Witcher 3

[Nathan]

We might just get CD Projekt Red's next game, Cyberpunk 2077, before the turn of the decade.

There's just one thing on my radar at the moment: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

Good calls! I'm looking forward to both of these as well. Big fan of Warband myself.

[Avatar]

Been keeping up with the developer blog? It looks amazing.

--A

[Nathan]

I haven't. Can you give me the highlights?

[Avatar]

Better graphics, more and better diplomatic and trading options, better sieges, siege weapons, better commands, ah hell, click the link a couple posts up and go watch their latest gameplay videos.

--A

[peter]

At level 13 in Witcher 3 just now. First playthrough, and very impressed - though agree with Av, Skyrim had it for me as well. But I'm enjoying the experience and have fleshed it out a bit by reading the first book in the series as well. Geralt is a trifle one dimensional, but you do get to at least choose whether to be good geralt or bad geralt and apparently the end you get is much dependant on which way you go. I'm taking a sort of middle course so we'll see which of the 35 endings I fetch up with. I'm a slow player though and reckon that it will take me many hundreds of hours to complete. I tend to try to keep on top of all of the side quests and contracts etc as I go and this takes much time in my case.

I'm really into total Immersion in games and am ever searching for the ultimate experience in this line. I'm quite keen on trying the game Kingdom Come Deliverance for this reason. Though not fantasy or anything, it apparently demands full attention to simply learning your craft and doing all the stuff, including washing and taking baths, that we do in real life, which could be fun. It's rumoured to be buggy though and I'm not a fan of this so maybe, maybe not.

[Avatar]

Nah, KCD runs fine. I did hit a couple of bugs here and there, but they've all been patched out as far as I know.

I enjoyed KCD quite a lot actually. I bought it a bit dubiously, because it's a first-person view only, and I much prefer 3rd-person, but it looked so good I decided to try it anyway.

Combat took a bit of getting used to, and to a certain extent there is less hand-holding than Skyrim or TW3. Also, your choices don't really make much difference. Certainly not like in TW3.

But it is done really well. The most annoying thing was that you can only save your game under certain circumstances. Either on quitting, sleeping in a bed, or if you have a potion called "Saviour Schnapps."

When I started, I used a mod from Nexus that allowed me to save any time, however, last I checked, that mod was not working with the latest version. (May or may not have changed since.)

Other than that, it was pretty good. I can recommend.

--A

[peter]

That's good news Av - the bug thing has been a big question mark for me as to whether to go ahead with this one. First person is more to my liking as well so again (for me) this is a plus. I understand that the combat skills have to be hard earned in the game, but rather as a matter of intent on the designers part rather than due to inherent design flaws; sort of making the player 'put in the spade-work' in order to heighten the sense of realism and achievement. Does this ring true or is it simply a difficult system to master? If the latter I'd have to think pretty carefully about it because I'm simply not ever going to be a good gamer. I fight against my own limitations of reaction speed etc in the easiest of games, hence the reason (or one of them) why they take me so long to play.

[Avatar]

Nah, you can get the hang of it with a bit of practice. And quite a clever system really, reminiscent of the old Mount and Blade style of combat, where your mouse direction dictates the style of attack.

For example, pulling your mouse diagonally down and clicking will cut diagonally down in that direction, pushing it straight ahead will thrust etc.

Works quite well. And the other "realistic" aspects are quite good too. For example, brewing a potion requires actually physically doing each step...grinding the herbs in a mortar and pestle, boiling for a certain number of turns of the hour glass, etc.

--A

[peter]

Yes I like the sound of that! Quite often in these games, rather than fast travel I'll travel overland in order to get some slower pace into the game or simply just to take a bit of a break. I can appreciate the work put into the landscape particularly well if I simply walk through it rather than racing everywhere at top speed. I'm way more into immersive realism in games rather than simply wall to wall slash and hack.

[Rigel]

We might just get CD Projekt Red's next game, Cyberpunk 2077, before the turn of the decade. Other than that, there's nothing on my radar, but I just don't play much anymore.

Depending on how you count the decade, as it's being released in April of 2020.

If you go with all the social media "How was your decade" things, it'll be next decade.

If you realize that there is no year 0, then it'll be released in the last year of the decade

[peter]

I am not a fan of over the top neon - well anything really, but let's say games in this case. Cyberpunk looks likely to be nothing but, so I'll probably avoid it. It was the thing that put me most off while playing Horizon Zero Dawn.......a field of vision constantly going into a blaze of neon colored lines and shapes whenever you used your hud or any other time it chose. If the future is neon then I want no part of it! ( )

I'm back playing A Plague Tale: Innocence at present, and while the game is irritating as **** to play - full of puzzles that you have to repeat, endlessly getting killed until you hit the correct solution - it is absolutely stunning to look at. Out in front probably the best graphics I've encountered in any game to date. The medieval setting is rich in colour and depth, no ugly jarring in the representation of trees and rocks and the interiors of the magnificent buildings you enter ate crammed with fine detail that you could seriously wander round looking at for ages if you wanted to forget you were playing a game. The game itself is not that bad, but it is full of places where you can't progress without either using the materials that you need in order to upgrade your character's skills in order that you could survive these places, or alternatively subject yourself to dying an endless number of times while you figure out how to progress without being killed. The only way around this is to keep on cheating by going to YouTube and watching other people's walkthroughs, which seems a bit pointless to me.

