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What are you currently playing?; What video game are you playing right now?
Topic Started: Dec 11 2013, 10:14 AM (143,392 Views)
jamesh
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I finished off the main story line of Watch Dogs 2. I liked the first game despite its faults, and this one felt like a nice improvement. While the game is a poor representation of real world hacking, it is a fun recreation of hacking as it is portrayed in movies.

The new protagonist in this game was a big improvement over the last one. While the first game tried to portray it's protagonist as a vigilante hero, but in the game he seemed more like a violent loner/home-grown terrorist. This seems like less of an issue with Marcus in the second game, with an expanded set of non-lethal options in combat (together with some takedowns that were lethal in the first game now just stunning the enemy). Marcus is also working as part of a group for the whole game, rather than being a lone vigilante.

The game's recreation of San Francisco is also quite good. It's obviously compressed a bit, but there were a lot of familiar landmarks about where you'd expect to find them. I've visited SF a few times, so it was nice going to some of the locations I'd visited.

It was also nice seeing how the game adapted a number of real world events into missions. For example:

1. early on, there is a mission that features a Martin Shkreli stand-in buying the only copy of an album from a famous hip-hop group. You end up downloading and leaking the album, and then redirecting the payment to screw both sides of the deal.

2. In another you infiltrate the Scientology stand-in cult and reveal that they're scamming their members.

3. Another mission has has the Facebook equivalent company collaborating with the Blume (the main antagonist company) to try and sway an election. I would have said this was inspired by the Cambridge Analytica scantal, except that the game came out before that news broke.

4. One optional mission has you hack into the Ubisoft San Francisco offices to steal a trailer for an unreleased space exploration game. Apparently this is for a real game, but it has run into development troubles so still hasn't been announced.

The game still has its faults (e.g. the driving physics still feel a bit wonky), but it feels like they've leaned into their strengths with this sequel.
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Doomguy
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jamesh
May 29 2018, 12:52 AM
4. One optional mission has you hack into the Ubisoft San Francisco offices to steal a trailer for an unreleased space exploration game. Apparently this is for a real game, but it has run into development troubles so still hasn't been announced.
Heh, that's actually a pretty neat way to promote your game. I had heard that this one was a lot better than the first (which I never bothered with) so I may give it a try in the future.
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Sir Goodfellow
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Doomguy
May 28 2018, 01:11 PM
Yeah I honestly think Ethan Carter isn't worth it, unfortunately. The ending genuinely sucks and basically ruins it. I've not played Firewatch but its on my wishlist, it does look cool.

I've more or less lost interest in Telltale games after the three I've played (Walking Dead 1&2, TWAU) but its been long enough that I could probably play one of the more well written ones and enjoy it enough (Borderlands seems to be that from what I've heard). I would say that they're not really games, though, at least now. The first Walking Dead had some actual proper point&click stuff in it, it was pretty streamlined but it was there. 2 was more of a string of QTEs. I can only assume they've gone that way for cynical reasons, the games would be easier to make that way and probably open it up to the widest audience possible.
I was wondering if I'm looking back at season 1 of TWD through rose-tinted glasses, but I definitely remember it being more of a game than either TWAU or Borderlands. I like the interactive story genre, but they still have to give me something to do beyond making meaningless dialogue choices. Otherwise it just feels like I'm watching some mediocre cartoon with choose your own adventure elements. I mean, Borderlands is light even on QTEs! It might prompt you to move the left stick and possibly press X to avoid an obstacle every 5-10 minutes, and that's all the gameplay. The rest is exclusively cut scenes and dialogue choices. It's not even a walking simulator!

For all its many annoyances, Life is Strange did this kind of thing better in the same genre. It had a simple but clear "gameplay" hook with the rewind mechanic and at least encouraged you to explore your immediate environments. Come to think of it, Heavy Rain did it better too. For all their amateurish cinematic posturing, thay at least felt like genuine videogames.
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jamesh
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Doomguy
May 29 2018, 12:42 PM
jamesh
May 29 2018, 12:52 AM
4. One optional mission has you hack into the Ubisoft San Francisco offices to steal a trailer for an unreleased space exploration game. Apparently this is for a real game, but it has run into development troubles so still hasn't been announced.
Heh, that's actually a pretty neat way to promote your game. I had heard that this one was a lot better than the first (which I never bothered with) so I may give it a try in the future.
It's definitely worth a look, and should be pretty cheap by this point (I got it for $20 on sale a while back).

