The Official Gaming Thread

[Kin]

Dutch being an idiot plays into the story in my opinion.  The Dutch character is a glorified cult leader who has sold his team on the idea that they are a higher class of criminal.  They group has only made it that far because the skills of the team can overcome his idiocrasy.  I think this is shown in the conversation that plays out early in the game where Arthur asks Dutch what happened in Blackwater, and Dutch responds "We didn't have you Arthur".  It fits with the whole descent in to chaos theme of the game as people start to realize that Dutch is an idiot, and that their whole life has been for nothing.  How you want to play the game determines how that plays out for Arthur to a certain extent and that is difficult to pull off in a game.       

My take on it was also that we're really only seeing the end of the line for this gang as the "Wild West" becomes "civilized" by means of encroaching government authority. Most successful gang leaders throughout history were not exactly rocket scientists, they were just clever or amoral enough to see opportunities and take them through violence. When they encounter real and organized pushback by a force as amoral/clever/willing to use violence as the government is depicted in RDR series they tend to fall apart.

My thing, and this may be a little Inside Baseball/semantic-y, is I don't know I ever came to really see it as a RPG in a meaningful sense. It wasn't like Skyrim or Fallout where you're creating a character from whole cloth or something like the Witcher where your choices affect the story in major ways. At most you can sort of decide to what extent Arthur is a tragic figure.

 

[rdowdall]

Dutch being an idiot plays into the story in my opinion.  The Dutch character is a glorified cult leader who has sold his team on the idea that they are a higher class of criminal.  They group has only made it that far because the skills of the team can overcome his idiocrasy.  I think this is shown in the conversation that plays out early in the game where Arthur asks Dutch what happened in Blackwater, and Dutch responds "We didn't have you Arthur".  It fits with the whole descent in to chaos theme of the game as people start to realize that Dutch is an idiot, and that their whole life has been for nothing.  How you want to play the game determines how that plays out for Arthur to a certain extent and that is difficult to pull off in a game.       

My take on it was also that we're really only seeing the end of the line for this gang as the "Wild West" becomes "civilized" by means of encroaching government authority. Most successful gang leaders throughout history were not exactly rocket scientists, they were just clever or amoral enough to see opportunities and take them through violence. When they encounter real and organized pushback by a force as amoral/clever/willing to use violence as the government is depicted in RDR series they tend to fall apart.

My thing, and this may be a little Inside Baseball/semantic-y, is I don't know I ever came to really see it as a RPG in a meaningful sense. It wasn't like Skyrim or Fallout where you're creating a character from whole cloth or something like the Witcher where your choices affect the story in major ways. At most you can sort of decide to what extent Arthur is a tragic figure.

Yeah, that's a good point.  It's not really an RPG in the same sense as though games.  It's more of a cinematic game in the vein of Last of Us but in an open world.  I also liked that they worked in missions in creative ways where you get an Uncharted feeling like the game is on rails at points. 

 

[herman]

https://twitter.com/RedOrbFragment/status/1511507554425208833
https://twitter.com/RedOrbFragment/status/1511701185513746435
this makes me want the game...

 

[Heroic Shrimp]

https://twitter.com/juanbuis/status/1521418509514850307

https://twitter.com/juanbuis/status/1521972715128860677

 

[rdowdall]

Just finished Cyberpunk 2077, well at least one of the endings.  Interesting game overall.  It was definitely an ambitious project. The typical RPG archetypes are all there, with a futuristic overhaul on them.  I think it just needed a little more polish with some of the systems in the game, such as the crafting system, and the food system. 

 

[Kin]

Just finished Cyberpunk 2077, well at least one of the endings.  Interesting game overall.  It was definitely an ambitious project. The typical RPG archetypes are all there, with a futuristic overhaul on them.  I think it just needed a little more polish with some of the systems in the game, such as the crafting system, and the food system.

