#guys i just need you to play 2 fps games (+ a few dlcs) and one interactive movie choices matters type of game for me

[daz4i]

is it too much to ask for.

[call-of-duty-black-ops-cog1]

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War cracked Archives - InstantDown

💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥 In certain dark scenes NPC models will be entirely black such as Viktor Reznov in the gulag elevator scene, and the rat tunnels, again with Viktor Reznov appearing completely black. After installing the game on Steam Deck it will have an odd resolution. You just have to correct it in the menus. Make sure to tune down the graphics settings in order to make the larger maps playable, otherwise performance will drop and GPU usage will be maximized. Control inputs function okay through Community template that simulates steam controller, though all zombies maps crash a few seconds into their load screens. Campaign stutters, but is technically playable. Controller support is lacking and not enabled by default. I had to use the left trackpad as arrow keys so I could select items since the left joystick was not working in menus. I also tried to use the right track pad as a mouse, but that didn't seem to work in game. I had a few hitches here and there during gameplay, but I'm not sure how much of that is the game and how much of that is Proton. Even on the lowest graphical settings, I got major stuttering. Higher graphical settings made the game unbearable to play. Performance is far worse than on windows, had to turn everything off except texture quality to get more than 60 fps. DLC zombie maps Ascension, Call of the dead, and Shangri La require multiplayer to be installed otherwise will crash on load. Made it to level 31 on kino. Zombies would not launch at all black ops server was off? Been playing through the veteran campaign so far, no issues to report! Stuttering here and there but to be expected. Rather smooth once it levels out. Just generally lags a lot and framedrops constantly wouldnt surprise me if it suddenly crashed aswell. Hilarious artefact where the wire of the zipline in the first mission isn't rendered, not a playability issue. As others have noted, when the game engine goes to grab the camera for a cutscene it may drop some mouse input. Input was completely accurate, although did stutter at times, clicking "set controls to default" did help slightly, although the issue still persisted just less consistently. FPS drops, Unchecking "Sync every frame" helped slightly. When using black ops that now supposedly works with steam play for linux sometimes for me it just stops working and then I can't play it and it won't let me re-download it. I now just play black ops on wine steam as well as black ops 2. All I do in Lutris is set wine steam runner settings to lutris-fshack After that you can download the game through the gui interface of wine steam or manually enter the steam app id in lutris and use whatever runner for the game. I need to be able to see the gui of wine steam to enable steam input to allow me to play with my controller. The game runs fairly well after a hot minute when it's done compiling shaders with dxvk which takes a few minutes after a map is loaded. This method works the best for reliability and for me personally. Player and enemy weapon audio is missing only tested in multiplayer, likely present in singleplayer modes as well. Other audio, such as the announcer and RC-XD engine sounds, could still be heard fine. I used Proton experimental and i've activated the "precashed shaders" option in the video settings. As this title depends on the latest version of Proton Experimental you may run into issues installing it see my previous post for an outline. Sadly if your default install location isn't your bundles Linux one Proton might get corrupted into an unusable and even uninstallable state as it was the case for me. It required a full uninstall of steam along with manually purging many leftover files. Alternatively you may try to move the install into a new library location and then delete said library from your drive and disconnect it from steam to force Proton Experimental into an uninstalled state. When it works, it works well but as with many things when it breaks it can be a really bad time to set up again. Does not even install without massive manual work. It appears that some version of the game is downloaded and then patched before it runs. The patching function appears to run inside Proton, but crashes repeatedly on Proton Experimental and the latest stable release leading to a "Steam Servers are too busy to handle your request" Error Trying to get it to boot after the patch using Experimental does not work for me as the emulated C-drive is cleared when switching back. Manually inserting the Proton GE patched files into Experimental got it to pass the "Completing Installation" phase and launched into the first time setup. For a brief second the MS Redistributables window popped up with a progress bar and was skipped immediately, this happens on every launch attempt. After that no game window ever opens up and the "Playing" changes to "Ready to launch" again as it silently crashes. I'm unable to get log output and have been watching the processes start and die in the System Monitor. I've tested multiple Kernels, reinstalled the game and Steam and generally every reasonable thing like clearing Steams download cache and manually deleting cache files. The only part left for me to try is to install it in a clean Windows install and copy the files over after the patching process. Background trees in the campaign exhibit black flickering and artifacting in the form of lines extending toward the origin of the map. Framerate