see some consistency when I travel on PC. The ugliest thing on PS4 was easily the shadow draw distance. I remember riding D-horse in Afghanistan and seeing a canyon shadow draw right in front of my for almost an entire mile. It was easily one of the ugliest things I've seen in a current gen game. I know they had to make some serious sacrifices to get the game running at 60 FPS, but man, game doesn't look pretty at times on PS4. Another thing is the load times. I got the game installed on an SSD, and doing side ops now is a breeze being able to transfer from the ACC to the open world and back almost instantly.
I thought I would regret buying this game again, especially since I just played only a few months ago. Not having any problems getting back into it, it's still great. I know it's not a popular thought, but I do like the story and various twists in the game. It has its flaws, but I think it's a fun way for Kojima to put his final stamp on the saga.
@jg4xchamp said:
Infinite Heaven Mod...can I make every mission a pure stealth or subsistence mission?
Pure Stealth? No sadly. You can apply subsistence to every mission in the game. You can set custom subsistence profiles as well, so you can take buddies, use custom outfits, fultons, etc.
You can see everything the mod does by viewing the it on the nexus site. http://www.nexusmods.com/metalgearsolidvtpp/mods/45/?
The main things I use with the mod is setting max enemy preparedness to max and skipping helicopter rides. Setting enemy preparedness to max skips the slow difficulty progression. You will encounter dudes in heavy armor, snipers, rocket launchers, stronger vehicles, etc. all from the start of the game. Skipping helicopter rides is self explanatory, you no longer have to watch that opening helicopter cutscene when you deploy into the open world.
It's a great mod, and it's easy to use. You simply hold down a button and adjust various settings when in the ACC.
Played about an hour or so of Divinity: Original Sin yesterday. I dig it. The combat system is pretty good, and I like some of the other neat little mechanics and how they're implemented in the combat and puzzles, which, surprisingly, are not a chore. Emphasis on exploration is very pleasing, and the dialogue made me chuckle a few times. I like the fact that the game, after its short introduction, just put me into its world and went "now go, do your own thing." It's a refreshing change of pace, considering how most games are structured these days. A very different kind of player agency here.
Also, Hearts of Stone DLC for Witcher 3 is awesome. But that might just be my bias for TW3 talking.
@Lucianu said:
So what's the best season of House to start with? I've been enjoying what i've seen on TV, and i wanna dive in the entire show. Is season 1 good enough, or is this one of those TV shows that just gets progressively better?
start from the the fist season
lol, Blab, you took that seriously
NETFLIX OFFICIALLY IN INDIA, AAAAAH
@ConanTheStoner said:
@Blabadon said:
@ConanTheStoner: I gave it an 8/10. I'll divulge into it more later.
Word.
Yeah, 8/10 sounds fair though.
For me it's the most conflicting game ever. The core gameplay loop is just so fucking great. When the game is doing what it does best, it's one of the finest games I've played. And it's not as if those moments are few in number either, the game was constantly wowing me with tense scenarios of stealth and action, better than the best set pieces around and all very much organic. It's the poster boy for emergent gameplay. It gave me more satisfying moments than any of the previous games in the series and it was doing it over and over and over again. In that sense, it should be 11/10, best game of all time type shit.
But then it comes with so much fucking baggage, so many missed opportunities, and straight up stupid design choices.
Mother base is a total drag. It's just boring. I'd almost rather have mother base relegated to a menu like Peace Walker. For a while I wondered why it was this way, but then I gave FOB's an honest chance and realized that that's just it. The base was designed specifically for super tense sneaking scenarios. It was designed for FOB, not to be a home and hub for the single player experience.
The open world is dead. This game is an amazing sandbox, but it's a lifeless open world. And I don't mean that in the sense that I want civilians, towns, merchants, or any nonsense like that. I want a battlefield. A war zone. What are all of these soviets posted up for? Where are the Mujahideen forces and why aren't there skirmishes playing out at random? There should be some guerrilla warfare going down. Similar deal in Africa, we have these rival PMC's, yet no face offs ever. And to further that point, it would allow us to deploy our own Diamond Dogs onto the field and bring to life the fact that we're running a small army. Why do tanks, walkers and choppers only show up during active missions? Why aren't there deadly convoys moving through the field at random, doing there own thing? Why aren't there search parties out there, when these bases are alerted to your presence there should be people hunting you down. When you've been wrecking bases and stealing resources there should be a price on your head.
