Video game spotlight thread
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My bigger point is who gives a shit about Dragon's Lair?
Well I already made the point like 5 posts ago, since you're obviously illiterate, I don't see what point there is in trying to talk to you using anything more than grunts and whistles.
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You're the one who brought it up. The fact that it was first used during the paleolithic era and then forgotten about doesn't have any impact on the modern version of it, which has enjoyed a resurgence that began with God of War.
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Killed literally 100 orcs in a row. Got killed by a stupid cat monster.
Stupidly, this actually promotes orc captains somehow, even though their soldiers have barely hurt me at all.
This game ain't so great.
EDIT: this game's pissing me off. The Orc captains are like boss characters. It gave me THREE TO FIGHT AT ONCE. WTF. Then of course when you die, because you know, THREE SIMULTANEOUS BOSSES, they ALL get promoted. I gotta play something else.
EDIT: also the camera's fucking terrible. "Hey orcs, let's call a truce so we can take the fight out of this ruined church-- the camera keeps getting VERY interested in showing me nothing except a single brick, which, you know, it's a very pretty brick, but... I'd rather see the 12 orcs trying to kill me." You know in a normal (a.k.a. "good") game, they'd make the wall transparent if it was between the camera and the action.
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HELLO they were in DRAGON'S LAIR. 1983.
Yeah, but Dragon's Lair only had one button + the joystick, didn't it? So it would have been easier to remember what to hit.
Also, given the game's nature as a series of connected short video clips, it actually made a certain amount of sense to use them.
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Yeah, but Dragon's Lair only had one button + the joystick, didn't it?
Yeah? I don't get where you're going with this...
So it would have been easier to remember what to hit.
Meh. About the same. Most games only use the face buttons (A, B, X, Y) for quicktime events. Sometimes they add the triggers into the mix. REALLY diabolical games, like Resident Evil 5, do chords, but those are rare. (And Resident Evil is a Japanese game series, so you'd expect it to suck ass anyway. I only attempted to play it because I got it free.)
So Dragon's Lair has 5 possible controls, and Mordor has 4. But some of the quick time events in Mordor make you move the left analog stick also, so. I dunno whatever.
THE POINT IS QUICK TIME EVENTS SUCK ASS. Discussing the subtle details of exactly how much ass they suck is not interesting.
Also, given the game's nature as a series of connected short video clips, it actually made a certain amount of sense to use them.
Well obviously it was a successful game, but there's also a VERY GOOD REASON that genre died stone-dead the millisecond video games were no longer a novelty.
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Yeah? I don't get where you're going with this...
Geez. You didn't have to look at the console to figure out which button to press. Even someone as dumb as you should have been able to figure that out. I mean, you even quoted the answer in the next sentence!
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Geez. You didn't have to look at the console to figure out which button to press.
The console?
... you mean the controller?
Yeah, ok, I see what you're getting at now.
In theory, it's the same with an Xbox controller because there was some secret game developer cabal somewhere that declared "everybody has it memorized that Y is the top button!!!" And maybe that's even true for people who design games, who knows. But it ain't true for me.
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"everybody has it memorized that Y is the top button!!!"
The problem is that, while brains are good at mapping actions to buttons so you don't have to think about what buttons you're pressing, they do just that: map actions to buttons. As in, "putting my thumb in this position makes the character jump" is pretty much the same to a brain as "twitching this muscle makes my thumb move", so it feels natural. But "this thumb position means Y" is weird, and it makes you engage your higher-order processing skills, it can't be delegated to your muscle memory.
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The console?
... you mean the controller?
In this case, I actually meant the cabinet itself, where the joystick and button(s) are mounted. If I had been talking about a console like an Xbox, yeah, I would've meant the controller.
I thought the Y button was always on top, but i just did a quick GIS and the the XBox and SNES swapped the positions of the X and Y buttons, and the Genesis controller had x-y-z, in that order, so it turns out that it does vary from console to console. (I don't play consoles that much, not enough to have a memory of the layout of all of them easily retrievable, so I had to go look some of them up.)
