Video Games

[mikegarrison]

Oct 30, 2024 15:53:40 GMT -5 Wolfgang said:

Horizon Forbidden West

I love the complexity of the combat, especially when you need to harvest machine monster component parts

I've played other games with similar tradeoffs, although that is among the more complex ones.

In the older BG games, using spells like "disintegrate" would kill the enemy but also turn all their loot to ash. Oops.

In BG3, getting pushed, thrown blown, etc. into a "chasm" (a bottomless pit, a river, off a cliff, etc.) will insta-kill them, but also no loot.

In XCOM (2012/2013), killing an enemy destroys all their weapons, but you can try a very risky technique to capture them alive instead. If you do, their weapons are captured. In XCOM2, killing an enemy with explosives destroys any loot that might have dropped. In both XCOMs, killing enemies with explosives also destroys their bodies (which are valuable either to sell or to do autopsies on).

Many games like to offer these risk/reward (greed/safety) choices.

[mln59]

prince of persia: the lost crown showed up today

[Wolfgang]

Horizon Forbidden West

I've grown to really like this game. I got some good weapons and armors. I've got a good feel for the combat against all the machines. I mean, the game tells you where the weak points are, which canisters cause a devastating chain reaction if you hit them with the right elemental weapons, etc. The key is to hit them on the right spot with the right weapons while they're moving around and trying to kill you. LOL!

I remember early on, when I encountered a scary machine monster in the open world, I would run and hide because I felt I was too underleveled. Now, none of the machine monsters scare me.

[Wolfgang]

PS5

Now, there's a greater chance I'll get the PS5 sooner rather than later, possibly as early as Black Friday. Not only do I want to play Shadow Gambit, which was made by the same folks who made Shadow Tactics and Desperados III, I also want to play the Burning Shores DLC of the base game Horizon Forbidden West. The Burning Shores DLC is only available on the PS5 despite the fact that the base game Horizon Forbidden West is available on both the PS4 and PS5.

So, the price is in the $429-449 range for the PS5 Slim (physical disc capable). I'm hoping Black Friday sales drop it down to the $325-350 range.

[bbg95]

Nov 2, 2024 21:12:32 GMT -5 Wolfgang said:

PS5

Now, there's a greater chance I'll get the PS5 sooner rather than later, possibly as early as Black Friday. Not only do I want to play Shadow Gambit, which was made by the same folks who made Shadow Tactics and Desperados III, I also want to play the Burning Shores DLC of the base game Horizon Forbidden West. The Burning Shores DLC is only available on the PS5 despite the fact that the base game Horizon Forbidden West is available on both the PS4 and PS5.

So, the price is in the $429-449 range for the PS5 Slim (physical disc capable). I'm hoping Black Friday sales drop it down to the $325-350 range.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't hold your breath on Black Friday PS5 deals being very appealing. Sony has been quite anti-consumer lately. They actually raised the price on the digital version of the PS5 slim. I do like how you'll hold out for a game to drop from like $12 to $10 but will also drop hundreds of dollars on a new console mostly to play Shadow Gambit. I'm not criticizing you for it. I just find it to be fairly amusing. I'll probably play Shadow Gambit on Steam.

[Wolfgang]

Nov 2, 2024 22:01:20 GMT -5 bbg95 said:

Nov 2, 2024 21:12:32 GMT -5 Wolfgang said:

PS5

Now, there's a greater chance I'll get the PS5 sooner rather than later, possibly as early as Black Friday. Not only do I want to play Shadow Gambit, which was made by the same folks who made Shadow Tactics and Desperados III, I also want to play the Burning Shores DLC of the base game Horizon Forbidden West. The Burning Shores DLC is only available on the PS5 despite the fact that the base game Horizon Forbidden West is available on both the PS4 and PS5.

So, the price is in the $429-449 range for the PS5 Slim (physical disc capable). I'm hoping Black Friday sales drop it down to the $325-350 range.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't hold your breath on Black Friday PS5 deals being very appealing. Sony has been quite anti-consumer lately. They actually raised the price on the digital version of the PS5 slim. I do like how you'll hold out for a game to drop from like $12 to $10 but will also drop hundreds of dollars on a new console mostly to play Shadow Gambit. I'm not criticizing you for it. I just find it to be fairly amusing. I'll probably play Shadow Gambit on Steam.

Interestingly, I'll probably wait for the Burning Shores DLC to drop in price from whatever it is now ($20) to something like $7.99. And I'll definitely wait for Shadow Gambit to drop from $50 to something like $9.99.

[mikegarrison]

Cel shading:

I find this an interesting aesthetic choice. With some games it works so well that it hard to imagine what the game would be like otherwise. One advantage is that it doesn't get outdated by newer graphics as quickly.

Sprites:

Another choice. These days mostly for retro-appeal, although I personally remember the days when spites were the height of advanced graphics. Basically a way to do 2-D graphics in a 3-D game. One modern game I know of that is sprite-based is Factorio.

Some games do amazingly well by deliberately down-rezzing their graphics. Wildermyth comes to mind, with its "paper doll" system of graphics that is both simplified and intensely memorable.