Instead, all we get is the occasional pair of radio men walking down the road, or the same old armored truck moving from base to base. Oh and the occasional bear. It's ridiculous. Everything that would make the world more engaging is already in the game, but never put to proper use.
Then there is the environment itself as well as a lack of player interaction. So somehow Venom Snake can't swim. Every body of water is conveniently ankle high, but if it happens to get deeper than that it's instant death. Immersion breaker and an option denied. Or how about when you know you should be able to traverse to lower ground (the cliff and lake next to OKB Zero, or some of the areas in Lufwa valley), but Snake instantly dies in mid air because the game says you can't go there. You also have all these high ground areas that you simply can't go to. I get it that in some ways the game has to funnel you in certain directions, but it's overkill really. The amount of map space that serves as boundaries rather than vantage points is way the **** too much. Combine this with all the other invisible walls and "Snake that's outside of the designated mission area" and you end up with something unconvincing.
I know some of that sounds nit picky, but it all adds up to make the world feel very unnatural.
And on the topic of environments, Africa. Man oh man. So maybe this is just personal preference. The other night I was playing that mission where you have to get Code Talkers cargo crates out of the jungle. It was amazing! Stupid goal, but super tense and very immersive. It felt like MGS3 on steroids. Every spot in Africa that has you trekking through dense jungle is just amazing... yet those spots are so damn limited. Most of Africa is just an open field with next to nothing in it. Why? Honestly, the majority of that map should have been dense jungle with varying elevations. That shit is great. Even if the map was only half the size, I would have been cool with that.
Bosses. Now to be fair, I'm not in the camp that thinks these bosses are cancer. Eli wasn't a great boss fight, but he's far better than many of the other similar fights in the series. Better than MGS1 Liquid. Better than MGS1 Gray Fox. Better than Rockem Sockem MGS4 Ocelot. Quiet sucks as a Sniper fight compared to The End, but it's still a better fight than Sniper Wolf that everyone raves about. And those Skull Snipers on extreme? That's some intense shit. And Sahelanthropus? I don't care what anybody says, that's the first Metal Gear battle in the series that I actually enjoyed, it was a legit boss fight. Man on Fire was a total fucking missed opportunity though. That shit hurts me, they could've done so much more with him. And the other skull battles? Those guys should have just been deployed on high alerts or as random events in the field. They had no place being actual bosses imo.
My biggest disappointment with the bosses in this game is that only one of them really made good use of the open environment (Sahel). So much potential for some great bosses, given the scale of the environments and the quality of the mechanics, and they blew it.
Tons of other small nit picks too. Like why the **** do I have to wait on items to develop when I worked to meet the staff requirements, spent the resources and gmp, and in some cases acquired the blueprints and/or specialists? I already put in the work, give me my shit guys. Why does d horse even count as a buddy? He should just be a default...
Ok, good lord man, I just realized that typed up a fucking monster here lol. I was going to keep going too. I don't blame you if you don't want to read that haha.
Long story short, the game is excellent, but fucking hell did they squander its potential. I want to say it's a 10/10 because of how much I thoroughly enjoyed it, but then I recognize how much better it could (and should) be. I just can't boil my opinion down to a number on this one.
These are all extremely good points, but don't dilute your point by saying you're nitpicking. This was the game where Big Boss was supposed to turn evil. This was the five year development of "The Missing Link in the Metal Gear Saga!" Even if I disagree on some of the points I don't think any of them are nitpicking.
The open world was supposed to be a benefactor to the gameplay, but it both helps and hinder the game being a sandbox. You're goddamn right. When I'm running away from a group of enemies, it's basically just that. I'm just running. I'm not changing my camouflage on the fly like MGS3 or hanging over guard rails in MGS2. I'm just... moving away, which is way too effective of a strategy in a series where being seen is a semi-fail state. Why can't I swim? Why aren't there more places for me to climb into or find dense cover? Now granted, the places that are most reminiscent of Camp Omega, like Nova Braga Airport, are awesome because if you get seen in the center of everything, you're in deep shit. But this game just doesn't have the same stakes for me as Ground Zeroes did at some points. If I get seen, I just run away off the base. Instead of strategically destroying anti-air guns like I had to in GZ, I can just fulton them. Same with soldiers. Whereas in GZ, I need to hide, or unlock a small safehouse, or call in a chopper and escape.
The game also rewards players in a way different way than the past MGS games did, which was beneficial at first but dragged on me later on. What I'm saying is that earlier MGS games helped influence a loop of playing the game and being rewarded with a cutscene that moved the story forwards. We see this in all sorts of games now, like Uncharted, Gears, etc.
