God of War Ragnarök is a very good game, but I have to say I really could have done without the Young Adult sections with the insanely boring combat where you pilot Kratos' son. Let's hope there is a payoff at the end of the trilogy for having me suffer through those hours long sequences because it made this game worse.
Just played through "A way out". Its an older title, but thought I'd give it a try given the hype around the recently released Split Fiction, made by the same studio. Im a single player type of person. I have never played a co-op game, well at least not like this. Having played the game with a buddy of mine, its clear it couldnt have been done any other way than co-op. And it was a blast. Even if some of the game mechanics like the shooting feels rather rudimentary. Highly recommend the game! Its like a six hour experience. We played it in one sitting and lost track of time. Im definitely getting Split Fiction.
Finished Split Fiction the other day on PS5. What a game... Not going to spoil anything, but the level design is beyond anything I have ever experienced, and particularly the end levels left me in awe. I have a hard time grasping as to how it was even possible to do, its a brilliant feat of game engineering. I can not sing this games praises enough. It truly needs to be experienced, and I would suggest you play it with a fellow gamer, preferably with a with headset and mic. Its not that hard per se (not for anyone who playes video games on regular basis), and I guess it can also be enjoyed with a family member or friend that dont traditionally play video games, as long as you have patience and willing to carry the other one. To sum up, this game is a reason why I play video games. From this point onwards, every new Hazelight game is a guaranteed day one buy for me. I went right ahead and bought It Takes Two on PS5, which I have not played yet.
Nintendo blew the dam open with their price announcements of Switch 2 and the games, with Xbox now raising the cost of their consoles. We are past mid-life of the generation and the prices are going up lol Not sure how much the tarrifs have got to do with this. But it looks like games, regardless of form be it physical or digital, are also going up in price to 80 dollars. Im not going to be a doom-sayer and be all "this industry is going to crash". Although I think that we are definetly seeing an ongoing decay in the AAA-space, with publishers coming down hard on studios and laying off people, unless their games make good enough profits. And they are most certainly influencing how the end-product ends up being, which explains why many games are just bland and soulless open world titles (Anthem, Andromeda, Starfield) , if they are not live-service games, online FPSs or various sports games etc. But I think there might be a "saving grace" in smaller and more independent AA-developers. Im playing through the newly released Clair Obscure Exp 33, and man what a title. Im only 4 hours in but Im hooked. The story, atmosphere, graphics, everything is top notch. Its hard to imagine this game being made by a small studio consisting of 30 people! I think this game can turn out to be very pivotal and important. It shows the way to other developers, that you dont always need a big publisher breathing down your neck and killing your creativity. I can see more smaller studios being formed from this, after the enormous success of not only this game, but even titles such as Split Fiction, made by Hazelight. And we will all be the better for it, with not only their games costing less (50-60 dollar range) but more importantly the soul and sheer quality going into those titles. Now Hazelight is backed by EA Originals, but it is evident from interviews with Josef Fares (founder of Hazelight) that EA has zero say in the types of games they make or how the final products end up. So its another AA-developer that is creativally independent, and will stay that way as Fares is on record saying that they will never pitch and "get a green light" from EA before doing what they want to do. The Indie scene is still alive and well. But yeah, Im kinda starting to give up on big AAA-developers. There are exceptions, but not many.
in Brazil ... Has so many many cases It is just one person doing all the things and phases at all .... there ... I'm the creator from called Genius vs AntiChrist 1 Science ...
Luckily as a PC gamer you have so many fairly priced quality games to choose from on Steam that the game price hikes don't really affect me. I am currently playing the two Horizon games and those two combined on sale cost me less than Nintendo is asking for a single $80 Switch 2 game. Due to the lack of growth on the console market, Sony, Nintendo & Co. are increasingly going to milk their existing install base for all their worth. If I buy a handheld it's going to be the Steam Deck 2 whenever it comes out. The better value is simply on PC.
Yeah my PC and Steam game library is quite huge, Im only recently starting to go through my backlog. Played through Portal 2 some months ago, which I had gotten on sale for less than 5 dollars, and it was one of the best gaming experiences. Also played Ori and the Blind Forest on the Steam Deck, and that too just amazing.