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The X button has literally been in every position:
top
top-left
bottom
right
left
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while true, those controllers are from four different platforms (namely Nintento, SEGA, SONY, and M$)
hmm... no dickweedery in there.... PERFECT!
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The Sony one is X the shape, not X the alphabetical letter. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE.
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The Sony one is X the shape, not X the alphabetical letter. THERE IS A DIFFERENCE.
Yes, but nobody else cares--not even you, unless you think you can memorize the location of a shape better than the location of a letter.
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The Sony one is X the shape
A cross.
And now, on the thread's topic:
##The Evil Within
I'm just gonna do a quick and dirty, but it's kinda what Resident Evil would've been if they still went the "over the shoulder" route with RE4 but went more survival horror and less action horror. I'm not very far into the game at this point, so it may turn more action-y, but the current mechanics of the game don't suggest it will.
Of course, the game isn't without annoyances, such as the whole first chapter being a stealth tutorial where you are stuck walking slower and can't sprint, having to hide/sneak past a chainsaw wielding enemy. I considered the whole first chapter as "annoyingly boring" due to that and especially because of dying and having to redo a point where I had to "hurry up and wait" by sneaking to a locker, hiding in it, and waiting for the guy to break open a doorway that you can use to sneak into the next room.
Another annoyance is the roughly 2.5:1 widescreen aspect ratio the game uses:
(1920x1080 screen capture from PS4, area not in the black bars is roughly 1920x768)
Also, I personally think at times the camera is just too close to your character, it should be out a little bit farther. Resident Evil definitely got the aiming your weapon angle down better than this did.
But, it's still enjoyable and I already feel I got my money's worth (considering I bought it under a Black Friday deal for $25). I'll have to play more to find out if the game has any QTEs.
On the point about the aspect ratio, I wouldn't mind it as much if they put UI elements (health, weapon/ammo, detection icon) in the blank area, but they don't. Subtitles and the prompts for notes and audio logs do appear in the blank area.
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I'll have to play more to find out if the game has any QTEs.
Didn't have to play very far. Yes, there are QTEs, but so far I've only had one for "escaping being grabbed" by wiggling the left stick. Not sure yet whether I would rather have them to reduce taking damage from the quick cutscenes of enemies hitting me or not.
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Yes, but nobody else cares--not even you, unless you think you can memorize the location of a shape better than the location of a letter.
I do. If @blakeyrat hadn't mentioned the difference already, I would have.I have Cross ingrained in my mind as the "primary action button (on the bottom)" and Circle as the "secondary action button (on the right)". They're the buttons that are pressed the most.
I also remember Triangle for being on top (it's a ceiling of sorts) and Square being on the left. I'm a bit slower to recall these, but it's a sub-second delay too.
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Things to hate about the Playstation: They ass-backwardsized the cancel/confirm buttons when they brought it to the west.
Unlike X and O which were cancel and confirm in Japan and have the same layout and functions as A and B had in most SNES and NES games (the Genesis had a 3/6 button layout and can't really be compared), they changed those to Triangle and X.The most @blakeyrat-compatible naming should probably be:
_N_ W_E _S_With underscores because Discforce munches spaces.
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Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 always wrecked my head because O was confirm and X was back.
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With underscores because Discforce munches spaces.
That's weird, I can't repro.
Using triple backticks like you did:
N W E SUsing four-space indent, which for some reason gets a darker grey:
N W E S
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Using four-space indent, which for some reason gets a darker grey
Triple-backtick iscode, quad-space-indent isquote.
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quad-space-indent is quote.
That's very discoursistent with StackOverflow.
Can we stop derailing the thread now? To @blakeyrat: YES, I STARTED IT
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I do. If @blakeyrat hadn't mentioned the difference already, I would have.
