Video Games

[the wicked child]

Recently been on a Horizon kick.

Played through Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. It looks great, only complaint is that it was a bit prone to crashing early on. They have been patching it regularly though.

I then decided to finally do a new game+ playthrough of Forbidden West.

Lego Horizon Adventures launched today as well, so will be playing through that.

[tifosi77]

Man I wish I had been able to stay engaged with Horizon. I got bogged down in side quests and lost track of the story and just sort of quit.

I've been offline from gaming generally for......a long time now (over a year?) and I'm starting to really miss it.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

COD Warzone has such a weird historical cycle. Warzone 1 was fun then Warzone 2 came out and was terrible. Then Warzone 2.5 came out, it was fun again, and now they replaced everything with Black Ops 6 mechanics and the game sucks again

I can’t complain too hard because at least it’s free but it’s all a reminder at how money grubbing the AAA companies are

[nocera]

FYI: NHL 25 is 50% off.

[the wicked child]

Having played through the majority of Lego Horizon Adventures, I am kind of sad to say it is... just ok.

There are some things done extremely well... the combat is revolutionary for a lego game... it's not just mindless button mashing... they incorporated using the focus to target weak points on machines... this is really cool. Graphics, sound, etc... all good.

However this feels and plays very different from every other lego game, which is honestly to its detriment.

Anyone who has played one of the games knows the formula... You play through a set of stages that offer a humorous take on the source material, smashing everything in sight, collecting studs, and of course hunting for collectibles. All stages are replayed at least twice as you need to come back in free play mode to clean up once you have the characters needed.

None of that really happens here. There are 4 areas, each with 5 stages, that are played once. You sort of come back later, but cannot play the exact stage again. There are "apex machine hunts" that see you going back through stages to face a tougher version of one of the machines, but this is also one and done. After all hunts are done, it unlocks a sort of free play mode, but you basically are just farming studs and xp. The majority of the environment is NOT smashable, which makes me wonder if the people who worked on this ever played a lego game before.

Which brings me to another weak point... instead of collecting a bunch of different characters with varying powers, you can control one of 4 protagonists from the game, each of which has similar abilities and can level up.

There aren't really any true collectibles to speak of... most of the trophies will literally just happen by playing through the game. The only ones which require a bit of attention are completing 20 community jobs (mostly easy things like kill n enemies while wearing a specific costume or such) and the ones around leveling your characters.

I have one trophy left to get the platinum and it is for getting all characters to max level (20)... I did not even hit max level with Aloy after completing the main story and apex hunts... It took several runs of the explore mode or whatever they call it to top her off... now I am stuck with 3 other characters around 10 or so and only this free play mode to level them... it is going to be a shitty grind devoid of much fun unfortunately.

The story is drastically dumbed down and a bit too silly for my liking... I've played most of the Lego games... I was expecting some changes and humor... but it's a bit too OTT and silly and doesn't really land.

So while there are some interesting things about the game, it is ultimately kind of in this weird place where it doesn't really fulfil either the Lego or Horizon experience successfully. I was expecting to be "all in" on this and instead I had to almost force myself to step away from my Forbidden West replay to finish this. The level grind for that last trophy will likely sour my opinion further.

[NTP66]

Buddy of mine talked me up on Helldivers 2, so I watched some gameplay and it looked like fun. Turns out it's not available on Xbox... lol. Oh well.

[shafnutz05]

‘Mass Effect’ TV Series in the Works at Amazon

With Ari Arad as an executive producer, whose latest credits are for the Borderlands and Uncharted movies.

Somehow missed this post, what a disappointing decision, agreed. Mass Effect practically begs for a multi-season arc and they pick a guy that is a proven dud.

[willeyeam]

FYI: NHL 25 is 50% off.

first one I haven't bought since, 2007? They just make no improvements on a yearly basis. I probably would go for this if CFB wasn't a thing

[nocera]

FYI: NHL 25 is 50% off.

first one I haven't bought since, 2007? They just make no improvements on a yearly basis. I probably would go for this if CFB wasn't a thing

This one feels wildly different from the last few years. The pace is MUCH slower, which took some getting used to. But I like it much more now than I did when I first played. My big issue at the moment is one timers are incredibly OP. They clearly wanted to push the new one timer mechanic so it's a very high percentage shot, which means everybody online is spamming one-t's. I don't really play offline so I can't speak for those modes, but I do know Be A Pro is EXACTLY the same as it has been the last 3 or 4 years.