Shame - a potentially great game spoiled by poor gaming design.

[Avatar]

I'm still playing Kenshi. (Rigel, you have to check that out. (Nice to see you around too.))

Will definitely be getting Cyberpunk 2077, but the early access of Bannerlord will be out in March, and that will probably keep me going most of a year. Then I'll get 2077 and RDR2. On sale.



--A

[peter]

I was set on getting RDR2 myself Av, but then a guy in my workplace told me that it simply hadn't worked for him. In his opinion it was not in the same league as the original and when I asked whether I should go for this or Days Gone his answer was emphatically in favour of the latter. On doing a bit more research I come across a bit more criticism of the game than the early reception might have suggested, particularly the shooting system seemingly an area which is problematic.

I'm thinking that for sheer variety the western is going to win hands down every time (and variety of scenery as well as activity) .......but Days Gone has a definite appeal to me, and the investment of time required for these big games has to make one consider ones choices very carefully. I've just done about 3 months (could be 6 - in truth I've no idea, but it was a damn long time) doing Fallout 4 and loving every minute of it ...... but am I ready yet to commit to this level of (err.....) commitment quite so soon. I've got a feeling that Days Gone would be an easier game to play, put down, play again than RDR2 which by it's nature would require wholesale immersion over an extended period in order to really get the most out of it.


And then of course there's Kingdom Come Deliverance............??????

[Avatar]

KCD is very good. I'll wait for RDR2 to go through some patches before I even consider it.

--A

[peter]

I've heard of these 'patches' before Av, but never really understood them. I'd always assumed that they were purely visual things - ie that say the image of Geralt or Lara could be made to look different by a superimposed computer coded image on top of the original.

But then, bugs in games are sometimes sorted by update files, or in the case of Skyrim the whole inventory was re-designed in an update that my ps4 installed of it's own volition shortly after I'd begun playing the game (it was much better).

Are these classed as patches as well? What do you mean when you say that in respect of RDR2? Should I maybe wait for these patches before getting into it as well?

(Big questions as I have games vouchers for Christmas burning a hole in my pocket, itching to be spent )

[Rigel]

I've heard of these 'patches' before Av, but never really understood them. I'd always assumed that they were purely visual things - ie that say the image of Geralt or Lara could be made to look different by a superimposed computer coded image on top of the original.

That's more along the lines of a content mod, although the Witcher games do have some visual DLC that changes certain characters' outfits.

Most of the time patches will be bug fixes, with additional/alternate content lumped in the DLC category.

Or are you being facetious and I'm just not getting your tone right over the internet?

[peter]

No Rigel - I really don't know **** about this stuff! The key thing is, should I wait for RDR2 to be 'patched' as Av maybe suggests before getting it. I frikkin hate bugs in games!

Is the game badly beset with them at this point in time?

[Rigel]

I couldn't attest to the state of the game, as I haven't played it yet. By all accounts it's much more "grindy" than the previous, and a bit of a slog to get through.

[Avatar]

Haha, patches are updates, usually bug fixes, but sometimes additional content, which are added to games after release.

If you've got vouchers / whatever, there's no reason not to buy it. You will still get the patches when they are released (like Skyrim).

You can choose to begin playing as is, or you could buy it, and then just wait for the patches before playing, like I have done with X4. (Bought it on release, (before actually) tested it, now leaving it until V3.0 and the Split Expansion releases.)

All depends on how eager you are to play it. Apart from anything else, I'll wait until it's at least 25% off, maybe even 50%. By then it will be well patched and optimised etc.

(Have you watched the Witcher Netflix series btw? Was better than I expected actually.)

--A

[peter]

On my plans for tonight Av! Pleased to hear that you enjoyed it - it's been fairly harshly reviewed so my expectations have been somewhat lowered as a result.

On the gaming front I'm torn between half a dozen possibilities; in the spirit of maximum immersion I only tend to play one game at a time and do so for an extended period. This makes choosing my next one fairly significant, both in terms of the financial and the time commitment. Here's my list; RDR2, Days Gone, KCD and Assassin's Creed Odessy are the main contenders. Lower down the list are the Far Cry games, Metro Exodus. I have Dragon Age Inquisition sitting on my shelf; I bought it cheap on impulse, but have my doubts about actually playing the thing (most people who I've spoken to about it seem to damn it with faint praise rather than enthuse over it).

Decisions decisions! In my current state I'll probably just continue playing Skyrim (second playthrough) until I fix on one title over the rest : it might be Days Gone however. My thoughts seem to keep coming back to it over the others (But then there's Greedfall - I'm forgetting about that. Arghhh! This is ridiculous!)