PigLick on 16/5/2019 at 08:20
might have to give it a go, for a dollar
henke on 16/5/2019 at 09:43
Quote Posted by Malf
noticed that the Game Pass is currently available at a price of £1 for 3 months
Thanks for the heads up, that's a great deal. Would love to play some Sea of Thieves with you guys but I'll probably be busy this weekend.
Thirith on 16/5/2019 at 11:15
I'm still playing Metro Exodus and it's absolutely okay and often gorgeous to look at, but I have to say that I'm glad I didn't pay for it. (I got it as part of a bundle when I bought my new PC.) In its more open-world moments I'm not finding it particularly interesting or immersive and I keep wishing it was closer to the Stalker games, but when it turns into a corridor shooter I simply don't think its systems are polished enough nor its levels interesting enough to be all that engaging. I'm towards the end of the Caspian Sea environment (I think) and I hope things'll get better in the next chapter. I don't mind clunky games if they're interesting, and Metro Exodus definitely has the potential to be interesting, but I don't particularly enjoy the game design in practice.
Malf on 17/5/2019 at 08:54
Started out on State of Decay 2 last night, and really enjoyed what I've played so far, but took an early night thanks to a physically hard day at work.
If you liked the first, you'll like the second. The start is quite narrow and scripted, but is basically just a short tutorial. Almost as soon as you've settled in your first base, the game opens up completely, and the familiar pressures kick in. It's very systems driven, so is very much my jam, although some of those systems are a little opaque. For example, the game told me I need a fuel can to refill my car, yet I can only seem to loot fuel as a rucksack resource rather than a can.
Whatever, I'll give it some more time tonight, but I'm already liking what I've seen.
There's a level of charming jank to it, and it looks like a game from the previous generation. It proudly announces it's made using Unreal Engine 4, but you couldn't tell from looking at it. But it's not a game about looks. It's a game about balancing the needs of your community against the increasing threat posed by the undead.
I'm also pleased to be coming to it late, as it feels like a game that would have had tonnes of game-breaking bugs upon release, but that have been patched out over time.
Sulphur on 19/5/2019 at 07:31
Quote Posted by Thirith
I'm still playing
Metro Exodus and it's absolutely okay and often gorgeous to look at, but I have to say that I'm glad I didn't pay for it. (I got it as part of a bundle when I bought my new PC.) In its more open-world moments I'm not finding it particularly interesting or immersive and I keep wishing it was closer to the
Stalker games, but when it turns into a corridor shooter I simply don't think its systems are polished enough nor its levels interesting enough to be all that engaging. I'm towards the end of the Caspian Sea environment (I think) and I hope things'll get better in the next chapter. I don't mind clunky games if they're interesting, and
Metro Exodus definitely has the potential to be interesting, but I don't particularly enjoy the game design in practice.
It's odd you say that, because in the series' more closed-world entries (the previous two), I didn't find the actual metro to be particularly interesting or immersive either because in practice it was a heavily predictable stage-managed sequence of corridors and set pieces. In contrast, Exodus is literally a breath of fresh air because it lets the visuals soak some sunlight (and rain, and snow, and...) in, so thanks to the Halo Effect I'm more likely to give it a pass for the things it doesn't do well.
In retrospect, my problem with the earlier Metro games was that they were competent but just didn't go far enough - Stalker was far less prettier, but in its ambitions had the perfect balance of otherworldliness and horror set against a pragmatic and dispassionate human occupying force (and you weren't the hero of the story, just one of its actors). It also had a fair few surprises along the way. Metro does some very tired writing with the whole 'saviour of humanity' trope and bland characters (with the exception of Pavel, who was fantastic and should have an entire game dedicated to him double-crossing people while being a best bud), and the gameplay is interesting but uncompelling. Exodus retains the half-baked writing, but lets the gameplay breathe thanks to the measure of sprawl some of the environments afford it. It's a familiar tale with few surprises, but at this stage it's a comforting kind of familiar, which I know is an odd thing to say about a post apocalypse, but that's the feeling I get when I sit at a weapons bench in a warm cabin at night and snap my guns together. And I think that's okay. Exodus could've been much better, but it could have also been far worse.
henke on 19/5/2019 at 18:11
Scrolling through the (
https://twitter.com/microtrailers) Steam Trailers in 6s twitter, I spotted this game called
(https://store.steampowered.com/app/1062960/UNDER_the_SAND__a_road_trip_game/) UNDER the SAND - a road trip game, which instantly spoke to me. It's a post-apocalyptic Jalopy-alike. Drive down the road, find stuff to trade for money, find gas, upgrade car, keep going, explore. Sadly I couldn't explore very far. Like Jalopy it's very linear and I hit a gate which barred further exploration about 45 minutes in. Still, it's a 4€ Early Access title. I look forward to seeing where it goes next.
Also played the first hour or so of
State of Decay 2. Had a lot of glitches early on with shadows flickering in and out, then when I changed the graphics settings everything got so dark I could barely see anything. Seems to work mostly-fine now tho. I'd totally be up for co-opping this with some of the TTLG regulars. :)
Malf on 19/5/2019 at 21:43
Jolly good henke :D
I had a couple of abortive communities over this weekend, because I had a hard time ignoring the constant pleas for help over the radio. But my third community's still going strong and has just moved in to the biggest base on the current map.
Now I'm at the stage where I'm worrying about the noise my base is making, and trying to figure out how to keep quiet with so many survivors running round doing shit.
I just need to bite the bullet and get rid of my computer specialist. He's a couch potato with low morale, who's constantly whinging about his big brother who's a marine and probably dead. And he's winding some of my other survivors up. Now he wants me to go kill a group he used to hang out with, so I think I might just send him on his own.
Edit: he's basically Eugene from The Walking Dead, without the charisma.
demagogue on 20/5/2019 at 08:08
Speaking of that genre, I still fondly remember this C64 game The Great American Cross Country Road Race (I wouldn't recommend it now on an emulator, as it was a repetitive slog even for its time, but I'm making a point with it)... The premise was just a car race across the entire US, from NY to LA or whatever it was. I've always wished someone could re-create something like that game in a realistic or even retro-stylized way, and something like American Trucking Simulator makes me think it's possible.
They just give you a car and money, set you in NYC, and you have to get to LA any way you want ... and maybe add some random requirements like having to pass through certain cities, and there can be different courses. You have to get gas and do repairs and avoid cops and make good time all along the way. Just pure fast driving over a long course. And if they could make it competitive and just the right amount of zany all the better. Basically I want a game version of the movie Cannonball Run. I've just been thinking about it lately.
Thirith on 20/5/2019 at 08:13
That does sound pretty cool.
Based on my jaunts with Google Earth VR, which gets moodily surreal when you zoom in too close (trees especially just turn into these floating blobs of abstract art), I'm now imagining a game along the lines of what you suggest, but working with Google Earth, so that things look great from a distance but then turn into something out of a China Miéville post-apocalypse as you get closer. Judging from his In Search of Paradise, I think that henke would be the right person to make that game.
