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"Daily Game Chat Thread Thingy"

I'm sure we had one of these before, but as we've got nowhere else on the forums for general game chat, here it is....

Ohh, I'd forgotten about you getting Arkham Origins...

How much of an issue was Deathstroke? How many deaths was he responsible for (and indeed, how much swearing)?

On the flipside, how much are you loving the entirety of Gotham to play around in?

I am a button masher even though in my head I know that I should slow it down. As a result I can easily miss my counter attack timing. That was my downfall in against Deathstroke but the game also seemed a bit hit and miss with letting me know - when it didn't tell me then I messed it up. A rather lengthy battle which didn't help with having to repeat it again and again. I did wonder if I was going to fail at the first boss.

The map is surprisingly large and I can see why there is fast travel.

Undoubtedly essential for getting around later on, but don't be fooled, you'll miss a LOT if you fast travel too much, and it's certainly worth taking the time to look around. I found dozens of little "secrets" and extras just by travelling on foot or by gliding.

Deathstroke is the second hardest Boss fight in that game. Your second encounter with Bane is much, much worse... in fact, I think they actually patched the PC version after a while to make it (marginally) easier.

I have spent a fair bit of time with Horizon Zero Dawn and it has taken me by surprise. I was never overly fussed when I saw the trailers but I had enough of a curiosity to give it a try. Glad I did as I'm really enjoying it.

Went back for a spot of Batman last night but it isn't holding my attention. I think this is primarily down to 2 factors.

The first factor is too much combat. Last night I barely went 5 minutes without another fight and each fight saw more opponents than the last. I know this is common throughout the Arkham series and as impressive as the combat engine is, the fighting has never been my favourite part of the games and I'm rather hit and miss at it. I have recently put a lot of time into Sleeping Dogs and getting tired of the constant fighting in that too. Too much fighting and happening too often. Can't we all just be friends?

The second factor is that despite the minor differences, in general I can't escape the feeling like I've seen it all before and too many times.

Horizon Zero Dawn completed at the weekend. By the time I had finished the story and my list of side quests I was so close to the platinum trophy that it would have been rude not to.

After bagging my shiny little digital trophy, I moved onto Gears of War 4. It is everything I expected and I'm totally bored. And something like a 36.5GB patch to download - makes me wonder just what was on the actual disc.

What games are people looking forward to for the rest of this year? There doesn't seem to be a lot, unless E3 announcements contain plenty of surprises in June.

I'm looking forward to Mario Kart on Switch, Crackdown 3 and, er, that's it at the moment.

I've got Wipeout Omega Collection and Dirt 4 on my short list. Wipeout I already own on the Vita/PS3 so I probably shouldn't bother. But it is Wipeout and I'll probably cave in.

"Prey" is awesome, from start to finish. However, you have to wait until the last credits roll to get the full benefit; there's a "hidden" area just after these that blows your perception of the story wide apart.

I suspected part of it, but not all...

So. so close to System Shock that it's now my new favourite game!

I've been waiting for your views chas :¬)

It is so, so close to being System Shock for a new generation of gamers, and there are still enough "common" elements with the original Prey game that it still feels right.

Full 360 degree combat in weightless environments, for starters, is a nice touch. But there's a few things in particular that just blew me away. The game physics are absolutely spot on (some of the best I've seen), the sheer, often overwhelming, variety of ways to approach any obstacle, the visuals (of course!), and the fact that this is a fully modelled environment in every possible respect; the space station that this plays out on in fully mapped and constructed inside AND OUT!.

There are various bits where you have to go space walking to achieve a mission or reach a new area, and you can actually travel around the outside fully, full 360, just goggling at the intense detail. It's breathtaking.

On ways to attack an obstacle, here's an example.

There was a room, locked with a key card, barred windows on two sides. I could see a nanomod (the creepy eye injection power ups), some food and ammo stacked on a desk, and another door leading to another area. There was also a computer terminal with valuable info on it. I wanted in, but had no key card. So I could:

a) Find the key card (probably on a dead body somewhere in the lobby)
b) Break a window, use my Morph power to change into something small and roll between the bars (this would require me finding a box to stand on; coffee cups can't jump after all...)
c) break a window, and use my toy crossbow to fire a nerf dart at the computer screen to unlock the door (a remote switch was showing on the screen)
d) Break a window further round, and use my nerf dart to hit the switch on the other side of the door.
e) Find a maintenance access tunnel (a lot of the areas have these, so always worth a look; normally requires a detour though)
f)... well you get the idea.

The whole game is like this, and the further you go, the more options become available to you. So much of it is a case of "If I did that, I could do this..." or "If I had that, I could do it this way". The way Arkane have meshed all the elements together is phenomenal, and, rather cleverly, the more potent you become, the more difficult the game gets. I say "cleverly" because it isn't simply bigger nastier enemies, or "I've levelled up so everything else has too", it's that the more alien mods you apply to yourself, the more obvious you are to the aliens; they track you, attack in bulk and generally try harder to take you down. Plus, the more alien DNA you have, the more likely your own turrets and security systems are to see you as a target.

There's a ton of other stuff that I could mention, but most of it would be spoilers to one extent or another. Just play it, see for yourself.


Post edited by chasfh on 13/05/2017 at 09:53.