tends to stutter a bit during the campaign, even with shader warming enabled. Performance penalty seems slightly worse than typical for games running through Wine. I've tried to run Black Ops with numerous different versions of Proton in the past to no avail, but relatively recently this has come to my attention so I decided to give Black Ops another try with the Steam Beta client and Proton Experimental. It initially started the same as it used to with steam saying that it's running but no apparent graphical window to back that up, but after 15 or so seconds the game window appeared and the game ran relatively well minus first time cutscene rendering and initial shader compilation of course. I did not try Multiplayer yet but I felt like it was worth reporting that Blacks Ops at least in Single Player does in fact work now. My controller isn't really detected in just solo black ops, but in black ops multiplayer it was detected. Older Call of Duty games never liked any mice exceeding Hz polling rate, might be related to that since the lowest mine goes is Hz. Valve has added support for their CEG DRM in the latest steam beta with proton experimental, making the game fully playable from what i can tell. Everything worked great for me now, I was able to go in campaign, start playing and earn achievements! Whenever you Alt-Tab while fullscreen you get a black screen when you go back in, forcing you to restart the game. I had moments where my mouse would be slow, then speed up. Controller works perfectly it doesn't work in menus though. The vanilla game, with nothing done to it, it won't boot at all. Why rate this game bronze, if all we managed to do was crack it? This game shouldn't be rated anything higher than borked until the game works legit and with no cracks. ProtonDB is a passion project from bdefore and a dedicated community of reporters. Call of Duty: Black Ops. Natively Supports:. Massively Multiplayer. Story Rich. Great Soundtrack. Online Co-Op. Cold War. Deck Verified Status. HauptHakan 3 reports. Tinker Steps: Changed configuration. Control Layout: Switch To Official. Control Layout Customization: Grip Buttons. Left trackpad up and down arrows. HG Kigen 9 reports. Graphics: Minor Artifacts. Jenya reports. Control Layout Customization: Other. Difficult To Read Text:. Overall online : Excellent. Bretgrenz 3 reports. Performance: Slight Performance Problems. Performance is poor on higher graphics settings. Instability: Occasionally. Significant Bugs:. Tinker Steps: Switch to experimental. Installs: Yes. Opens: Yes. Starts Play: No. Schmitzel 1 report. Input: Controller Mapping, Responsiveness. ColdTrilogy 2 reports. Tinker Steps: Custom Proton. Performance: Significant Performance Problems. When not in combat game runs fps, but when in combat game runs fps. Overall online : Awful Really bad fps to the point you cant even play it. Custom Proton:. Distro: Linux Mint Kernel: 5. RAM: 32 GB. WORM 11 reports. Tinker Steps: Other. Input: Inaccuracy. It felt like the sensitivity was all over the place. Very frustrating. Proton 7 worked best but still very rough. Proton 7. Distro: Manjaro Linux. GPU Driver: 4. Quantum 21 reports. Audio: Crackling. Stutters, including audio crackling. Significant stuttering makes it mostly unplayable. Custom Proton: GE-Proton Distro: Pop! RAM: 8 GB. CPU: Intel Core i 3. DeZtro 8 reports. Overall local : Excellent. RAM: 16 GB. Tinker Steps: Switch to experimental, Set launch options. Opens: No. Proton Experimental. Audio: Missing. Graphics: Missing Textures. Some objects don't render. Mouse accuracy has frequent dips. Distro: Arch Linux. QR-Code 4 reports. Input: Inaccuracy, Lag. Distro: ArchLinux. Sasquate 25 reports. Input: Drifting, Inaccuracy. Input felt a bit off, and mouse sensitivity was very inconsistent. Significant stuttering issues, that go away after some play time for the most part. RAM: 48 GB. Mouse isn't precise at all, makes it really unconfortable to play. Distro: Fedora Linux 35 Workstation Edition. Sean 13 reports. HELLO 4 reports. Input: Lag. Game was very laggy especially when moving the mouse cursor. Instability: Not Listed. Alexis 23 reports. Frame dips, not entirely sure whether it's the game engine or not. Its a good game, the minor issues don't detract from the message. Proton 6. Meyhaps 3 reports. Overall online : Acceptable. Played using Proton 7. CPU: Intel Core i 2. Significant Bugs: Yes. Overall online : Didn't Work. Overall local : Good. Distro: team rocket os. RAM: 64 GB. Framerate stutters when you look around on both kbm and gamepad. Overall online : Good. Grimslade 5 reports. Anti-cheat issues appear resolved and now the game launches without issue as of Proton 6. Tyler 1 report. Everything seems to run fine apart from low fps between 20 - 90fps. Anti-Cheat: Other. Rider1 1 report. SpidFightFR 51 reports. Announcer and voice lines worked but weapon and killstreak audio cut out eventually. Distro: Arch Linux 64 bits. Dynamotivation 3 reports. Distro: Zorin OS Installs: No. This report was made in combination with the censored German Version from Steam! Butter Cat 8 reports. Graphics: Heavy Artifacts. Noticeable input latency during the campaign, not present in zombies mode. Game crashes when attempting to open Steam overlay. Run using latest Steam client beta and Proton Experimental. RebelPolygon 31 reports. Customizations: Something Else. Proton experimental. Distro: EndeavourOS Linux. Input: Controller Detection. It sometimes studders but overtime it decreases Overall local : Acceptable. Work perfectly using latest Proton Experimental. Fenteale 8 reports. Windowing: Switching. Everweird 2 reports. Have some feedback? Come chat with us! The New Dashboard Has Arrived. Search for a game Join us on Discord!

