Steam Thread 2019: hey, Half-Life 3 is here *monkey's paw curls* as a VR exclusive

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Steam Thread 2019: hey, Half-Life 3 is here *monkey's paw curls* as a VR exclusive

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DatonKallandor: Aug 21, 2009; "I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."

Too Shy Guy posted:

FEAR2

FEAR 1 vs FEAR 2 just feels like the perfect example of a PC shooter vs a console shooter. FEAR 2 is just lacks that certain something that old PC shooters had and embodies all the worst traits of the post-halo console shooter frenzy.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 13:31

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 19:57

Hwurmp: May 20, 2005

Does Jydge have any cyberware or gavel mods that make the Charged Shot charge faster?

# ? Oct 15, 2017 13:51

Ragequit: Jun 1, 2006; Lipstick Apathy

Phlegmish posted:

Witcher 3 is insanely long, but I finished all of it, including expansions. Clocked in at 107 hours. The game is good.

I might tie you - I'm currently at 102 hours and have half (maybe a fourth) of the final expansion left. I did it over the course of a year though. Just solid quality through and through, even on a ton of side quests that had interesting developments and voice acting. Seriously how many drat lines of voice acting does this game have?

# ? Oct 15, 2017 14:36

Black Griffon: Mar 12, 2005; Now, in the quantum moment before the closure, when all become one. One moment left. One point of space and time.

I know who you are. You are destiny.

Homefront: The Revolution, a dumb game that's fun to play

Someone described this game as a janky Far Cry, and that description fits very well. You liberate bases, ambush patrols, collect resources, craft poo poo and upgrade your tools. Occasionally you ride a motorcycle, often you'll have allies on your side. You jump, run and shoot your way through a Philadelphia ravaged and occupied by North Korea. The shooting feels good, the jumping is so and so. You'll occasionally miss an obvious jump or clip halfway through a wall trying to vault a window.

The game is set in an alternate reality where the US hit rock bottom after mismanaged wars in the middle east (wait that sounds familiar) and North Korea is the world's greatest and most advanced superpower, exporting technology all over the world, including the US. After bricking ever piece of military equipment the US possesses, North Korea invades the states under the guise of a humanitarian effort. You're a white male mute loving dorkface who has to rise up and liberate Philadelphia and it's basically just Olympus has Red Dawn.

This how people stand

Now this could have been a fascinating exploration of how eternal warfare in our late capitalist hellscape creates insurgency, terrorism and brutality in a people who are fundamentally just regular people. How the actions of a power both mighty and oblivious can cause someone to strap on a suicide vest and give up everything. The game touches on that, it flirts with it, but it ultimately abandons it in the face of jingoism and outright absurdity. American exceptionalism and nauseating nationalism is bad enough, but in a theoretical America that was obviously never as "great" as the real one, it's just loving dumb. Even so, you're led to believe that you're fighting the good fight as you mow down foes with comrades screaming "America for Americans" and endlessly repeating the phrase "Nork".

Let's be clear: "Nork" is "Gook", but somehow okay. The game makes no effort to explore the problems of a racial slur disguised as a slur about nationalities, and it's loving weird and uncomfortable. I get the impression that the game tries to defend this hot mess by including some journals about normal North Koreans and a resistance doctor who objects to killing and bloodshed, but it just falls flat. The North Koreans are presented as obvious bad guys and war criminals, but then again, they often seem indistinguishable from American soldiers in Afghanistan or Contras in South America or any other example you can think of.

I don't know, maybe the story will twist and turn into something clever eventually. They have all the building blocks to do it so far, but I know it's not gonna happen.

Normal

The gameplay, however, is not bad. The basic shooting mechanics are solid, the weapons are satisfying, and most importantly; the shotguns are good. All of your guns and grenades have three different conversions that you can unlock; grenade types can be thrown, detonated by remote or proximity or driven around on a fun little RC-car, while the gun conversions are manifold and fun as hell. You can turn your crossbow into a flamethrower or a blunderbuss, your battle rifle into a sniper rifle or a mini-rocket launcher and so on. Conversions can be done mid battle, and so you'll always carry a number of options into every fight. The enemy types are pretty basic, but they're fun to fight against, and they fight back. Guerrilla tactics are important, but at the same time, you can truly wreck poo poo with the right setup.