What? No, I was making a joke. The idea that you can't remember where the X button is on the controller because it's a letter, but you can remember where the X button on a different controller is because it's a symbol, not a letter, is ridiculous, because a letter is a symbol.
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Hey orcs, let's call a truce so we can take the fight out of this ruined church
TRWTF: There were no churches in Middle Earth.
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Crosses and Circles are more memorable for analphabetic Tic-Tac-Toe aficionados than Xs and Os.
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No? Ok Tolkien never mentioned specific buildings but there are plenty of references to the good guys worshiping the Valar and the baddies worshiping Sauron. They COULD have had churches...
I've yet to play Shadow of Mordor. Just talking bs...
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Caragors get easier. Later on, there's no quicktime event for them. Sadly, that's ALL there is for Lastboss.
...But recently, I played through DmC. Yes, that one. It manages to have things somewhat like quicktime events, where the prompts are just some spot somewhere glowing blue or red, which managed to not annoy me.
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Ok Tolkien never mentioned specific buildings but there are plenty of references to the good guys worshiping the Valar and the baddies worshiping Sauron.
I don't think many people really worshipped the Valar. Or Sauron. Not like organized into churches. Maybe some people in the South or East with Sauron. The Valar weren't the types to generally intervene or anything (Gandalf notwithstanding), and pretty much cut themselves off, literally and figuratively.
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But weren't the Elves constantly singing songs, composing poems and telling stories about Elbereth, the Trees Of Gold and Silver, the glory and beauty of the Elder Days when they lived with the Valar? And the men of Gondor, for example, always looked West before a meal, to "Numenor that was, Elvenhome that is, and beyond that ever shall be". That's pretty dang religious to me! Albeit nothing to do with having church buildings, I admit.
And as for Sauron, it does specifically say that the Eastern and Southern folks worshipped him. Not in Lord Of The Rings, but in some other Tolkien work (Unfinished Tales?) in Numenor there's info about how they built temples and burnt human sacrifices to him. It's messed up...
Sorry for the nerd out. Been rereading Tolkien again (as if that wasn't obvious!)
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Albeit nothing to do with having church buildings, I admit.
Exactly.
And as for Sauron, it does specifically say that the Eastern and Southern folks worshipped him. Not in Lord Of The Rings, but in some other Tolkien work (Unfinished Tales?) in Numenor there's info about how they built temples and burnt human sacrifices to him. It's messed up...
Yeah, I thought I had read something like that, too. Of course, Númenor wasn't in Middle Earth. It wasn't so much religion for the elves, either, since they basically remembered all that stuff.
Been rereading Tolkien again (as if that wasn't obvious!)
I actually just finished rereading LotR last night (the actual story part not the appendices, yet). One of the new things that struck me during this go was the conversation between the two orcs, Gorbag and Shagrat from Minas Morgal and the tower at Cirith Ungol, respectively, talking about Sauron. They clearly didn't "like" him, and were just there because they were being forced to do so. They kinda dreamed about going off into the mountains and set up their own place where no one would bother them. A fascinating glimpse into the lives of orcs, I thought.
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TRWTF: There were no churches in Middle Earth.
Yeah well I don't know jack shit about Lord of the Ass. It looks like a church. Maybe it's an assotorium or something other dumbshit thing.
I'm playing it because it's supposed to be like Batman: Arkham games. And it is like those games-- if they were designed by a reject from Resident Evil 5's design team. And also they fucked-up the camera.
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Caragors get easier.
Haven't for me yet. The only way to handle them is to drop on them and tame them, then dismount. Then they become friendly.
Or use my first strategy and just avoid them and let the orcs and them fight it out and hope the orcs kill them.
I mean I get that they are supposed to be difficult enemies. I just wish it was real difficulty using the actual combat system, and not this quick time event bullshit glommed-on to the combat system.
Sadly, that's ALL there is for Lastboss.
What does that mean? The last boss is all Caragors, or all quick time events?
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Exactly.