[smallhatlogan]

Why Nonbinary Borderlands Fans are Mad About Zer0′s Pronouns, In a Timeline

2012

Zer0 was introduced in Borderlands 2 as a character meant to be absurdly mysterious in almost every way.  Zer0 is apparently not their real name, they seem not to be human (but it’s unclear if they’re an alien, robot, or something else entirely), no one knows where they came from, etc. Still, in Borderlands 2, they defaulted to he/him, and was assumed male.  It’s worth noting that Borderlands 2 also featured Bloodwing, Mordecai’s pet alien bird. In the original Borderlands Bloodwing was referred to as he/him, but switched between games to she/her. This is explained outside the game by Burch, who says that Bloodwing’s species changes gender halfway through life.

2013

Gearbox released the Diamond Plate Loot Chest. In it was the “Pandoran Gazette” an in-universe newspaper. It included an “Ask Doctor Tannis” advice column, the last question being:

Dear Doctor Tannis,

I have heard you are acquainted with the vault hunter known as "Zer0". I have been meaning to ask - that's not really his true name, is it? Hell, maybe Zer0 isn't even a "he". Do you have any details on this mysterious figure?

- Curious in Old Haven

Dear Curious,

I am indeed acquainted with the towering stack of leather and poorly-written poetry that so many refer to as "Zer0". As you have correctly noted, "Zer0" is not the Vault Hunter's true name. Zer0's actual name and gender are (CONTINUED ON PAGE 9)

Page 9 was not included. To my knowledge, this was where it was first seeded that Zer0 may not be male. 

November 2, 2014

 In a panel titled “Playing as a female character panel - Does it Matter” during PAX Australia, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford discussed Zer0’s gender:

“The other things that’s interesting to me is sometimes when there’s characters that don’t have a gender or have an ambiguous gender I’ll choose them...In Borderlands 2 we left Zer0’s identity very ambiguous. What gender is he?” *crowd laughs* “We need better pronouns, don’t we? Don’t we need better pronouns?” (Timestamp) 

“What’s the gender of Zer0?….That says more about me than it does say about Zer0, the fact that I use the pronoun he when I describe Zer0. In fact, um, we purposely have left Zer0’s gender ambiguous. There’s a lot of folks at Gearbox that like to think that maybe Zer0’s of a particular species that doesn’t have gender- That is more androgynous.”  (Timestamp) 

(Timeline continues under cut)

November 25th, 2014

The first episode of Tales From the Borderlands was released. Anthony Burch answered this question on his Ask.fm: 

To my memory, tumblr blew up with excited nonbinary fans. Prior to seeing screenshots of this, I really didn’t have interest in Borderlands. The idea of a cool nonbinary character who used they/them pronouns, admist a virtual desert of representation, made me play through the entire series as fast as I could so I could catch up in time to see these pronouns in action. For a long time afterwards I’ve seen other nonbinary people expressing the same sudden interest in the series after learning this about Zer0. Because, yeah, it was a pretty big deal. 