The first area you're thrown into, after the tutorial, is in some ways representative of the rest of the game world, and in some ways not. It's an industrial area full of big, empty buildings, factories and pipes, and it's honestly quite boring. While the rest of Philadelphia is more colorful and varied, the theme of samey, empty buildings is repeated throughout. At the same time, fighting in an open world cityscape where you can duck in and out of buildings is fun and refreshing. The bases you assault and the points you liberate are also pretty basic. Sometimes you'll have to climb a building to hack a thing, sometimes you infiltrate and sabotage a compound. You liberate the city piece by piece, increasing insurgent presence and winning cash and upgrades.

We built our own world

You spend what feels like an hour before you get to shoot something. It was probably more akin to 20 minutes or so, but it felt way too long. Long, slow walks through Philly, slow, meandering dialogue with utterly boring characters and tons of America gently caress Yeah-isms and extremely blunt emotional plot hooks. Occasionally you'll meet a spirited character with a terrible voice actor, but most of the story is a slog.

Dana Moore, genuinely the worst character I've ever encountered in any game

Luckily, you spend far more time doing the unlock/liberation loop you've played many times before in far cry and the like. I've got the personality and ADHD-diagnosis that can appreciate a big world with ton of icons, and though it's far less engaging than the better Far Cry games, it's still enough to keep me going. Whether it's countersniping, jumping a bike into a base or hacking a vehicle to fire on friendlies, the core gameplay is solid enough. And the game is pretty. Philly looks good in rain, the mood and atmosphere is cool and oppressive, and all your weapons and gadgets are personalized and original.

At 75% off, that's enough.

Grade: I don't regret spending the money

# ? Oct 15, 2017 15:46

Rookersh: Aug 19, 2010

fyi, Homefront the Revolution doesn't have an ending. The ending is tied to the DLC, you have to have both ending DLC to see the actual ending.

The DLC ending was actually pretty cool, but it's still a DLC ending.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 16:18

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

Why is Dana Moore the worst character?

# ? Oct 15, 2017 16:27

DatonKallandor: Aug 21, 2009; "I can no longer sit back and allow nationalist shitposting, nationalist indoctrination, nationalist subversion, and the German nationalist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious game balance."

Phlegmish posted:

Why is Dana Moore the worst character?

She is essentially your racist uncle + the worst american jingoism + warcrimes are ok if we do it combined into a character the game actively tries to protray as something not utterly reprehensible. Basically the game spends all of it's time making your little terrorist group look like the good guys, despite doing what ISIS and the Taliban do every day, from IEDing military forces to straight up kidnapping and torturing people for funsies. And unlike the last game that did that (Red Faction: Guerilla) you don't play a character with a moral compass actively repulsed by what his allies are doing.

If you can manage to ignore the story and all dialogue, it's a decent game though, especially at <20 bucks. It also manages to have the single best lighting in anything ever. Colours realistically change as ambient lighting goes away, your simlated eyes adjust to darkness gradually, etc.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 16:42

Turd Herder: May 21, 2008; BALLCOCK BALLCOCK BALLCOCK BALLCOCK

Palpek posted:

/r/relationships/ posted:
My (19F) boyfriend (21M) has been lying about where he is at night. I thought he was cheating or partying but it turns out he has been playing Lord of the Rings the video game.

We have been dating for six months, LDR for two months. I have been suspicious of his nightly activities for the past week, and last night caught him in a lie; he said he was working late on the phone, and then I heard his dogs in the background and knew he was making it up and that he was at home. I got really upset with him, almost dumped him.

After talking later that night he fessed up, that he had bought a new video game (Lord of the Rings themed..?) and has been playing that at night, and was making up stories so I wouldn't think he was a nerd. I didn't believe it at first but he showed me on FaceTime all of his characters and that he is at level 132 or something crazy like that.

My boyfriend is not the nerdy type - plays college football, drinks/often goes clubbing, basically a "Chad" even though I hate to say it. I guess I could understand why he would want to keep something like that from me. I'm just mad he lied to me.

Should I be mad? I really believe he was just playing the video game because when I did not believe him he went on and on about how excited he was and how he pre-ordered it and how he has read all the books and whatever.

Apparently he is like really into it.