MGS1 and 2 were fairly straightforward with this. Game. Cutscene. Game. Cutscene.
MGS3 had these, but now you have the Kermit frogs or whatever to shoot and camos to unlock.
MGS4 had this too, but added Drebin's gun shop. It unfortunately had waaaay too many bad cutscenes.
Peace Walker then spun this entirely by adding MSF along to its basic gameplay-cutscene loop. It was Kojima's twist on what was his fifth game that could start to become formulaic.
Going back to my point, MGSV mostly rewarded you with its ability to unlock new items instead of cutscenes. This waned on me as the story went on. I'll touch on that in a bit.
I think out of those, arguably 3 and PW hit the best balance between cutscenes being a reward and having subsidiary rewards. These were the stories I enjoyed the most of the series, although I'd actually argue for 3 being a decent story over a game with someone called Hot Coldman.
My point is that, even if we knew Kojima's cutscenes were getting long in the tooth, they were getting even more undermined by their slavish devotion to a 28-year old franchise, and that they were reaching levels of fan service where fucking Zero, the goddamn comic relief from MGS3, was the series' biggest villain, there was still something the franchise had that no one else could offer in the world.
I'm not even going to pretend I would like MGS stories on anything more than a superficial level, but they were basically big-budget, Western-influenced, animes in video game form. That's a niche no one has managed to hit otherwise. And to that end, that's why people love being rewarded with cutscenes in this game. That's why they love them in Uncharted. Sure, it's basically Indiana Jones with a lot less character development, but is anyone making good Indiana Jones rip offs anymore?
I wanted, and I'm sure a lot of other people wanted, this to be the most balanced when it came to cutscenes being a reward and there being subsidiary rewards in the series. And to a certain extent, it almost was. In chapter one, you basically have a 15 hour story stretched across 50 hours, but you also have a huge amount of subsidiary rewards changing up your gameplay style. You and me? We're okay with that. More Kojima gameplay, less Kojima writing, sign me the **** up. But that's not an excuse for aggresively terrible apathy towards the story that Kojima displays. The main villain goes out like a bitch. Unlike the past five games, which had (for a lack of a better word) epic (ugh) final boss fights, you have the gaming equivalent of the Detroit Lions. Unlike the past five games, where the conflict was front and foremost as to being the reason you're doing whatever task you're doing, MGSV has you doing things because... SANR? Some random NGO? Your mom needed dry cleaning?
It's just so weak. It's Kojima pandering to fan feedback instead of addressing it. I don't want less Kojima writing as much as I wanted less bad Kojima writing. MGSV helped me realize that. No amount of guns I could unlock or GMP I could raise could replace at least a few more story beats that felt lacking. I want to be rewarded with cutscenes that have some sort of impact on the story that's going to be the last in this 28-year old series until Konami releases their next pachinko machine. Yes, MGS4's story could be aggressively bad. Yes, holy shit, it had so much fan pandering. But I'll take Big Mama doing absolutely stupid ass things, I'll take dehypnotized-but-not-really Ocelot, I'll take a cola-addicted monkey and even Johnny-shits-his-pants getting married to Meryl (no **** that) over absolutely nothing. For me, it's better than nothing. Which is what MGSV's story is.
That, and a whole lot of Quiet's boobs.
And tame Revolver Ocelot.
And chapter 2.
Sigh.
@Blabadon said:
In case you need a reminder that @khoofia_pika is an objectively terrible person
http://www.gamespot.com/forums/system-wars-314159282/wow-super-mario-galaxy-2-is-overrated-29193461/
Shut up blab, that never happened
@charizard1605 said:
NETFLIX OFFICIALLY IN INDIA, AAAAAH
About fucking time too
@khoofia_pika said:
@Blabadon said:
In case you need a reminder that @khoofia_pika is an objectively terrible person
http://www.gamespot.com/forums/system-wars-314159282/wow-super-mario-galaxy-2-is-overrated-29193461/
Shut up blab, that never happened
Well, I'll be... and I posted there too.
@JangoWuzHere said:
I use phantom cigars all the time now, it just speeds the game up so much faster. You can drop supplies on your character, use a phantom cigar, and then get a box dropped on your head the next second, knocking you out of the cigar animation. It's amazing.
Shhh! keep this trick to yourselves! D:
@Blabadon said:
Found out the cutest thing today. My 14-year old niece wanted to buy me Uncharted for my birthday, but found out the game was coming in March (now April). Still cute.
It's your birthday again?