But doesn't preclude them either :PYeah, I thought I had read something like that, too. Of course, Númenor wasn't in Middle Earth. It wasn't so much religion for the elves, either, since they basically remembered all that stuff.
Hey, if humans were more long lived we'd be remembering Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha too...
And there were bad guy Numenorians in Middle Earth too, believe Umbar was their city.They clearly didn't "like" him, and were just there because they were being forced to do so. They kinda dreamed about going off into the mountains and set up their own place where no one would bother them. A fascinating glimpse into the lives of orcs, I thought.
Oh Sauron is definitely a god of fear and hate, not devotion or love. When the Morgul Orcs and Uruk Hai are arguing too, the Uruk dismisses Sauron and Nazgul, while the Morgul more or less freaks out at some of the stuff he says. As you say, very fascinating to see how they think.
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What does that mean? The last boss is all Caragors, or all quick time events?
I honestly wish I could say the former.
But as for why caragors get easier, the shadow mount skill lets you instantly mount with an arrow.
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Crosses and Circles are more memorable for analphabetic Tic-Tac-Toe aficionados than Xs and Os.
"can remember where the cross is but not the where the x is without looking" is something I'm not prepared to believe exists without proof.
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In NZ, you have to remember 'naughts and crosses' and also 'draughts' in order for most people to understand you when talking about simple boring games. It was very odd.
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Minimum
I bought a 4 or 5-pack of this on Steam for really cheap a month or so ago and just started getting more into it. It's a fast-paced 3rd person shooter and plays a lot like old Quake or Unreal Tournament (though not quite that fast-paced). Certainly different from today's "tactical" shooters.
Odd blocky graphics as is the norm in this post-Minecraft world. Doesn't bother me, I hardly care about graphics as long as gameplay is fun and the visual style isn't distracting. There are several starting classes to choose from, as you pick up "shards" from kills you can upgrade your armor, and your weapon automatically upgrades as you get more kills with it.
There's a strange game mode called Titan Clash or something where you're escorting some giant robot into the enemy base to destroy it, and there are creeps you can kill to upgrade your Titan. Strange game mode but it makes sense after a few rounds.
And there's a classic Team Deathmatch mode.
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Ugh this game is pissing me off more and more and more. I can't assassinate ANY chief without 2-3 coming out of NOWHERE and joining in the fight. And of course if you flee, they only get MORE powerful. This shit is pissing me off.
The nemesis system, more like the unfair piece of shit system.
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The nemesis system is your nemesis. How meta.
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Well, if you kill all the weak ones, you'll be fine. Warchiefs don't support eachother. It certainly isnt easy to do that without dying, I'll admit. But if you succeed in finishing off several of them (I completely ignored the guy you have to survive waves of enemies to fight. 10 shield guys, along with spear guys? And a boss? NTY!) the second area opens up and the game becomes far more fun.
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Well, if you kill all the weak ones, you'll be fine.
That's what I'm trying to do but they're all grouped together in groups of 3-4, and they all stay inside their stupid keeps with the damned alarms and 400 mooks nearby and they're impossible to kill. And every time I try they get MORE impossible.
If I found one outside a keep I'd be golden. But there's like 12 on that screen, and literally EVERY ONE is next to 2 others who run and help. Believe me, I've tried the whole fucking list.
This game is fucked.
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No, again, that's exactly the wrong way to do it. You need to go after the red missions. Captains go off on their own and have feasts and hunts where sometimes one or two others may show up, but usually won't. If you kill all of a warchief's bodyguards, there still could be a few in his base, but probably less. If you can totally depopulate the ranks, you can take out the chiefs really easily.
The yellow missions are very important and the warchief ones are meant to be hard. It's also important to assassinate all the archers before you start on the chief, but it's been quite a while now since I triggered an alarm. You can sometimes even hide on a building for a bit, and the weak mobs will forget about you. But if you're in a major encounter, the leader may just escape and level up.
It's complicated, but very much doable.
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Fun game. I haven't played it in awhile.