Agreed. I didn't finish it but I thought it was pretty solid game that just felt oddly lacking in depth when that was a big chunk of what they sold the game as having in spades.

I will say I was super thrown off by the stunt casting though. Every time you-know-who was onscreen I was very much taken out of the story and wondering why Keanu Reeves was there.

 

[rdowdall]

Just finished Cyberpunk 2077, well at least one of the endings.  Interesting game overall.  It was definitely an ambitious project. The typical RPG archetypes are all there, with a futuristic overhaul on them.  I think it just needed a little more polish with some of the systems in the game, such as the crafting system, and the food system.

Agreed. I didn't finish it but I thought it was pretty solid game that just felt oddly lacking in depth when that was a big chunk of what they sold the game as having in spades.

I will say I was super thrown off by the stunt casting though. Every time you-know-who was onscreen I was very much taken out of the story and wondering why Keanu Reeves was there.

Yeah, the Keanu Reeves inclusion was a little clumsy.  I didn't mind some parts, but other parts were weird.

With respect to the depth issue, I found the same issue with The Outer Worlds.  The overall game wasn't bad, but it left you wanting more.  It just needed to flush some things out to make it that much better.

I'm on to God of War.  I'm liking that Sony is releasing some of their games to Steam now.

 

[L K]

God of War is a far better game than Cyberpunk.

I have given up on worrying about the hype of games but I was pretty disappointed with Cyberpunk.  I absolutely loved the Witcher series from CDProjekt and what they were promoting for the game and what they actually delivered seemed to fall pretty short.  I waited until the PS5 version of the game was released to play it so that was with a big chunk of time for them to correct a lot of the problems they had.

Agreed on the odd Keanu Reeves inclusion.  It felt more like a game with Keanu Reeves in it rather than Keanu Reeves voicing a part.  Comparing that to say Lance Reddick in Horizon Zero Dawn, he voiced a character and the character was made to look like him but it didn't feel like you were talking to him in the game, just his character.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I also finally got around to playing Cyberpunk a couple months ago after being a day 1 purchaser and deciding to hold off on getting into it until the PS5 version came out. Honestly I was pretty happy with the game overall, and it was certainly miles better than what it seemed like in it's original state.

The main story though seemed very short, to the point where I was pretty baffled when you reached the "point of no return" in the story line. And similar to games like The Outer Worlds and Fallout 4 it felt like the developers focused more on the "action" part of an action RPG than I would personally have liked. Like Nik and SI said, just an overall lack of depth. That's probably going to be the norm for big games like these though unfortunately.

Also, I guess I could have just tried playing around with the difficulty more, but I wish they made using a netrunner/hacker build a little more challenging. Once you had things levelled up a bit it was way too easy to just take out large groups of enemies without even really doing anything. If/when I do a 2nd playthrough I'm planning on really not using though abilities much if at all.

 

[rdowdall]

God of War is a far better game than Cyberpunk.

I have given up on worrying about the hype of games but I was pretty disappointed with Cyberpunk.  I absolutely loved the Witcher series from CDProjekt and what they were promoting for the game and what they actually delivered seemed to fall pretty short.  I waited until the PS5 version of the game was released to play it so that was with a big chunk of time for them to correct a lot of the problems they had.

Agreed on the odd Keanu Reeves inclusion.  It felt more like a game with Keanu Reeves in it rather than Keanu Reeves voicing a part.  Comparing that to say Lance Reddick in Horizon Zero Dawn, he voiced a character and the character was made to look like him but it didn't feel like you were talking to him in the game, just his character.

My approach now is to just wait for games to go on sale in Steam and buy them then.  I scan the reviews to see if the game is worth the time, and then go from there.

God of War is a different type of game.  Much more linear and story driven.  It's like you are playing a character in a movie and there isn't a whole lot of choice over what happens in the game, you are just along for the ride, and to progress the ride, you need to have some ability to complete the task in front of you.

