Video Game Thread v. Wii4One

[TheOutlawXanadu]

Last week, I was looking for something to listen to and stumbled across a YouTube video called "A Thorough Look at Mass Effect". This inspired me to play Mass Effect 3 for the second time, and I poured close to ten hours into it this weekend. In my opinion, while the game starts off a little slow, the two main "galaxy unity quests" are pretty much perfect. The way the first geth mission starts, where you're walking in a broken spaceship in space while a battle rages on around you, is pretty genius.

After finishing Uncharted 1 and 4 a few weeks ago, I decided to resume the Mass Effect 3 playthrough I mentioned back in April, and officially finished the game this evening. I have some thoughts that I feel I have to share, even though probably no one cares and I'm the only person who still thinks Mass Effect 3 is relevant in 2016.

As most of you know, the game's ending was poorly received by fans, and the outcry was so loud that BioWare released an extended version of it to try and placate the angry masses. I think that, before today, I had only beaten the game with the extended ending(s) once, and it was a few years ago, so I totally forgot about them and expected to hate them...

It came as a big surprise to me then that I was actually deeply moved by the final couple of minutes of the game. The music, the cutscenes, the epilogue... I thought it was all pretty great. This was most likely a combination of: a) People complaining about the ending(s) so much that my expectations became astronomically low, and b) Acceptance that I wasn't going to get a perfect ending.

At the end of the day, I guess I'd say this: If I were a member of the BioWare team during development, I would have gone about the endings differently. I think that the synthesis ending doesn't make any sense and, much more importantly, I think that a perfect Destroy ending (Shepard lives, non-Reaper synthetics live) and a perfect Control ending (Shepard lives) should have been possible. However, the endings as they are don't take anything away from the game in my opinion, and I already feel like starting another playthrough.

TL;DR - The ME3 endings aren't that bad and have genuinely powerful aspects with the Extended Cut DLC. Mad props to anyone who read my entire rant.

[Nel]

Currently playing:

Bravely Default - Still taking it slow. The Final Fantasy curse still plagues me, as I'm losing interest quick.

Xenoblade Chronicles X - Beautiful game. Fun to explore these big areas. Story pales in comparison to the first game, and the music, while good when there's no one singing, doesn't really compare either. Hate the forced multiplayer. I just lost three hours of gameplay because I was disconnected from the server, and instead of just putting me in offline mode like it did the last two times, it rebooted the whole damn thing. Autosave would have been a nice feature. Probably not going to touch this for a few days because of that.

[ariich]

Last week, I was looking for something to listen to and stumbled across a YouTube video called "A Thorough Look at Mass Effect". This inspired me to play Mass Effect 3 for the second time, and I poured close to ten hours into it this weekend. In my opinion, while the game starts off a little slow, the two main "galaxy unity quests" are pretty much perfect. The way the first geth mission starts, where you're walking in a broken spaceship in space while a battle rages on around you, is pretty genius.

After finishing Uncharted 1 and 4 a few weeks ago, I decided to resume the Mass Effect 3 playthrough I mentioned back in April, and officially finished the game this evening. I have some thoughts that I feel I have to share, even though probably no one cares and I'm the only person who still thinks Mass Effect 3 is relevant in 2016.

As most of you know, the game's ending was poorly received by fans, and the outcry was so loud that BioWare released an extended version of it to try and placate the angry masses. I think that, before today, I had only beaten the game with the extended ending(s) once, and it was a few years ago, so I totally forgot about them and expected to hate them...

It came as a big surprise to me then that I was actually deeply moved by the final couple of minutes of the game. The music, the cutscenes, the epilogue... I thought it was all pretty great. This was most likely a combination of: a) People complaining about the ending(s) so much that my expectations became astronomically low, and b) Acceptance that I wasn't going to get a perfect ending.

At the end of the day, I guess I'd say this: If I were a member of the BioWare team during development, I would have gone about the endings differently. I think that the synthesis ending doesn't make any sense and, much more importantly, I think that a perfect Destroy ending (Shepard lives, non-Reaper synthetics live) and a perfect Control ending (Shepard lives) should have been possible. However, the endings as they are don't take anything away from the game in my opinion, and I already feel like starting another playthrough.

TL;DR - The ME3 endings aren't that bad and have genuinely powerful aspects with the Extended Cut DLC. Mad props to anyone who read my entire rant.