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No, again, that's exactly the wrong way to do it. You need to go after the red missions.
THE RED MISSIONS POINT TO THE SAME ORCS WHO HAVE 39 GUYS AROUND THEM. Whether or not those orcs are in a "mission", they're fucking impossible to kill.
EDIT: I did do one mission that said "invade a duel" and I don't know what the fuck "invade" means in this game and it never explains it. I dropped biting flies on them but it didn't consider that "invasion". So I shrugged, got into a big melee, happened to kill one of the orcs by pure chance, the game made a big deal about how the duel was "resolved" but I never got a reward for "invading" it. Then I had to run because 40,000 orcs.
I just have no fucking clue what's going on in this game. Playing it is like hitting your head against a brick wall. You can't even grind to make it easier because your skills get "capped" based on how many orc chiefs you've killed.
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Most captains are fairly easy, tbh. There are a few that are absolute evil, like shield guys who you can't climb over, or guys who don't let you do a last chance. But a lot of times, bringing a caragor along is enough to make a captain head for the hills, at which point you just have to follow them and use finishers a couple times.
Another thing that may help is Gollum's sidequests. You get the wraith finisher at some point that hits a large areas, which is invaluable when surrounded.
But yeah, you start out seriously weak. For that duel you invaded, that's exactly how it should go at this point. Later on, you'll have double finishers every 5 hits, so duels are a free two captains down. Just keep whittling them down like that, especially if you can take out the bodyguards. I didn't play the batman games and am bad at this one, so I'm sure you can manage it.
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Most captains are fairly easy, tbh.
Individually, they all are. THE PROBLEM IS THEY ARE NEVER ALONE. EVER.
Another thing that may help is Gollum's sidequests.
I can't do any more sidequests apparently. All quests disappeared except "kill the 4 warchiefs." I can't even kill the FIRST rank of orc chiefs, I'm nowhere even remotely close to being able to kill even one warchief.
EDIT: and when you die, the game fills in all the gaps in the ranks so you lose all progress. Even if you die to a cat-monster.
For that duel you invaded, that's exactly how it should go at this point.
But I got no reward for "invading" it. So obviously the game thinks I did something wrong.
Just keep whittling them down like that, especially if you can take out the bodyguards.
I just told you, yesterday I checked EVERY orc and they're all in tight groups. I have no way to progress in my game right now. I'm totally stuck. Maybe it's a bug, I don't know.
I didn't play the batman games and am bad at this one, so I'm sure you can manage it.
The difference is: the Batman games are good, have a nice smooth difficulty curve, no quick time events. So far Mordor is fucking awful, and each time I play it it gets more and more fucking awful. I've played Arkham Asylum and Arkham City twice each, and I love that shit man. This game I doubt I'll even finish.
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But I got no reward for "invading" it. So obviously the game thinks I did something wrong.
The reward is that the enemy drops a rune, you get some skill points, and one less enemy is alive to be part of the groups you're talking about.
EDIT: and when you die, the game fills in all the gaps in the ranks so you lose all progress. Even if you die to a cat-monster.
I feel that pain all too well. The start is particularly frustrating in this regard.
I just told you, yesterday I checked EVERY orc and they're all in tight groups. I have no way to progress in my game right now. I'm totally stuck. Maybe it's a bug, I don't know.
I don't know what you mean by 'checking' all the orcs. They do all tend to idle in groups, but the missions generally place them alone in an encounter area, so unless another happens to wander by at just the wrong time, you should be fine.
Sometimes, though, you'll catch one while they're wandering around when you're trying to get somewhere. Those have the least chance of support, so take that chance when you get it. In other words, kill random groups of orcs whenever you can.
The other thing that may help is collecting legends and artifacts. Artifacts just give you points for unlocking upgrades to runes and life and such, but every little bit helps. Sword, bow, and dagger legends apparently make your weapons more powerful, which may also help. It's not an easy game, but it's not that hard.
(Though you might say that once you reach the second area, an easy game is exactly what it is!)
