The Miscellaneous PC & vidya Games Thread

[Razgovory]

I finished Portal 2 over the past few days.
I first played it many many years ago but for some reason dropped it and just stopped playing an hour in.
Played it from the start and yeah. It's good. But very short. Much prefer the arena puzzles where its clear what is a portal surface and what isn't to the bits in the ruined old offices, though they were cool.

Wheatley is kind of how I imagine you sounding.

[FunkMonk]

So Elden Ring is actually really cool.

It's definitely difficult but not unfair. Learning enemy moves and stances helps a lot in fighting, especially in boss and miniboss fights. I am still a terrible newbie though so I die A LOT. But dying is completely natural and you don't really lose much except some accumulated "runes" (experience points and currency, essentially), which if you're thoughtful then you are spending them before fights where you expect to die a lot.

The one thing I'm really in love with is the setting. The huge open world they created is absolutely engorging and stunningly beautiful in a haunting way. Exploring is a delight and sometimes the hour or so I can spare to play this game at a time is spent just traversing the landscape in search of interesting things to see or views to gawk at. The world itself communicates the story and themes so incredibly well.

It actually reminds me quite a lot of Skyrim, except honestly just a lot better in practically every manner possible.

[Habbaku]

The one thing I'm really in love with is the setting. The huge open world they created is absolutely engorging and stunningly beautiful in a haunting way. Exploring is a delight and sometimes the hour or so I can spare to play this game at a time is spent just traversing the landscape in search of interesting things to see or views to gawk at. The world itself communicates the story and themes so incredibly well.

 

[Solmyr]

The one thing I'm really in love with is the setting. The huge open world they created is absolutely engorging and stunningly beautiful in a haunting way. Exploring is a delight and sometimes the hour or so I can spare to play this game at a time is spent just traversing the landscape in search of interesting things to see or views to gawk at. The world itself communicates the story and themes so incredibly well.

 

 

[Josquius]

So Elden Ring is actually really cool.

It's definitely difficult but not unfair. Learning enemy moves and stances helps a lot in fighting, especially in boss and miniboss fights. I am still a terrible newbie though so I die A LOT. But dying is completely natural and you don't really lose much except some accumulated "runes" (experience points and currency, essentially), which if you're thoughtful then you are spending them before fights where you expect to die a lot.

The one thing I'm really in love with is the setting. The huge open world they created is absolutely engorging and stunningly beautiful in a haunting way. Exploring is a delight and sometimes the hour or so I can spare to play this game at a time is spent just traversing the landscape in search of interesting things to see or views to gawk at. The world itself communicates the story and themes so incredibly well.

It actually reminds me quite a lot of Skyrim, except honestly just a lot better in practically every manner possible.

So am I reading right that its Dark Souls as an MMORPG?
But with Skyrim elements?

I'm not a fan of souls nor MMORPGs but I do like open world RPGs in general. Wonder if there's anything in it for me- for years down the line of course.

[garbon]

What are some of the cool looking things in Elden Ring? I keep seeing that mentioned online but many of the vids/screenshots don't look all that different from say AC:Valhalla?

[Syt]

My first thoughts on Elden Ring. Spoiler free.

Spent 8 hours with it this weekend. And I've not even made it to the first major boss. (I play quite cautiously, methodically, and make use of stealth, so this playthrough will be looong, if I keep going blind)

It very much feels like a Souls game (DS3 feels most similar, I'd say). The familiar stats are there, the souls runes that you use as currency for everything, the usual mechanics around combat, healing potions etc.

On top of that you get horseback riding and combat (which took me some getting used to but is quite fun - I had to rebind the dismount button, though, since I kept pushing it accidentally during combat ), some crafting (the basic materials in the first zone seem quite abundant), and of course - the open world, sprinkled with small and large dungeons (I hear some of the main dungeons can be quite extensive). There's also a day/night cycle with more enemies being out at night. And you can summon minions - though only "outside", and even then there's "restricted areas".

I appreciate that the game allows you to skip the tutorial section this time (though I actually managed to beat the boss at the end of it first try).

So far I'm happily exploring the starting area, trying to beat some of the tougher enemies, and desperately looking for a bow or crossbow (I started as the dex class with two scimitars - I briefly tried a caster earlier today ... maybe I should have gone for that, but alas - anyways, I can still increase those stats later). Speaking of: it's bringing back build variety, unlike Sekiro which was very limited in that regard.