Is it okay to keep secrets about dumb stuff like this? I know that lying is not okay, but what if its about a strange hobby?

tl;dr: Boyfriend has been making up stories about what he has been doing at night the last week. He was playing Lord of the Rings and didn't want me to know. Should I even be mad at this.

Edit: The game is called Middle Earth Shadow of War

Anyone here actually have a girlfriend who can comment?

# ? Oct 15, 2017 17:59

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Turd Herder posted:

Anyone here actually have a girlfriend who can comment?

Placeholder.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 18:02

Internet Explorer: Jun 1, 2005

Turd Herder posted:

Anyone here actually have a girlfriend who can comment?

Yes, but don't tell my wife. :bigtran:

# ? Oct 15, 2017 18:05

Hwurmp: May 20, 2005

Turd Herder posted:

Anyone here actually have a girlfriend who can comment?

my girlfriend is busy supermodeling right now but she says both parties should try to forgive each other

Hwurmp fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Oct 15, 2017

# ? Oct 15, 2017 18:12

Turd Herder: May 21, 2008; BALLCOCK BALLCOCK BALLCOCK BALLCOCK

Steam Thread 2017: Some of us even have girlfriends

# ? Oct 15, 2017 18:14

Artelier: Jan 23, 2015

Real talk, if you can't be honest about your hobbies with your s/o, you either need to analyse yourself or your relationship. Possibly both.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 18:15

Ghostlight: Sep 25, 2009; maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me

Turd Herder posted:

Anyone here actually have a girlfriend who can comment?

Yes.

edit: her name is Middle Earth Shadow of War.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 18:16

Morter: Jul 1, 2006; Gift for the grind, criminal mind shifty

Swift with the 9 through a 59FIFTY

quote:

The basic shooting mechanics are solid, the weapons are satisfying, and most importantly; the shotguns are good.

I agree with all of this, especially the priorities. :mmmhmm:

# ? Oct 15, 2017 18:18

il_cornuto: Oct 10, 2004

Because I've just been playing them, I'd like to note that the first Mass Effect has great shotguns that, assuming you're putting skill points in them, can 1- or 2-shot any standard enemies at medium range no problem and only really stop being good at long range. Mass Effect 2 and 3 sadly have rubbish close range only shotguns instead.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 18:44

Kibayasu: Mar 28, 2010

il_cornuto posted:

Because I've just been playing them, I'd like to note that the first Mass Effect has great shotguns that, assuming you're putting skill points in them, can 1- or 2-shot any standard enemies at medium range no problem and only really stop being good at long range. Mass Effect 2 and 3 sadly have rubbish close range only shotguns instead.

The Geth Plasma shotgun in ME2, which is also DLC unfortunately, does what you want shotguns to do.

Edit: Isn't there a shotgun or two in ME3 that basically shoots a giant javelin?

# ? Oct 15, 2017 19:03

Hwurmp: May 20, 2005

Kibayasu posted:

The Geth Plasma shotgun in ME2, which is also DLC unfortunately, does what you want shotguns to do.

ME3's Graal Spike Thrower is pretty good at range too.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 19:04

Andrast: Apr 21, 2010

The range of the shotguns in ME2 and ME3 doesn't matter since you should always be charging into the enemies anyway

# ? Oct 15, 2017 19:07

il_cornuto: Oct 10, 2004

Andrast posted:

The range of the shotguns in ME2 and ME3 doesn't matter since you should always be charging into the enemies anyway

Basically. I didn't know there were better shotguns in 3 because of the weight mechanic - all the light shotguns were bad and I didn't want anything to slow down my charging.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 19:12

Cowcaster: Aug 7, 2002

Kibayasu posted:

The Geth Plasma shotgun in ME2, which is also DLC unfortunately, does what you want shotguns to do.

Edit: Isn't there a shotgun or two in ME3 that basically shoots a giant javelin?

the me2 dlc guns were all pretty egregious "pay us cash money for guns that are better than the ones in the game" but the geth shotgun kind of took the cake. you had the claymore, which did gently caress off damage but only held one shot at a time, and you had the eviscerator which did less damage but held 3 shots, then along came the geth shotgun that could fire 3 claymore shots, or 5 eviscerator shots, each of which had longer ranges of effectiveness than the other two shotguns.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 19:14

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

The ME2 DLC weapons all kind of ruined the balance of the game on Insanity, which was just the right amount of challenge otherwise. The only DLC gun I ever use is the Locust because it's the one non-lovely SMG in ME2.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 19:28

Gorn Myson: Aug 8, 2007

If EA decide to release a "Mass Effect Complete" bundle on Origin, I'd gladly drop silly money on it. But I'm not spending money on loving Bioware points.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 19:37

Kibayasu: Mar 28, 2010

il_cornuto posted:

Basically. I didn't know there were better shotguns in 3 because of the weight mechanic - all the light shotguns were bad and I didn't want anything to slow down my charging.