RPG's are more about being emersed in the environment.  World building is much more important because you become a character in that world, and your choices lead you throughout the world.  It's a different type of experience.  Fallout 4 for me sets the bar for an RPG, but I've been playing the series for a long time, so I am biased. 

 

[L K]

I also finally got around to playing Cyberpunk a couple months ago after being a day 1 purchaser and deciding to hold off on getting into it until the PS5 version came out. Honestly I was pretty happy with the game overall, and it was certainly miles better than what it seemed like in it's original state.

The main story though seemed very short, to the point where I was pretty baffled when you reached the "point of no return" in the story line. And similar to games like The Outer Worlds and Fallout 4 it felt like the developers focused more on the "action" part of an action RPG than I would personally have liked. Like Nik and SI said, just an overall lack of depth. That's probably going to be the norm for big games like these though unfortunately.

Also, I guess I could have just tried playing around with the difficulty more, but I wish they made using a netrunner/hacker build a little more challenging. Once you had things levelled up a bit it was way too easy to just take out large groups of enemies without even really doing anything. If/when I do a 2nd playthrough I'm planning on really not using though abilities much if at all.

I tend to like doing a lot more melee stuff with these games.  I didn't really do much of the hacking but did a lot of cover/kitana stuff.  The game definitely got too easy once you were leveled up doing that as well.  Even when you were found out I found the character was kind of a bullet tank and could run through a section just ducking for cover every once and a while to heal.

 

[rdowdall]

I also finally got around to playing Cyberpunk a couple months ago after being a day 1 purchaser and deciding to hold off on getting into it until the PS5 version came out. Honestly I was pretty happy with the game overall, and it was certainly miles better than what it seemed like in it's original state.

The main story though seemed very short, to the point where I was pretty baffled when you reached the "point of no return" in the story line. And similar to games like The Outer Worlds and Fallout 4 it felt like the developers focused more on the "action" part of an action RPG than I would personally have liked. Like Nik and SI said, just an overall lack of depth. That's probably going to be the norm for big games like these though unfortunately.

Also, I guess I could have just tried playing around with the difficulty more, but I wish they made using a netrunner/hacker build a little more challenging. Once you had things levelled up a bit it was way too easy to just take out large groups of enemies without even really doing anything. If/when I do a 2nd playthrough I'm planning on really not using though abilities much if at all.

I agree on the short story line.  I got to the point of no return and had a large section of the game undone.  At that point it's just a run through each of those things in each section of the map, which can lead to a repetitive feel in the game.  I had the same feeling with Witcher 3, where I spent a couple days of play time just roaming around in a boat in the Skillege islands just trying to hit all the special points on the map.  I hope that game developers come up with a way for you to explore the world without having to complete all these small tasks.  I find it actually takes away from the game in a way.  I spend more time trying to 100% the game, that I don't go exploring.

Also the difficulty I think plays into it.  I played Cyberpunk on normal mode as a samurai, and I felt that it became easy really quickly, which also lead to the repetitive nature, so I switched it up mid stream and started to play more as a netrunner, and that introduced some difficulty, but it did get easy again.

It was really cool though to go around slashing at people in a suit.

 

[Kin]

The main story though seemed very short, to the point where I was pretty baffled when you reached the "point of no return" in the story line. And similar to games like The Outer Worlds and Fallout 4 it felt like the developers focused more on the "action" part of an action RPG than I would personally have liked. Like Nik and SI said, just an overall lack of depth. That's probably going to be the norm for big games like these though unfortunately.

The thing I can't entirely wrap my head around is that it seems like big budget games are going backwards depth-wise. Like I think back to Skyrim or The Witcher 3 or Fallout 3(or even Fallout: New Vegas) and it feels like those games were deeper worlds with more to do than some of the games we're talking about. Outer Worlds at least has the excuse of being produced by a comparatively smaller studio and for less money but a game like Cyberpunk was many years in the making from one of the bigger studios around.