@nintendoboy16 said:
@khoofia_pika said:
@Blabadon said:
In case you need a reminder that @khoofia_pika is an objectively terrible person
http://www.gamespot.com/forums/system-wars-314159282/wow-super-mario-galaxy-2-is-overrated-29193461/
Shut up blab, that never happened
Well, I'll be... and I posted there too.
IT NEVER HAPPENED ;__;
Just have to finish up some quests I didn't do and do a little more item farming, then I will be done with my playthrough of Xenoblade X. Might come back some day, but it will probably be awhile.
Got around 200 hours with pretty much the "best" gear you can get, and defeated the "superbosses" (Telethia, Pharsis, etc.). Overall its exactly what I thought it would be and it's pretty much what I wanted. It is the most addictive game this year and (was) definitely on my GOTY list.
Not being able to switch out party members at all times, the more fragmented story that left quite a bit of holes overall, and the item collecting being hard at times due to not enough information were the main flaws of the game for me. The gameplay, even if it was Grinding and Fetch Quests: The Game was extremely enjoyable since you always were getting stronger, and were always rewarded. The battle system being great definitely helps here and that strength is shown once you start seeing all those crazy numbers and your moves come out so quickly. The regular/affinity missions were often interesting dialogue wise and did flesh out the world, albeit there was some stuff that wasn't explained all that well alien race wise. I normally don't care too much about the dialogue too much, but for this game the exchanges were either funny, ridiculous, or messed up so I actually read it closely. It is a 9/10 game for me as even though I acknowledge that the landscapes are devoid of anything interesting aside from being scenic, and that the game is grindy in nature with a fairly weak story compared to the normal Xeno games, it was still extremely entertaining due to its gameplay loop. In the end the game has flaws but most of them were inconsequential to me as I thought they would be.
I'm hoping Monolith goes back to a slightly more linear and story centric game, but I will admit that I think I found this game to be more fun overall due to the improvements on the gameplay. Just add the gameplay in this game and put it on top of the firsts story (or even better a Xenogears like story) and it would be perfect. Of course its not that easy, but something in that vein would be a GOAT for me.
I bought The Phantom Pain. @Blab and @Conan, this better live up to the hype, guys >:-[
@charizard1605:
Bro, I'll be surprised if you don't dig it.
You like Peace Walker. This game is Peace Walker, but with way the **** better gameplay, much, much more to do, but minus the grinding.
Amazing gameplay. Amazing sandbox. Lacking open world.
Story is whatever, I'm neutral on it. Not as enjoyable as MGS 1, 2 and 3, but not offensive like MGS4. It's just there.
Anyways, have fun man!
I never realised the O'Doyle Rules!" Was a running joke in Adam Sandler movies until now lol.
@jg4xchamp said:
The story? The opening didn't do anything for me
because you have no soul?
and yea, its the best one of these since Shadow Complex. Axiom Verge isn't doing anything for me. The music is dope but Im an hour in and don't know if I want to keep playing right now. I might try Apotheon because I like that game's style a bunch
@charizard1605: good luck waiting for base items and platforms to develop . One of them took me 10 hours. The whole mother base thing should have been an a menu like PW. But Kojima said he wanted to realise it and for your character to connect with the soldiers lol. When in fact it's clearly built for FOB and to take your money thorough micro transactions and keep you playing longer.
Big Boss is the real killer of the TV.
@Blabadon:
Yeah man, that's exactly it. The world poses no threat and allows for little interaction outside of larger bases. Just run away and it's all fine. I really hope this wasn't a case of Kojima caving in for vocal whiners. I remember a lot of people were complaining about how Ground Zeroes was an unrelentingly harsh environment. Rather than, you know, getting good at the game and learning how to own that base, they just cried that it was destroying them. Apparently threats from all directions is too much to handle. Kojima later came back saying that TPP would be more "relaxing" outside of the mission areas. I mean, I guess that's fine if you've been super sneaky and you're staying off the main roads, but if you've been tearing shit up, the game should push back.
And yeah dude, agreed on the rest for the most part. I never thought about the reward loop like that, but it makes sense. You're also right in that part of the bitch of this story was the super forgettable threads about menial busy work. I think there was enough story, but the content of said story rarely ever felt important. The SANR and NGO stuff? Those stories should have been worked into the side ops. The main story should always stick to facing the immediate threat. There should be a sense of urgency, but in this game there never is. Often times it was easy to forget what was even going on lol. And there was never a big pay off. MGS3 had a ridiculously awesome climax. MGS2, as abrupt as the ending seemed, was still climactic as ****. Even MGS4, for all my distaste with the game, still built up to something big. I didn't like it, but the effort was there. MGSV goes out with a whimper.