I hadn't played anything since Baldur's Gate III came out. Decided to jump back in, looking for something like XCOM2. I saw some refer to Classified France 44 as XCOM2 meets Commandos so I was intrigued. A few missions into it, it's kind of not really hitting very deeply as an experience. Definitely lacks the depth of gameplay and immersion of XCOM2. And even the original 1990s Commandos has better and more original level design. A bit of a letdown so far, will give it a few more missions probably but if it doesn't pick up, might not even finish the campaign even a single time. Some of the controls are pretty janky too, with perspective changes when you execute an action (meaning that sometimes you don't see your character carry out the command) and occasional impossibility to apply buffs to characters also due to environmental elements.
Finished Classified: France 44's campaign. Did not really change my mind in terms of my original assessment.
I played Ghost of Yotei. I finished the campagin but did not do all the side quests. Good game, but I was kinda burned out by the end. I have recently (after ghost) been on an Indie games binge on my Steam Deck. Shorter titles that have so far been an absolute joy to play (Limbo, Jusant, Cocoon). Cocoon in particular was incredible and had some mind bending puzzles. I have said this before, but Im probably going to lose more interest in big open world AAA-titles, and be more selective with what I invest time and money in, going forward. The indie games and AA-titles are luring me in in a big way.
I have tried Dispatch and found it charming. Perhaps surprisingly so, since I never played any of the Telltale games it is being compared to. Essentially a superhero story/workplace comedy that presents itself more as an interactive story. Think dialogue trees and quick time events. You play as Mechaman Robert Robertson, the third generation of a superhero who fought crime in a mecha suit. A suit that was destroyed in Mechaman's last fight with his nemesis Shroud. He is given a second chance by Blonde Blazer, a fellow superhero, and her superhero group. I think the thing it most reminded me of was an animation series, Invincible. And the voice cast includes various Critical Role members, including Matthew Mercer, Laura Bailey and Travis Willingham. Mechaman himself is voiced by Aaron Paul and Jeffrey Wright also voices a character. Not the kind of game I usually play but was made curious by the effusive praise for its writing.
I highly recommend Sword Of The Sea. Some of the staff that worked at thatgamecompany (flower, journey) formed their own studio and made this game among others. You can clearly see the influences from Flower and Journey. Throw in some water/snow/sand-skating (on a sword) and you have this game. The artistic style and graphics are just breathtaking. I believe its on PC and and PS5 (ps plus game). I played it on PS5, and really loved the tactile senses and feedback from the dualsense.
A decade late, but just finished The Order 1886. An amazing title, that was very underappreciated for its time. Critics at the time complained of a short and linear experience, but I havent been so engaged in a game story in quite a while. This game is a gem, that was undeserving (imo) of its bad rep and lackluster sales. Too bad we never got that trilogy, that was initially planned. Anyway, Im really looking forward to Crimson Desert and Pragmata. Preordered both games for the PS5. I just hope the PS5 can handle Crimson Desert. 2026 is shaping up to be a great year in terms of game releases.
Not sure if anyone is into it, “from software “ ( the creator of Dark Souls, Sakiro. And Elden Ring is putting out a 2nd dlc for Elden Ring… beautiful game and like rest of them, they are brutally hard, and you end up spending 1/2 the time researching the game online, since all quests are given by npc’s without any quest log…. Playing it is almost sado-madochist, jump off the roof, pull your hair out, but damn it’s fun and popular…. like all their games you just can’t steamroll enemies that are semi-powerful, you need to get their moves down and die a lot until you do. it’s on pc and Xbox. Not trying to discourage you because it’s a great game with a ton of online support since everybody is in the same boat
https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/6...ng-great-so-far.2138076/page-73#post-43595226 I posted the above and I probably should have put it here so, apologies for cross-posting but if some of you guys could take a look and post what you get for your kit I'd appreciate it
Hardware you and I are probably in a similar boat with our systems being the same age with upgrades here and there. I ran the test and I got: Overall: 3048 (35%) CPU: 30% 2d : 67% 3d: 53% Memory: 17% Disk: 25% What is odd is my GPD is a 6G Nividia 1080 GTX which should be underperforming next to yours? I think you might be on to something re: the older MB being a bottleneck. Not sure how prices are on hardware or how savvy you are, but you can buy MB/CPU kits that would take care of that issue. Not hard to install, but you need to make sure your RAM is compatible, or just get new RAM. You also need to obviously backup your installed software, b/c you would be doing essentially a wipe. I assume you are running SSD drive(S)? If not get at least 2. One for the Windows OS, and load up software, and another for applications/games. I would get the advice and a rough quote on this from a local PC shop, and show them the results. . What I find strange is that ESO has been running fine (up[ until recently?) Lag/choppiness does get slightly worse in heavy populated areas like towns/heavy PVP, but I havent played in years since I sold my account. I doubt they did some major graphics overhaul that would up the suggested standards
I used to be in the PC business, (and built this machine from scratch and have fitted all the upgrades myself), so I'm quite comfortable doing that. Cheers. That's still a lot better than mine. I've ended up doing a major upgrade with a MB and processor, bundle and the appropriate memory. I'm not clear whether it includes the heatsink and cooling yet but there's a week in between the MB and memory turning up so there's plenty of time to order it if not. It's these 2 items... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C4FTD816?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1 https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B097K54WGV?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1 I'll report back when I have it up and running.