 

[rdowdall]

The main story though seemed very short, to the point where I was pretty baffled when you reached the "point of no return" in the story line. And similar to games like The Outer Worlds and Fallout 4 it felt like the developers focused more on the "action" part of an action RPG than I would personally have liked. Like Nik and SI said, just an overall lack of depth. That's probably going to be the norm for big games like these though unfortunately.

The thing I can't entirely wrap my head around is that it seems like big budget games are going backwards depth-wise. Like I think back to Skyrim or The Witcher 3 or Fallout 3(or even Fallout: New Vegas) and it feels like those games were deeper worlds with more to do than some of the games we're talking about. Outer Worlds at least has the excuse of being produced by a comparatively smaller studio and for less money but a game like Cyberpunk was many years in the making from one of the bigger studios around.

I think the longer they go they lose track of what their goal for the game is. I also think there are points in time throughout the history of game development where they focus more on graphics then they probably should.  When that happens, you blow your memory limits on textures and then you start to find that you have to make sacrifices elsewhere. 

I don't know how old some of you are, but back in the late 90's, there was all this hype around a game called Daikatana.  It was created by a company called Ion Storm, which is a company that was helmed by John Romero.  John Romero was one of the founders of ID software, which produced Doom (among other games).

Sorry, I digressed into a history lesson there.  Anyways, Ion Storm spent years on Daikatana, and one of the reasons why is because every 6 months they were receiving updated graphics cards directly from companies like Nvidia.  This caused them to have to completely revamp the graphics of the game every time this happened.  In the end the product was not what people were expecting and is considered one of the worst flops of all time in computer games.

Right now I think there is pressure in the gaming industry to develop games that look amazing on 4K displays, and perform at 60 FPS to boot.  That focus takes away from other things in the game.  You only have so much time to work on things. 

 

[dekedastardly]

Staaaaarfiiiieeeld. Who's excited for a new Bethesda IP? Early access Thursday,8pm. I've got the 100+ gigs preloaded, ready to go. Who's with me?

 

[rdowdall]

Staaaaarfiiiieeeld. Who's excited for a new Bethesda IP? Early access Thursday,8pm. I've got the 100+ gigs preloaded, ready to go. Who's with me?

I'm on the wait and see how it is train.  I'm excited and hopeful it is good, and that it can scratch the Fallout 4 itch that I have had for the last couple of years.  Just worried about over hype.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Staaaaarfiiiieeeld. Who's excited for a new Bethesda IP? Early access Thursday,8pm. I've got the 100+ gigs preloaded, ready to go. Who's with me?

I pretty much rebuilt my PC into something that can handle games for the first time in my adult life just to play it since it wasn't coming to playstation. Got a copy of the premium edition free with an AMD GPU I grabbed. It's looking like I won't get the steam code from AMD early enough to pre-load but I'm ready to play it all weekend long.

 

[dekedastardly]

Staaaaarfiiiieeeld. Who's excited for a new Bethesda IP? Early access Thursday,8pm. I've got the 100+ gigs preloaded, ready to go. Who's with me?

I'm on the wait and see how it is train.  I'm excited and hopeful it is good, and that it can scratch the Fallout 4 itch that I have had for the last couple of years.  Just worried about over hype.

I've been hearing a lot of nitpicking which I think is being generated by the PlayStation fanboys. I think this game puts Bethesda back near the top of premier game developers and will more than make up for the Fallout 76 debacle. I've been wanting a game like this since Freelancer (20 yrs ago)

 

[Kin]

I've got an Xbox and Game Pass so I guess I'll be playing it on the 6th or whatever. I'm looking forward to it but realistically even the really good Bethesda games need a little postlaunch seasoning from patches and mods until it's where it should be. Still, seems like a good time.

 

[Deebo]

I'm knee deep in Baldur's Gate 3, so I'll probably continue with that for a bit until some of the patches are out for starfield.