That said, I know to be careful what I wish for lol. Where I do disagree is that man, as forgettable as much of MGSV's story was, I'd still gladly take that over what MGS4 was serving. I can deal with an almost non-existent story easier than I can deal with an in-your-face fountain of diarrhea story.
And yeah, fucking Ocelot. Some argue that we're just seeing him from a new perspective. That we're seeing a relaxed, honest, "true" Ocelot. Seeing what the dude does when he's chilling out with his real bros, not worrying about NWO conspiracies, quadruple agent problems, or ordering torture tools off of Amazon.
I say **** that. Dude could have still been true to Big Boss while being an over the top sadistic bastard.
@a-new-guardian said:
@charizard1605: good luck waiting for base items and platforms to develop . One of them took me 10 hours. The whole mother base thing should have been an a menu like PW. But Kojima said he wanted to realise it and for your character to connect with the soldiers lol. When in fact it's clearly built for FOB and to take your money thorough micro transactions and keep you playing longer.
Woah, what took you 10 hours to develop? I know Nukes are insane (never developed one myself), but otherwise I don't remember any development items taking more than about a couple of hours at most. Not saying you're wrong, just curious.
That said, yeah, it's fucking stupid that we should have to wait at all. We earned the gmp, resources, staff rankings, blueprints, specialists, etc.. there is really no reason to make us wait.
As for the micro transactions though? Eh, that's been blown out of proportion. Not only was I able to max out two FOB's, but I was even able to pay for the instant speed development using nothing but MB coins I earned through playing the game. Never paid for a single microtransaction, yet I reaped all the benefits of the microtransactions. Konami isn't good at this being greedy thing lol.
@mems_1224:
My interest in Axiom Verge fell off quickly and I don't even know exactly why. I was digging so many aspects of the game and then just meh. Quit playing it altogether. It's one of those games I keep saying I'll get back to, yet I know deep down it's probably not gonna happen.
@ConanTheStoner said:
@mems_1224:
My interest in Axiom Verge fell off quickly and I don't even know exactly why. I was digging so many aspects of the game and then just meh. Quit playing it altogether. It's one of those games I keep saying I'll get back to, yet I know deep down it's probably not gonna happen.
yea, its a fine game but so far nothing about it really stands out. dude made a metroid game.
Finished Far Cry 4 today. Now just playing SM3d land and looking to expand my 3ds collection. Zelda OoT3d and animal crossing are tempting.
@getyeryayasout said:
Do you have to do the base building stuff in MGSV, or is it optional? I don't want to do that shit.
The secondary base(s) for FOB, no.
Your primary base, yeah. It's not that involving at all though. You just go into your menu, choose a platform to develop, and it all happens in the background. Best platforms to build at first are the R&D platforms (gives you the ability to get cooler gadgets and weapons) or the Command platforms (lets you hold more staff per platform, which in turn increases there level and again, you can develop even more cool stuff).
You can micromanage the mother base shit, but you can also be hands off. That's what I did. I let the game auto sort my staff for me and that's that.
But yeah, you don't have to go crazy constantly working to build new platforms. It's just something you'll occasionally select in the menu when you have the resources.
@ConanTheStoner: I'm pretty sure one of the later platforms took me 9.5 hours. I also built an FOB one and it took me 22 hours. I think they had an update to decrease time for developing stuff. I'm not sure as I have the Japanese version. So the updates are all in Japanese. The game itself is like the English version with Japanese language.
I used MB as well. I refuse to pay for anything I can earn and I dislike any micro transactions included in games. I understand why they're included though. Some people don't want to grind.
Also once you go online the game keeps your resources locked to online storage. Go offline and all that is taken away. My mother base was suddenly in the red once and I was wondering why? Then I went online and LOL. Damn it Konami you idiots.
The whole time thing to develop anything sucks. I once developed a silenced sniper rifle that took 2 hours to wait. Why do I have to wait lol.
What are the chances of a new Parasite Eve game?
I loved the soundtrack and gameplay of the first two. The first one in particular was like an RPG horror game.
Edit. Both of them felt that way lol.
@ConanTheStoner: bought Axiom Verge off PSN too and played for a couple of minutes and dropped it. Certainly reminiscent of old metroid but I just got distracted by something else like Dark Souls. I hope I can pick it up again someday as well.
Please Log In to post.
Log in to comment