You're not the only one, I still think the Mass Effect is the epitome is story-driven video gaming. I was fine with the original ending, and never actually played the extended one! I will play the series through again one day, but there's loads of other games I need to play first.

[Progmetty]

I bought the trilogy collection box deal, I played ME1 about two years ago, started playing ME2 in April, stopped sometime in June, hoping to resume it but I'm just not feeling it enough.

[wizard of Thought]

Currently playing:

Bravely Default - Still taking it slow. The Final Fantasy curse still plagues me, as I'm losing interest quick.

Xenoblade Chronicles X - Beautiful game. Fun to explore these big areas. Story pales in comparison to the first game, and the music, while good when there's no one singing, doesn't really compare either. Hate the forced multiplayer. I just lost three hours of gameplay because I was disconnected from the server, and instead of just putting me in offline mode like it did the last two times, it rebooted the whole damn thing. Autosave would have been a nice feature. Probably not going to touch this for a few days because of that.

Both fantastic games imo, although the later part of Bravely Default definitely loses some narrational quality.
Xenoblade X on the other hand is simply great; despite some major flaws (plot, forced online mode) its fantastic game world and its soundtrack which I also consider to be great (havenīt played the first game yet tbh) make up for it to be a very enjoyable game. Also the lack of tutorial caused some major issues with me understanding the mechanics, I read for about 2 hours in the electronic manual how the battle system works when I started the game.

Iīm still playing Fire Emblem Fates and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE. FEF is simply brilliant and probably one of the best recent strategy games to pick up while TMS#FE has some fun gameplay and great artwork, but lacks in story and soundtrack quality.

[ariich]

Last night I made a start on the Dragon Age games; so far I'm just a couple of hours into Origins. Looking forward to this series, in general I love Bioware's story-telling and character development. The gameplay so far is a little clunky - very much the old Bioware approach from KOTOR but maybe slightly smoother - but as I understand it as the series goes on the gameplay mechanics are modernised and made much more accessible.

[ReaperKK]

Never played Dragon Age but I think Dragon Age II was the game that everyone raved about.

I've been playing Elder Scrolls Oblivion recently because I've never play it before and it's a lot of fun. It looks amazing for a ten year old game.

[Lynxo]

Actually, many fans considered the second game to be a failure, at least in comparision to the first one, which is awesome!

Ariich: I would recommend you also playing the DLC, since it adds a ton of fun stuff and missions that feels right at home in the game. And don't be scared by the negative reviews for the second one, it's still a good game.
Also, Alistair is an awesome character.

[ariich]

Yeah I've got the ultimate edition (or whatever it's called) which includes all the add-ons, so I'll play Awakening for sure. And yeah, II looks great so I'll definitely be playing it still. Seems like it's quite a lot shorter than Origins, so I guess parts of the fanbase might have found it a lot less substantial. Doesn't bother me though, as I got these games really cheap in a bundle of some kind (haven't bought Inquisition yet, but that I've started on the series, I'll buy it next time it's cheap on sale).

[Lynxo]

That's not really the main problem with the second game but I won't go into it too much, since I still enjoyed it a great deal and don't wanna discourage you.
And let's just say that Inquisition fixed just about every problem the second game had, making it one of my favorite games of all time.

[Genowyn]

Just make sure you play that one DLC of II that the whole plot of Inquisition is based on...

[ariich]

That's not really the main problem with the second game but I won't go into it too much, since I still enjoyed it a great deal and don't wanna discourage you.
And let's just say that Inquisition fixed just about every problem the second game had, making it one of my favorite games of all time.

Fair enough.

Just make sure you play that one DLC of II that the whole plot of Inquisition is based on...

Interesting - what was it called? I may just have the vanilla version of II - will need to check.

[Genowyn]

It's called Legacy.

[Phoenix87x]

so far, the new Deus Ex has been pretty cool

[cramx3]

so far, the new Deus Ex has been pretty cool

It's out?  I guess I don't follow gaming news very much.  I do want this game.

[Fiery Winds]

so far, the new Deus Ex has been pretty cool

It's out?  I guess I don't follow gaming news very much.  I do want this game.