2015: 

Zer0 appeared again in episode 5 of Tales, released almost a year later after the first. Their voice had changed to one that sounds more ambiguous in terms of gender, but Zer0 was still being referred to as “he/him”. Anthony Burch was one of the writers on this episode. Afterward, he answered this on his ask.fm:

Since he claimed it was honestly a mistake, nonbinary fans held out hope. There were posts going around tumblr clarifying that yes, Zer0 was still nonbinary, and still was meant to use they/them pronouns. It was just a mistake made by a thoughtless cisgender man. Of course, then some presumably-cisgender fan goes to Burch, and validates him, because clearly a character can’t just up and CHANGE pronouns! It’s not like anyone ever does that in real life! 

It’s not a fair point. It’s a dumb point from someone who has no stakes in this.  (Another thing worth noting is it has only been other characters who referred to Zer0 as he/him. Zer0 has never made a point of standing up for their own pronouns.) After this Burch just kind of gives up on the whole idea. 

This statement about characters being “progressive enough not to misgender someone” is weird, because the characters, even the sympathetic ones, in Borderlands have often blatantly failed to be progressive. The original Borderlands has the worst of it, it’s your basic 2009 edgelord shit. There’s blatant misogyny, not to mention the extremely homophobic joke surrounding Mr. Shank (and within that the transphobic joke about his girlfriend being a man in a wig). Burch only started writing for the game in Borderlands 2, however. It’s a huge step up, but there’s still a lot of bigotry. Captain Scarlett makes a “no fatties” joke. Mr Torgue fat-shames Ellie. Mr Torgue uses the R-slur. Multiple characters slut-shame Moxxi. Incest jokes surrounding Scooter, who also is implied to be a huge creep towards women.  Heck, there’s the entirety of Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt DLC is a racist, colonialist mess. Its antagonist is implied to be gay, one of two gay male characters introduced thus far, and he’s a pathetic, creepy stalker.  This is the game series where there are two common enemy types whose names are straight up ableist.  So citing characters as being “too progressive” rings hollow with this context.  Besides, trans people are often misgendered, even by people who’d otherwise be considered progressive.  Burch left Gearbox the same year, so he’s not entirely to blame for what anything afterwards. He just set a pretty bad precedent.

2019:

Gearbox did seem to take the “make a new nonbinary character” thing to heart.  They give us Fl4k, again a nonhuman character, who uses they/them pronouns. And okay, I love Fl4k, but like most nonbinary people I’m tired of all nonbinary characters being robots, aliens, or otherwise non-human in appearance (a trope that yes, Zer0 falls into as well). Still, Fl4k is cute and having a nonbinary playable character who uses they/them pronouns is cool! I definitely plan to play as them. Many nonbinary fans were suspicious though, it seemed likely that Fl4k might be meant to appease us and they could keep on using he/him for Zer0. We were proven right when they released the gameplay preview on May 1st. We hear Zer0 called “he”. None of us are surprised, but it still hurts, we felt like we’d been baited with Zer0.  Besides, why can only one character at a time be nonbinary? Why can a bird change pronouns but not a person? Why was a writer allowed to go out and promise this if it wasn’t going to be followed through on (yes, he didn’t use the word “promise” but telling a marginalized group something like that isn’t something you can just “forget” without people feeling betrayed)?

And that’s where we’re at, as of me writing this. I feel like there are some comments I’m bound to get on this, so I’ll answer them here: Why are you making such a big deal about this?

Me typing a few paragraphs isn’t making a big deal. But I feel misled and baited. After a few years of no clarification after Burch promising us they/them Zer0, a lot of people hung on to hope. A lot of people became big fans of Zer0 because they’re a fun, badass, nonbinary character. Their design is really, really rad! And heck, they were (at least for a time) the most popular playable character in Borderlands 2. Telling everyone, in-game, “actually Zer0 was never really a he, they’ve been a ‘they’ this whole time” would have been HUGE. Like how Blizzard made Overwatch’s poster girl, Tracer, canonically a lesbian, and then revealed their badass gruff guy (who fills the roll of your basic FPS protagonist), Soldier 76, to be a gay man. They/them are still not widely accepted pronouns. For us who use them, it’s difficult to convince people not to default to something gendered. Especially when we fail to appear completely androgynous. I’ve been told Zer0 can’t possibly be nonbinary because they have a deep voice and “masculine” body shape. But real nonbinary people come in all shapes and sizes with all kinds of voices! 

What about Fl4k?