There's definitely a bit of cognitive dissonance playing a game with such an anti-corporate message developed by a massive multi-national game developer/publisher though.
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Biceps Ben Six Pack Smooth
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Just adding to the Telltale games comments, I havent played the more recent released games but from observing the older generation games like Monkey Island and Back to the future compared to Walking Dead, they most certainly have gone away from the walking around the environments looking for items and using them to solve a puzzle for game progression.

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Doomguy
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Just finished Spec Ops. What an overrated game, holy moly.
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Sir Goodfellow
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Doomguy
May 31 2018, 02:10 PM
Just finished Spec Ops. What an overrated game, holy moly.
Shut up, it's really good.
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Doomguy
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I expected more from it to be honest, it's not a bad game but I really didn't find the story as hard hitting as I was expecting given how hyped it was, particularly considering that the gameplay is more to be tolerated than enjoyed. I think I liked the Dubai setting more than anything. According to Steam I played it for 6 hours, but it felt longer, like at least 8. I think that sums it up.

I'd give it a 6.5/10
Edited by Doomguy, May 31 2018, 05:12 PM.
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Moo
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The gameplay lets the story down because it’s a functional but unremarkable cover shooter. Good story though. I like the sand coming
through the windows.
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Doomguy
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This is a joke about how I somehow missed 72 71 (maths is hard) Fallout games in the last couple of years.
Edited by Doomguy, May 31 2018, 05:10 PM.
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Moo
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I tried Fortnite and while it’s definitely fun in short bursts, it gets tiresome that your options are either to jump into war immediately to scoop up good items (and probably die) or to land in the wild areas and likely avoid confrontation until the endgame. There’s too much waiting around if you play cautiously, which is generally the best option.
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Sir Goodfellow
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Tales From the Borderlands is excellent. While it sucks that there's barely any gameplay, the witty script, awesome pacing and memorable characters just about make up for it. It's even laugh out loud funny at times. The irreverent adventuring vibe kind of reminds me of the early Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies. It's very enjoyable.
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Biceps Ben Six Pack Smooth
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Started Life Is Strange After The Storm, bit weird playing the prequel knowing what happens in the original game.

I am totally going lesbo trying to flirt hard with Rachael before we all know what happens. Im also not trying to be a dick to David the step father because he comes through good.

Got through episode 1 and in comparsions with the original game, the plotline and gameplay is on par however what makes the prequel a little less interesting is the lack of the rewind feature. The newer game has a challenge the dialogue option instead and it is nowhere near as interesting unfortunately.
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NMANOZ
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Sir Goodfellow
May 31 2018, 05:51 PM
Tales From the Borderlands is excellent. While it sucks that there's barely any gameplay, the witty script, awesome pacing and memorable characters just about make up for it. It's even laugh out loud funny at times. The irreverent adventuring vibe kind of reminds me of the early Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies. It's very enjoyable.
I am really hoping Borderlands 3 uses those characters (it sounds like they might). I agree with the script, it is even better than the main series. Episode 5 is the best episode in any of the Telltale games.
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jamesh
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I spent some of the long weekend trying to get some of the online trophies for Watch Dogs 2. It helped make me appreciate some of the stuff that was going on during the main game.

Watch Dogs doesn't have a traditional split between multi-player and single-player modes. If two people are playing the game at the same time and are close to each other in the map, their game's may merge and let the two players interact. You could approach the other player to team up on some co-op missions. You could decide to be an arsehole and try to kill them. You could ignore them and travel away from them, at which point the two game instances will split again.

If you cause enough mayhem to get above a three star rating, other players will have the opportunity to enter your game as bounty hunters to help the cops take you down.

There is a multi-player menu that lets you select particular game modes, but this essentially just casts a wider net for opportunities to do those actions and warps your character to that location and joins the appropriate game instance.

The "hacking invasion" mode returns from the first game (essentially a hide & seek mode), but I think I preferred the new additions to the game.
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