I'm sure memory would have been higher if I had it overclocked but I haven't bothered with that as I haven't found it necessary
Impressive... I think Not sure I'm gonna need THAT level of performance but we'll see. I just wanted to spend a few hundred to upgrade my existing rig.
Anyhooo, these are some pics from the upgrade process. I've started it as the SSD turned up unexpectedly today instead of monday which was the delivery date they said so I'm in the process of cloning my old 3.5" 1Tb HDD to a new 2.5" 1Tb SSD, These are the drives connected outside the system. I put an anti-static bag underneath them before switching stuff on... Bios finds the drive with the old HDD and my other 2.5" 1Tb SSD which has linux on it... Booted into a GParted Drive. I ended up downloading a GP live boot USB ISO and sticking it on a stick I had lying around as I couldn't remember if I could run it from the linux drive at the same time as it's running. I'm pretty certain I could have but I haven't done any of this stuff for a LONG time, so... Copy and paste the partitions, making sure I'm doing it to and from the right disk, obviously Click the green 'Apply' tick and off she goes... I'll let you guys know how I get on. I'm guessing I'll have to disconnect the original drive before attempting to boot as otherwise they'll have the same drive UUID. Only other thing that I'm envisaging is having to make it bootable again. BITD that was simply a matter of rewriting the MBR but now we've got all this UEFI crap so it's more complicated. The ram for the new board turns up on monday so hopefully I'll have the drives sorted although, again, they'll probably be driver and other stuff to sort out. Anyway, wish me luck
Right, so, bits that were expected to turn up on Monday, actually turned up on Saturday and Sunday so spent most of yesterday pratting around getting them working. I was gonna put the new MB on an anti-static bag for a while outside the machine to get it going but decided to 'bite the bullet' and just remove the old MB and assume it will all work OK. Reconsidered that decision at various points but that was me being dumb or, more to the point, not having done this stuff for over a decade and forgetting what I already knew. Well, the details change, obviously, with new tech but the basics don't. Old MB out of the machine. It still works fine but I doubt it's worth selling, tbh. New motherboard in the machine, (I removed the PSU to make it easier to get it in), and with ram installed Then put the PSU in the case and put ram into correct slots this time, (yeah... you're right,,, I probably should have checked the manual before just putting in slots 1 and 2 ). Then realised I couldn't remember the precise PSU connector cables and probably need to check them before leaving the cables still in the PSU and not being able to see how they were laid out... Put the NVidia GPU in and connected up the rest of the MB cable's to see if I got a sign of life. Pressed the go button on the front of the case... nothing. No beeps, nothing! Then realised I'd forgotten to connect up the little loudspeaker/beeper thingie. That might explain why there's no beeps. Try again... nothing! Scratch head... scratch balls... TLW says dinner is ready so leave it for a while. Whilst having homemade cottage pie, (deslish, BTW), remember I'd forgotten to connect up the case power on button which I was pressing... yeah, that might have something to do with it. Used a screwdriver to short out the power connectors on the MB, (as that's all the connector does anyway), and surprise, surprise.. it starts working, ableit nothing on the screen Anyway, got it going and re-ran the tests and it's a LOT quicker in use but still not right as the SSD drives seem to be slow... Well, not in use. They're pretty much like lightning compared to my old 1Tb HDD but the tests say they're slower than many other people's ones... The graphics, memory and cpu give an average of being quicker than roughly 60% of other users PC's but the disk speed means I'm slower than 87% of machines out there, on that measure at least Bearing in mind this is a 'KingSpec 1TB 2.5" SATA III 6Gb/s SSD, Read Speed up to 550MB/s' on a SATA 3 6G motherboard, that doesn't seem quite right. Presumably, I've got it connected to the wrong connectors or something equally idiotic so, more investigating to do