As I said, I’m very happy about Fl4k. They fall into some problematic tropes even more than Zer0 (as Fl4k is verified beyond a doubt to be a robot, and has an “acceptable” androgynous shape to them). I don’t know their voice yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if it also fell into the category of “acceptably androgynous”. Fl4k is new and already “they/them”. Zer0 is an established character who already has a lot of fans among a bunch of different groups of people. There’s definite value in demonstrating a character can switch pronouns, since pretty much every nonbinary person who uses they/them haven’t used those pronouns their entire life. Besides, there can and should be more than one nonbinary character.  Fl4k being nonbinary but not Zer0 kind of feels like Gearbox expects us to shut up and be happy with what we’re given.

What about nonbinary people who use he/him pronouns? Can’t Zer0 be that?

Those people are real and valid.  However, we’re talking about real people versus a fictional character. I admit I’d feel better if it was stated, in-game, “Yeah, Zer0 is nonbinary and uses he/him”. But even then, it’s REALLY EASY for cisgender people to ignore that information and write Zer0 off as male (And knowing gearbox, they’d put it somewhere easily missed. I’ve surprised so many straight people who’d played through Borderlands 2 with the fact that Sir Hammerlock is gay, simply because it was only verified in a side quest). And you know, we were promised they/them, so like, not doing that kind of sucks. Also I think it’s really important to normalize they/them.

So what are we supposed to do about this? What do you expect to change, anyways?

Honestly? I don’t expect Gearbox to fix this so late. In all likelihood, that’s way too much dialogue to re-record. But I still think it’s worth making our voices heard. We shouldn’t silently put up with this kind of thing. Other people will pull the same shit, being either unsympathetic or unaware of the harm they do. And heck, it’s unlikely, but maybe Gearbox will at least acknowledge their wrongdoing.

Also, it’s maybe worthwhile to ignore canon, and keep referring to Zer0 as “they/them”, or if this whole thing is news to you, it’s not too late to start. It would mean a lot to nonbinary fans, and make a point about how Zer0 is regarded.

[the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee]

Every Single Grievance I have with Fable 3

I don’t hate Fable 3.

I swear I don’t, especially after a second playthrough that helped me get over the jarring change of mechanics from Fable 2. Heck, I don’t even think it’s a bad game. But I have a lot of problems with it.

Like, quite a few. And I did say I was never gonna stop ragging on it, so this list of grievances is the result. It’s not comprehensive, it’s going off of pure memory so YES I will get details wrong but this wasn’t made with perfect accuracy in mind.

It’s a lot of minor things and if anyone can explain why some of these things are like this, please tell me.

Enjoy my complaining.

1. Where the Fuck Am I?

Sanctuary map oh Sanctuary map, where the fuck am I???

I actually have a couple problems with the Sanctuary map, one of which being that it is a terrible map. Oh, it does decently well in places that don’t have many multi-level areas like Brightwall, but in places like Mistpeak? Where the terrain can range from very high to low? 

Navigating with the map is an absolute nightmare.

And I say this after trying to find the Mistpeak Demon Door using just the Sanctuary map. The result of that adventure was me looking up a YouTube video instead.

Nothing is where you think it is, areas are hard to pinpoint in relation to each other because you either can’t see them or there are other obstacles in the way. And the map doesn’t show you where YOU are so you have to either rely on the golden trail or do guesswork.

Not that the golden trail is reliable because the thing fizzles like a candle in the wind and it can’t lead you to locations that are not quests or fast-travel locations.

And... oh boy. Fast travel.

How the fuck does this game determine where you end up when you fast-travel to a location? Fast-travelling to Brightwall especially is a gamble, you either end up all the way outside the gates where you enter from Mistpeak Valley or you end up in the square. Why is it not always the square? Why can you end up outside the village? There’s nothing interesting there that would warrant it.

2. Dying in Slow-Motion

This isn’t about the hidden health bar. I’ll get to that later. This is about the gratuitous amount of slow-motion shots you get while fighting.

It’s... frankly a little absurd, like someone really REALLY liked that mechanic in Fable 2 and decided to crank it up to 11.

I get it, some nice slow-motion so we, the players, can appreciate the flourishes. But sometimes I don’t even hit anything so I’ve just wasted a few seconds watching my character miss, and sometimes if you’re swarmed you get a lovely slow-mo shot of your character about to get bodied.

It’s not as annoying as some other things, but I have to ask. Why??