Same, though I will probably wait for the fall steam sale. There's a really good DE:HR recap video (12 minutes) you are given the option to view before starting a new game in DE: Mankind Divided that's on their official YouTube page (spoilers obviously):

https://youtu.be/D42AsgO28ZY (Part 1)
https://youtu.be/Ws7MXsM2PRo (Part 2)

[Phoenix87x]

Here goes the new Metal Gear game, AKA Metal Gear Survive. I was curious what they would do without kojima. God help us all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3hjRKGrC40

[Lynxo]

Here goes the new Metal Gear game, AKA Metal Gear Survive. I was curious what they would do without kojima. God help us all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3hjRKGrC40

Oh yeah, forgot to post it here. I think it's hilarious. The first Metal Gear game they make without Kojima is...a side story, set in a alternative universe with zombies and monsters. It's like Konami is pranking us all. I couldn't stop laughing. 

[adace]

so far, the new Deus Ex has been pretty cool

Agreed. It's pretty similar to Human Revolution but feels a lot more polished.

[wizard of Thought]

Here goes the new Metal Gear game, AKA Metal Gear Survive. I was curious what they would do without kojima. God help us all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3hjRKGrC40

Oh yeah, forgot to post it here. I think it's hilarious. The first Metal Gear game they make without Kojima is...a side story, set in a alternative universe with zombies and monsters. It's like Konami is pranking us all. I couldn't stop laughing. 

Yeah, I also thought it would be a late Aprilīs Fool, but they seem pretty serious about it. The trailer is hilarious though, I mean, why zombies, in a parallel universe, in Metal Gear 

[Phoenix87x]

So the creators of Myst and Riven just released a new game called Obduction. Its being looked at as a spiritual successor to myst, so if you are a fan of the older games, I would definitely recommend it.

[Nel]

I remember the Kickstarter succeeding quite a while ago and then I just kind of stopped seeing updates on the project. Great to see it's finally out. Love the Myst games.

[adace]

Finished the new Deus Ex and overall it was really good. I'm definitely interested to see where the story goes in the next game. I might replay this one day as I hardly used any aug powers and mainly stuck to guns and stealth.

Edit: Listening to the Deus Ex MD soundtrack and it's awesome. Really fits the game and just beautiful on its own.

Next game release coming up that I'm interested in is Recore, which looks really fun but sadly doesn't seem to be getting a lot of attention.

[ReaperKK]

Who is getting in on the Battlefield 1 Beta today?

[cramx3]

Who is getting in on the Battlefield 1 Beta today?

I dont have the time, but I would love to.  Im super excited for it.  My goal is still to get the 1080 in time for release although that seems more and more unlikely every day that passes 

[ReaperKK]

I'm going to try and get some time in today because I have a wedding to leave for tomorrow. It's funny how every time there is an open beta for a game I'm interested in I always have something to do like when Overwatch came out.

[ReaperKK]

Alright so I had some difficulty getting into a server and playing but once I got into Battlefield 1 I had a blast. An hour just melted away and I didn't even notice! The last BF game I played was 1942 so I'm really impressed with how it looks, plays, and runs. The game is so great at making you feel lost in the chaos.

[cramx3]

Alright so I had some difficulty getting into a server and playing but once I got into Battlefield 1 I had a blast. An hour just melted away and I didn't even notice! The last BF game I played was 1942 so I'm really impressed with how it looks, plays, and runs. The game is so great at making you feel lost in the chaos.

That's awesome, I cancelled my weekend plans to go to PSU so maybe I'll have some time now to play this weekend.  I'm hoping EA learned that a successful launch like Star Wars Battlefront vs. unsuccessful launch like Battlefield 4 is kind of important.

[ReaperKK]

Well it seems the servers are getting DDOS'd so they went down. Either way I think I'll pick up this game when it comes out. I hope I get some time to play it this weekend. Rumor is that the beta is until September 8

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Was trying to play the beta yesterday but I couldn't log into origin in the game. Really annoying so I gave up after 15 mins, I guess when a million of players trying to play at the same time shit may occur. Will try later tonight.

[ReaperKK]

Yea the DDOS happened for a while there and they had to take the servers down. I was able to get on last night though for a few hours. Lots of fun, makes me wish I didn't skip the other battlefields.

[BlobVanDam]

Anyone played the new Rumble update for Rocket League? Just played a couple of games. I don't think I like it. It's just luck what you end up with, and everything just fucks you around completely.

[ReaperKK]

No I haven't, what's the rumble update

[BlobVanDam]

I think I showed you a little while ago. It's a new mode where you have powerups you can use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iz-dQifR7Q

[ReaperKK]

Looks like a lot of new mechanics to make me even more terrible.