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I don't know what you mean by 'checking' all the orcs.
It means it took me fucking forever to free enough slaves to get intel on their locations, then stealthily traveling to where they are and using my ghost binoculars to tag them. They were all in groups. Not a single one was alone. I checked all the orcs. It took forever and contributed zero towards game process, except to tell me I'm in an unprogressible game.
They do all tend to idle in groups, but the missions generally place them alone in an encounter area, so unless another happens to wander by at just the wrong time, you should be fine.
That's bullshit. The duel mission I just described? By the end, when I fled, there were THREE chiefs chasing me-- and remember one was killed during the mission. (Believe me, I've played all the Arkham, games, I'm good at the combat part. I just can't fight 3 bosses simultaneously.) Which means this "encounter area" had FOUR chiefs in it originally. Or, more likely, you're full of crap and it doesn't isolate them for missions at all.
EDIT: oh and even more annoying, those stupid chief "intro" lines totally break the rhythm of combat and yank you out of the game. One of them is fine, 3 in a row is... what the fuck were they THINKING when they designed this shitpile?
Sometimes, though, you'll catch one while they're wandering around when you're trying to get somewhere. Those have the least chance of support, so take that chance when you get it. In other words, kill random groups of orcs whenever you can.
Chiefs never move, AFAICT. I caught one out in the open, once ever in my game. And probably only because I'd just died and it promoted him to chief and he was on his way to a keep full of 3 other chiefs.
The other thing that may help is collecting legends and artifacts. Artifacts just give you points for unlocking upgrades to runes and life and such, but every little bit helps. Sword, bow, and dagger legends apparently make your weapons more powerful, which may also help. It's not an easy game, but it's not that hard.
It doesn't feel hard, it feels fucking unfair.
Dark Souls is hard. But Dark Souls isn't unfair. This game is unfair, but it's not particularly hard. Which I think is known as "cheap!"
EDIT: BTW just so you don't think I'm a newb, I did the weapon upgrade thing where you had to fight 100 orcs, and I got hit twice. On my first try. Sure it's not a perfect run, but 2 hits in 100 kills is pretty damned good.
EDIT: and to add insult to injury, what's my reward for successfully fleeing from 3 chiefs and like 50 mooks without being killed? Jack shit! No wait, those 3 chiefs get MORE powerful. It's worse than jack shit! (But if you instead don't flee, and die, they STILL get more powerful. So... whee.)
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BTW just so you don't think I'm a newb
I don't. I didn't do anywhere near that well. I assume I'm generally far worse. But I beat this game fairly easily.
EDIT: oh and even more annoying, those stupid chief "intro" lines totally break the rhythm of combat and yank you out of the game. One of them is fine, 3 in a row is... what the fuck were they THINKING when they designed this shitpile?
100% agree.
Which means this "encounter area" had FOUR chiefs in it originally. Or, more likely, you're full of crap and it doesn't isolate them for missions at all.
What I mean is, if you go to the area where the encounter is going to happen, the captain in question is not there. They get teleported in for the event. You are certainly in trouble if others are already around, because captains (especially low-rank ones) definitely do wander around sometimes. I don't claim that encounters are isolated, just that they're usually areas that don't have other things going on in them.
I checked all the orcs. It took forever and contributed zero towards game process, except to tell me I'm in an unprogressible game.
Yeah, spying on them in their camps is worthless, and I agree that that's dumb. But it might help you find some captains who are weak against arrows, and then you can murder them and escape before being located. A few can even be instagibbed from stealth. But you will need to run immediately afterward if there are others, as you seem to have learned.
You're very much running a geurilla operation in this game. You simply don't have the power to do more early on. You absolutely do later on, which feels awesome in large part because of this initial weakness. The good part is, the more you manage to thin the ranks and escape, the easier it gets to continue to do so. But dying is seriously punished.
Oh btw, what's with the whole plants thing? It's cool that they heal you and all, but you regen anyway?