3. Skill Tree Nuance

Fable 3 absolutely stripped any nuance of upgrading the Heroic disciplines. Fable and Fable 2 at least had you choose what ASPECT of each of the disciplines you wanted to level up, so you had to at least make a decision of what you valued most of each one. Was Accuracy more important to you because of the type of gun you were using or perhaps you liked shooting things more? Did you prefer a bigger health bar at this point in time over hitting harder? Did you want the greater power of Shock over the ability to hit more targets with Inferno? (These examples are all from Fable 2 because I’m not familiar enough with Fable to pull from that.)

In Fable 3 your hardest decision leveling up in skills is merely deciding if you like melee, shooting, or magic better. With a side of selecting what spells you want.

Nice.

And no, having the Guild Seals act as your experience and unlockables currency does not make the choice much more complex. You’re still choosing to upgrade the entire skill and not upgrade choice aspects of it.

4. Why is My Health Bar the Entire Screen

Listen. I meant it when I said I don’t hate Fable 3, and a big reason is because I can play around most of the stuff that is annoying or unfamiliar to me.

Except.

The.

Health.

Bar.

For those who don’t know, Fable 3 does not have a health bar. Or, rather, it does, but you, the player, are not privy to it. Instead, the entire screen turns gray and the edges turn red like it’s a fucking FPS shooter. Fable 3 is not an FPS shooter. Fable as a SERIES is not an FPS shooter.

It is not the type of game where you should have to guess EXACTLY how low your health is, because while the screen change gives you an approximation, it’s absolute garbage for making a quick estimate of how many hits you can take before you’re knocked out.

You also can’t even increase the health bar on the Road to Rule. At least, not as far as I’m aware because I CAN’T FUCKING SEE IT. Speaking of the Road to Rule...

5. Road to Rule is Not Terrible, But Half of it is Unnecessary

I get that the Road to Rule is supposed to be a replacement for the menu level-up systems in the other two games but the thing is, since leveling up was dumbed down the Road to Rule doesn’t have much going for it aside from being Theresa’s pocket dimension where she can talk to the Hero of Brightwall. But even then it’s unnecessary because, as seen in the last part of the game when she shows up for the last time, she can apparently stop time itself.

The thing is, half the shit in the Road Rule makes no sense to be locked behind progression. Sure, dyes maybe I can get (even though they’re superficial), but expression packs? I need to progress to even gain the ability to make friends with someone? I have to wait and shell out Guild Seals just to buy property?

Why? Because of the second half of the game? 

Wasn’t the point of that being the gold amount was set so ridiculously high you still have to put in time or job grinding so regardless you have to invest something? Being able to buy property earlier in the game isn’t going to impact it that much, which just makes it being barred in the Road to Rule very... unnecessary. Like the job level ups being in the Road to Rule instead of leveling up in the job itself and thus breaking any impression that your character was getting better at the task by doing it instead of just suddenly shooting up in skill.

6. Why is the Guild Seal so Fucking Huge and Logan’s “Enough!”

Nothing major here, just like... why is the guild seal so huge? It requires like 2 hands to pick up. Sparrow traveled with that thing for like, gods know how many years as well as the Heroes from ages past. Why is the damn thing so big, it’d be so inconvenient to carry.

Also in the cutscene where Walter confronts Logan and the Hero of Brightwall tries to stop him, there’s this moment where Walter tries to protest and Logan goes “Enough!”. But the thing is, he says it in the same tone you’d take if you were cutting someone off, and Walter stops speaking before Logan says it. It’s just a little awkward.

7. Side Cast

I really actually have only one issue with the side cast. Other than that, I think Fable 3 has a very well-developed side cast. Walter is really cool, Jasper is amusing, and Page and Ben are enjoyable and mark their personalities out starkly. I could go on, but you get the idea. I feel like I know these characters as people, much better than I do in Fable 2.

But the thing is, while that is true, some relationships are straight-up neglected. For example: any sort of dynamic between the Hero of Brightwall and Logan and the relationship between the Hero and their dog. Fable and Fable 2 at least gave their characters if not equal time, at least SOME time. The dog gets a few cute tidbits and honestly I didn’t expect a retread of the connection from Fable 2, but half the time I forget the dog is even there. The relationship between the dog and Hero does not impact anything unless you count Traitor’s Keep, but we’re not since it’s DLC. Nothing impactful is really connected to the dog.