That's why you only carry the shotgun.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 19:40

il_cornuto: Oct 10, 2004

Kibayasu posted:

That's why you only carry the shotgun.

Holy poo poo

# ? Oct 15, 2017 19:51

Mokinokaro: Sep 11, 2001; At the end of everything, hold onto anything; Fun Shoe

Gorn Myson posted:

If EA decide to release a "Mass Effect Complete" bundle on Origin, I'd gladly drop silly money on it. But I'm not spending money on loving Bioware points.

Same. Even if they sold it at a full AAA game price it'd be printing money.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 20:09

Fargin Icehole: Feb 19, 2011; Pet me.

I don't know about challenge in Mass Effect 2. I played it on insanity and I noticed every single enemy had 100% aim on their weapons the moment you sneeze and stop hugging any kind of wall or crate.

That's not really a challenge, that's just fake difficulty

# ? Oct 15, 2017 20:29

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

So is the new mordor game actually good? I thought the first one was just alright, some neat ideas that really needed massive amounts of fleshing out (both worldly, story,and mechanically) to take it to the next level. Does it actually do it?

# ? Oct 15, 2017 21:03

Mokinokaro: Sep 11, 2001; At the end of everything, hold onto anything; Fun Shoe

Xaris posted:

So is the new mordor game actually good? I thought the first one was just alright, some neat ideas that really needed massive amounts of fleshing out (both worldly, story,and mechanically) to take it to the next level. Does it actually do it?

Sounds like it fleshes out pretty much everything except the story is a lot worse.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 21:06

Oxxidation: Jul 22, 2007

Xaris posted:

So is the new mordor game actually good? I thought the first one was just alright, some neat ideas that really needed massive amounts of fleshing out (both worldly, story,and mechanically) to take it to the next level. Does it actually do it?

It's more of the same with a bolted-on lootcrate mechanic.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 21:06

Andrast: Apr 21, 2010

Oxxidation posted:

It's more of the same with a bolted-on lootcrate mechanic.

The nemesis system is realized way better in shadow of war.

Having a non-trivial difficulty setting also helps a lot.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 21:09

SolidSnakesBandana: Jul 1, 2007; Infinite ammo

Gorn Myson posted:

If EA decide to release a "Mass Effect Complete" bundle on Origin, I'd gladly drop silly money on it. But I'm not spending money on loving Bioware points.

Is there not already? What's wrong with the Mass Effect trilogy set?

# ? Oct 15, 2017 21:15

Mordja: Apr 26, 2014; Hell Gem

Mokinokaro posted:

Sounds like it fleshes out pretty much everything except the story is a lot worse.

Some of the things I've read about the story make it sound like it's definitely worse and that's definitely a good thing.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 21:20

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

How could you get any worse than Shadow of Mordor's storytelling.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 21:22

corn in the bible: Jun 5, 2004; Oh no oh god it's all true!

exquisite tea posted:

How could you get any worse than Shadow of Mordor's storytelling.

sexy spider woman

# ? Oct 15, 2017 21:24

GrandpaPants: Feb 13, 2006; Free to roam the heavens in man's noble quest to investigate the weirdness of the universe!

exquisite tea posted:

How could you get any worse than Shadow of Mordor's storytelling.

Do you know how Gollum was randomly in Shadow of Mordor just because? Well, Shadow of War has Shelob and she turns into a sexy human woman.

Edit: Goddamn you citb

# ? Oct 15, 2017 21:25

il_cornuto: Oct 10, 2004

SolidSnakesBandana posted:

Is there not already? What's wrong with the Mass Effect trilogy set?

It has none of the DLC for 2 and 3, some of which is close to essential for the full experience. I got it on sale and ended up paying more for the DLC than for the actual games.

# ? Oct 15, 2017 21:25