[bbg95]

The Borderlands games and Wind Waker have aged very well graphically thanks to cell shading. Though I just looked into this, and apparently Borderlands doesn't actually use cell shading. They just look like they do. Either way, they still look good. As for sprites, they look great in some games. Final Fantasy VI looks a lot better than the original Final Fantasy VII did because VI used really nice character sprites while VII used really primitive polygons. Anyway, I agree that using a distinct art style can make a game look better than its technology might dictate. Another example is Ghost of Tsushima. It's character models look good but aren't nearly as advanced as many of its contemporaries. But the outdoor environments are absolutely gorgeous and highly memorable.

[Wolfgang]

Horizon Forbidden West

I have to say the whole San Francisco Bay Area section is mighty entertaining (and visually stunning). Also, one of the main missions near the end unlocks a certain cool feature:

SPOILER: Click to show

Aloy can override a Sunwing (a giant bird machine), mount it, and fly with it all over the map. Thereafter, you can do it at any time.

[mln59]

made some nice progress in the prince of persia today. reminds me a bit of hollow knight

[Wolfgang]

Horizon Forbidden West

I've done a complete 180 on this game, going from "this is the same ol' crap from the first game" to "this is a pretty damn good game." I've also done a lot of grinding to get all the right parts to upgrade my weapons and armor. I thought I might get annoyed but I've done so many, I've become addicted to it. If you don't get the right parts, you just run far enough away, and then return and your targeted monster will respawn. For the Fireclaws, they respawn in two different areas only a short distance from each other. So, I'd kill one in the first area and then run to the second area and kill that second Fireclaw. If that didn't yield fruitful component parts, I'd go back to the first area and kill that one. Back and forth, back and forth, until I get the right parts.

[mikegarrison]

Nov 3, 2024 23:44:03 GMT -5 Wolfgang said:

Horizon Forbidden West

I've done a complete 180 on this game, going from "this is the same ol' crap from the first game" to "this is a pretty damn good game." I've also done a lot of grinding to get all the right parts to upgrade my weapons and armor. I thought I might get annoyed but I've done so many, I've become addicted to it. If you don't get the right parts, you just run far enough away, and then return and your targeted monster will respawn. For the Fireclaws, they respawn in two different areas only a short distance from each other. So, I'd kill one in the first area and then run to the second area and kill that second Fireclaw. If that didn't yield fruitful component parts, I'd go back to the first area and kill that one. Back and forth, back and forth, until I get the right parts.

Farming rare drops. You aren't exactly selling me on this game, but I guess that wasn't your purpose here anyway.

[bbg95]

I started playing The Wolf Among Us. It's an interesting concept for a game. The main character is the Big Bad Wolf, and he's the sheriff of Fabletown, a neighborhood in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It is the home of "Fables," which are characters from fairy tales or other fictional stories (e.g. Snow White, Ichabod Crane, Beauty and the Beast). Non-human Fables live upstate in a place called "The Farm" unless they pay to have a spell called "glamour" cast on them that changes their appearance to human. It's a typical Telltale adventure game with choices and QTEs. I like it so far.

[Wolfgang]

Nov 4, 2024 0:09:14 GMT -5 mikegarrison said:

Nov 3, 2024 23:44:03 GMT -5 Wolfgang said:

Horizon Forbidden West

I've done a complete 180 on this game, going from "this is the same ol' crap from the first game" to "this is a pretty damn good game." I've also done a lot of grinding to get all the right parts to upgrade my weapons and armor. I thought I might get annoyed but I've done so many, I've become addicted to it. If you don't get the right parts, you just run far enough away, and then return and your targeted monster will respawn. For the Fireclaws, they respawn in two different areas only a short distance from each other. So, I'd kill one in the first area and then run to the second area and kill that second Fireclaw. If that didn't yield fruitful component parts, I'd go back to the first area and kill that one. Back and forth, back and forth, until I get the right parts.

Farming rare drops. You aren't exactly selling me on this game, but I guess that wasn't your purpose here anyway.

Not exactly farming rare drops.

You're harvesting machine monster components. Some, you can harvest by killing the monsters. Others, you have to knock/tear them out before they die, otherwise, they're not harvestable again. So, it's possible to get everything you need in one attempt. I always tear all components that need to be torn before I kill the monster. Then, when I've got everything, I kill the monster to harvest what's remaining.

So, there is no farming for rare drops. I've had cases where I needed a certain part that has a 42% drop chance. If I don't get it in my first attempt, I almost always get it in my second attempt. There is no 2% rarity drop.

The only real problem is when you have to harvest parts (e.g., Apex Stormbird heart) from an Apex variant monster. Each monster comes in its regular form and a more dangerous apex form. The apex doesn't spawn as regularly as the regular variant. There are various youtube videos about how you can get the game to spawn the apex variant -- everything from doing the farming at night, changing the game difficulty to "Very Hard" (and once the apex spawns, change the difficulty back down to your desired setting, e.g., Normal), and some weird combination of night. "Very Hard," and fast traveling to certain campfires.

[Wolfgang]

Horizon Forbidden West

I'm currently on the very last mission. In almost every video game, I always get somewhat terrified and apprehensive about final missions despite the fact that I've done okay throughout the game and I should (in theory) do likewise in the final mission.