I'm weirdly reminded of playing Gothic 1 and 2 for the first time. Carefully exploring the world, and occasionally taking a wrong turn that leads to my untimely demise. But I'm having a surprisngly good time despite getting my ass kicked more often than not.

It's also funny how you apply knowledge from previous Souls games. There's an item at the end of a room? Probably a trap with enemies waiting in ambush. I have to say, items in the world (except crafting stuff) seem pretty scarce. But again, I'm only in the starting area, so this might yet change.

@garbon: Souls combat tends to be more free form than Assassins Creed. Also, don't expect long dialogue sequences, cutscenes, questlogs, or an abundance of map markers. You do get an indication where to go next (unlike previous games, but those were quite linear), but that's it.

NPCs in Souls games will have some dialogue they share with you (you're usually silent) - usually some lore, or some indication of things you can/should do. Dark Souls 1 had two or three NPCs with stories, and you had to meet certain conditions to advance their plots in certain ways. Dark Souls 3 had a bunch of NPCs with interwoven and branching storylines, but figuring them all out relied heavily on player experimentation.

These games have a tendency to let players figure shit out (and that usually includes the main story and lore). "Special" skills are this time more tied to weapons (like in Dark Souls 3 and its weapon arts - basically special abilities of weapons), though this time you can switch them out to help cater to your playstyle. There's no skill trees, though.

EDIT: I do suffer from the occasional frame drops some people complain about and which seems to be a problem with the current gen from nVidia.

[Josquius]

I finished Portal 2 over the past few days.
I first played it many many years ago but for some reason dropped it and just stopped playing an hour in.
Played it from the start and yeah. It's good. But very short. Much prefer the arena puzzles where its clear what is a portal surface and what isn't to the bits in the ruined old offices, though they were cool.

Wheatley is kind of how I imagine you sounding.

Stephen Merchant is great and I do like not being dropped.... But nah.

[crazy canuck]

Has anyone taken Distant Worlds 2 for a spin?

[DocDoom7]

Has anyone taken Distant Worlds 2 for a spin?

I've been tempted... but just started up with Stellaris and CK3 again so my gaming time has been used up entirely with those two.  Put on the wishlist, will probably buy on sale someday and add it to the vast collection of the Steam backlog

[Syt]

Yes, I was happy when it was announced, but I think I will wait a bit. I've not seen much of what has been improved over its predecesor?

[Sophie Scholl]

EDIT: I do suffer from the occasional frame drops some people complain about and which seems to be a problem with the current gen from nVidia.

I was reading a Twitter post earlier that said the PC frame rate issues (and maybe the console?) are contributed to pretty heavily by the Easy Anti Cheat thing they have. Apparently you can disable it but then you can't play online? No idea. These types of games are far, far beyond my level of skill and dedication these days. If there's a storymode in a game, it is 100% what I play. 

[crazy canuck]

Has anyone taken Distant Worlds 2 for a spin?

I've been tempted... but just started up with Stellaris and CK3 again so my gaming time has been used up entirely with those two.  Put on the wishlist, will probably buy on sale someday and add it to the vast collection of the Steam backlog

I gave it a try - In the first couple of hours I really had no idea what I was doing but I learned a lot.  Restarted and learned more.  Restarted again and became completely engrossed in it.  I had meant to play for only a couple of hours in evening over the weekend -  but I looked at the clock at it was 1 am 

@Syt, I didn't play the first iteration of the game so can't comment on how much has changed. 

Overall graphics are serviceable but if you want flashy modern graphics this game is not for you.  It is definitely more about all the little things and the large number of variables and decisions you can make on pretty much a constant basis.

Also each game progresses differently even when playing the same faction - so replayability seems to be endless.

[Syt]

In DW1 I left a lot of the day to day stuff to the AI (also, it was easy to design your ships to outplay the AI), and focused on colonization targets, diplomacy, fleet building/compositions/operations. I also had a lot of functions on "AI suggests" with me having final approval. It made the game quite manageable.

[crazy canuck]

I try to do the same, but I am having difficulty figuring it all out atm.  My main problem is trying to figure out how to properly instruct an attack fleet to move to deal with the threats that pop up from time to time.

The other thing is how to prevent everyone from declaring war on me - I assume I need to build bigger fleets.