Logan. Oh, Logan. You got did so dirty by this game. Fable 3 had the opportunity to do something with the player choosing to spare Logan, but it goes nowhere. It doesn’t offset your new money goal or increase it if you choose to execute Logan because of his soldiers leaving or staying depending on the choice, the Hero and Logan basically never talk in the second half of the game, heck, you don’t even see him again until he’s all “Imma just go” at the end. I’m not asking for a lot here, just something. I get that forcing your sibling to choose between the life of their childhood friend/lover and the lives of protesters will damage any semblance of a sibling bond they would have, but it would’ve been a wonderful opportunity to delve even deeper into why Logan made the choices he did and how they affected him. Does he feel remorse for what he did now that he’s off the throne? Would he do it all again? We’ll never know, because he vanishes off the face of Albion until the end where he says he’s leaving.

8. Some Plot Holes and Other Plot Issues

As much as I like Logan and believe he’s easily the most complex major antagonist the Fable series has had, uh... as much of the Fable community has pointed out, his secrecy makes no sense. At first I thought maybe he kept quiet because he thought no one would believe him when he said the Darkness was coming and Walter and the Hero of Brightwall only believed him because they experienced it for themselves. And that’d be a perfectly plausible explanation.

If the entirety of Aurora couldn’t back up his statement.

Seriously, it wouldn’t be just Logan’s word, he has the remnants of an entire nation to back him up. He already made a promise to Kalin and she’s been portrayed as a perfectly reasonable leader, I can’t see why she’d not help Logan convince Albion of the danger. It’d be in her best interests as well because it would increase the likelihood that Aurora would get aid from Albion.

Logan also doesn’t look great or even effective as a leader. Theresa tells you that he can’t defeat the darkness because... reasons, and I actually believe her. Because this guy has apparently been taking what was essentially the evil path to getting gold and only raised... 400,000 gold in 4 years. And you can piss that all away in one of your first choices as ruler. That’s like... really pathetic and unbelievable, because the evil choices are supposed to give more gold. That’s the whole reason why Logan decided heinous actions were okay in the first place! 400,000 gold doesn’t convince me of that!

Also, the second half of the game really suffers because of the Good/Bad duality choice system. It gives you little room for compromise. Why can’t I tell Samuel to wait one more fricken year before Brightwall Academy is reopened? Why does the orphanage have to be torn down to make room for a brothel, was there no other buildings or empty space?

See what I mean here?

9. Gamebreaking Glitch I Encountered And Am Still Salty About

Apparently, there’s a gamebreaking glitch in Fable 3 where you load the game up... and you never leave the loading screen. Yeah. That’s a thing. And I know, because I got it. The only way you can re-enter the game is by deleting your save file, because Fable 3 is so allergic to menus that you can’t even switch Heroes in the Sanctuary since that requires you to enter the game first. Yes, I am still salty about this.

10. This Is Just Here Because I Don’t Like The Number 9

Elise/Elliot don’t have a lot of emotional impact on me. You don’t really spend a lot of time with them like you do with Rose or even see them killed in front of you like with Rose OR Scarlet Robe. Like, you meet them in the garden then you get pulled away for a swordfighting tutorial lesson and then there’s a cutscene and you make a choice and they’re either dead or not. Aside from their unique presence in the kidnapped quest, they’re kinda just... there, especially if you choose to save them.

11. I Forgot This When I was Originally Writing the Post

Interacting with NPCs outside of the story-relevant ones in Fable 3 is... awkward. You are forced to interact with them one-on-one and do quests just to get them to like you. And I get the quest part, for it to force some personalized connection between the two of you, but the quests are all the same! Fetch this, deliver that, dig up this. You don’t even get to choose what expression you can do to them because the game only lets you see three options at a time.

Fable 2′s NPCs were not exactly deep and complex either, but they had personality! They had likes and dislikes and favorite places and shit. AND you could choose exactly what expression to do. Stores are not great either, the wares are so limited and unreliable its difficult to find anything specific.

Some Good Points About Fable 3 Because This was Too Much Negativity

Walter, as a final boss, is foreshadowed and built up much better than the Great Shard in Fable 2. While I do love the Perfect World section of Fable 2, it works better narratively than it does gameplay-wise. Lucien is built up to be Sparrow’s ultimate confrontation and he just... falls and dies after you suck the power out of him. Not exactly riveting.