I won't ever pay full price for NHL again. It typically goes on sale around mid November so I'll hold off until then. For $35, it's worth it.

[DigitalGypsy66]

I'll buy it when it comes back to PC. (Which it will never return to PC)

[nocera]

I'll buy it when it comes back to PC. (Which it will never return to PC)

You can play it now on PC via Game Pass & cloud gaming.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Huh, that's interesting. I hadn't thought of that. May have to look into that. I haven't been gaming at all lately, just nothing really looks interesting to me these days.

[dodint]

I know there are some other Summoning Salt fans on here. The Tetris video came out and I was hesitant for a while because of the length, but I got around to it yesterday.



First off, SS is a really great storyteller. He takes what is essentially a list of times and breaks it down into an engaging narrative. There are points in the story where you feel the effort and pain these gamers are putting into something a lot of us haven't touched in years.

I don't want to spoil anything, I'll just say that it's really interesting that through the effort of these gamers it turns out the original NES Tetris essentially has a complete second game to it that nobody knew about for decades. Watching them push the bounds of the game to the point of reaching a natural ending is so cathartic to me. I can't possibly execute the techniques that they're doing so it 'ends' the game for me as well; I have no doubt that I played to the best of my ability (and that it wasn't good enough), so seeing it taken to the extreme was enthralling for me.

It's a long video put it's presented in chapters if you want to watch it in segments.

[nocera]

That's almost as long as Wicked Part 1.

[the wicked child]

Summoning Salt makes insanely good videos. He can take a game you never even gave 2 shits about and make the history video compelling.

I always look forward to his videos.

[the wicked child]

After finishing the stupid grind for the platinum in Lego Horizon Adventures, I dived full into my Forbidden West playthrough.

I forgot just how much eye pr0n the scenery provides in that game. I love jsut exploring the world and hunting machines. Such an awesome game.

Once I finish this up, it's time to hit Astro Bot and then Stellar Blade.

[the wicked child]

Finished up the main story in Forbidden West last night and started on Burning Shores.

I know a lot of games have done the whole hero traveling across the world during the credits thing, but HFW has to be one of the most beautiful. It is awesome just seeing all the different terrains they built.

This game really is a masterpiece.

[scb147]

Does anyone have any experience with those emulator on a stick devices that come with 2 wireless controllers and 20000+ games? Amazon and eBay have a ton of them, probably from the same Chinese vendor. My 17 year old is interested in playing some retro games, and this seemed like a reasonable solution.

[skullman80]

I just snagged a ps5 30th anniversary edition off of Best Buy. Sucks I sent my hard drive back cause now I need one lol.

[nocera]

Does anyone have any experience with those emulator on a stick devices that come with 2 wireless controllers and 20000+ games? Amazon and eBay have a ton of them, probably from the same Chinese vendor. My 17 year old is interested in playing some retro games, and this seemed like a reasonable solution.

They’re super hit or miss and as far as I can tell, they’re mostly miss. There are plenty of YouTube channels that review those sort of systems. I’d find one you’re interested in and then look up some reviews there.

[dodint]

I just snagged a ps5 30th anniversary edition off of Best Buy. Sucks I sent my hard drive back cause now I need one lol.

Congrats.

I was looking at the 8TB version of that WD drive. I need help.

[Kaiser]

Does anyone have any experience with those emulator on a stick devices that come with 2 wireless controllers and 20000+ games? Amazon and eBay have a ton of them, probably from the same Chinese vendor. My 17 year old is interested in playing some retro games, and this seemed like a reasonable solution.

A friend of mine gave me a chinese SNES with every game, and it was unplayable.

[skullman80]

I just snagged a ps5 30th anniversary edition off of Best Buy. Sucks I sent my hard drive back cause now I need one lol.

Congrats.

I was looking at the 8TB version of that WD drive. I need help.

I just paid almost double retail for a ps5 disk drive lol. Oh well.


Now I have to figure out what to do with my OG PS5. It’s not worth much on a trade I assume and I don’t need two.

Maybe I’ll be nice and give it to my nieces and nephew. I still have the box and everything. They will probably destroy it though because they can’t take care of things.

[dodint]

Want to trade it for a CIB PS4 Pro Disney/Star Wars edition?

[skullman80]

Want to trade it for a CIB PS4 Pro Disney/Star Wars edition?

I already have a ps4 pro lol. Plus I hate Star Wars haha.