The Hero of Brightwall follows the trend of having a semblance of personality and not being an entirely blank slate mouthpiece for the player. Fable’s Heroes have always been slightly more than just player avatars, to me at least. There are these little moments where they act like their own person. Like the Hero of Oakvale having a PTSD flashback of his village being burned down, or Hammer commenting on how quiet Sparrow is, or the Hero of Brightwall being a bit cheeky at times like giving Saker a playful punch before pulling him to his feet or saying “This is the last party I’m taking you to” (or something of the like) to Page at Reaver’s mansion. I dunno, it’s just this tiny detail I always liked about Fable.

THE FASHION IS SO MUCH BETTER IN FABLE 3. Gods I don’t know why I get so hung up on this but every dress and most of the shoes in Fable 2 look TERRIBLE. Fable 2 just doesn’t have a lot of appealing clothing options for me, thus why I dress mostly the same in a lot of my playthroughs of Fable 2. But Fable 3 has much nicer looking clothing. I only lament that I can’t snag something like Page’s masquerade dress, that thing was gorgeous.

I spent way too much time on this.

[thenintendoswitchgamer-blog]

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Review

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is just as fantastic on the Switch as it was on the Wii-U; brimming to the top with all the paid DLC previously released (already unlocked) and then some! But is it enough to double-dip on a game that isn’t even three years old? Where do I start?

For those of you unfamiliar with Mario Kart 8, the basic formula to playing starts with this: Choose a mode (Grand Prix, Time Trials, VS Race, or Battle), then choose a racer, after that mix and match kart parts, and finally choose a stage (or cup). You can choose to play with up to four others on a single Switch, and up to two if you choose to play online with a friend. You can hook up locally with up to 12 possible racers, wow!

Single Player offers four modes. Grand Prix pits you against 11 opponents on a choice of 12 different cups, each with four courses. That’s a total of 48 courses, the most in any Mario Kart game. There are five different speeds you can play the game at, including a brand-new-ultra-fast 200 cc. Time Trails allows you to practice any stage, set records, or race against “ghosts” that hold records. VS Race lets you play freely against CPU on any course you choose, with other customizable options. Lastly, Battle does away with racing, and focuses purely on pulverizing your opponents with items on eight different courses. Balloon Battle is the classic mode in which you need to hit your opponents in order to get points Shine thief has each racer battling to take control of a Shine. Coin Runners has you battling against the clock in order to see who collects the most coins. Bomb-omb blast is a battle with only bomb-ombs. The brand new Renegade Roundup divides players into two teams, basically a cops and robbers.

Multiplayer allows you to play with up to four people locally. Every mode mentioned before is available, except for Time Trials. Is there anything more fun than local Mario Kart races and battles? Other than Smash Bros., Mario Kart is the most fun you can have locally on a Nintendo System.

Online will have you (or a friend) race and battle against people either Worldwide or Regional. You can also host friend matches as well, but I can’t comment on that for I haven’t tried that out yet. Many people have spoken about connection problems, hit detection problems, but I guess I should consider myself lucky. I haven’t had any problems, whatsoever, playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe online. In fact, every match has been smooth and lots of fun.

Did you know you can use Amiibos to customize your Miis? Not every Amiibo is compatible, but for the ones that are it is pretty neat to see classic Nintendo outfits on your Mii.

On a side note, the Deluxe version now includes some annoying options that are automatically turned on. There’s an option to prevent yourself from falling off courses, and another for automatic motion controls. These options are fine and all for the appropriate situations, but having them on from the start and having to turn them off is just cumbersome.

There are quite a few different ways to play this game on the Switch. One way is with one Joycon, which allows for instant two player matches. Playing the game like this is fine when doing a few matches, but playing for longer than a hour like this will begin to cramp your hands. Another way is using both Joycons, and this is a traditional and comfortable way to play. There’s also the Pro-Controllers, which need no explanation. Motion controls make their way back, and I’ve even see Wii wheels (switch wheels?) being sold. No thank you.

There are a total of 42 characters to play as, including Miis. Yoshi, Shy Guy, and Inklings have different palette swaps to choose from. Yes, Inklings have made a debut in Mario Kart. Come to think of it, this game really seems less like Mario Kart and more so as Nintendo Kart. Three animal crossing characters, two Splatoon characters, and Link are all playable.

Luckily, kart parts are locked, giving players incentive to keep playing. It’s up to you to mix-and-match karts, bikes, ATVs, wheels, and gliders to find what best works for you. Do you prefer more speed, but less handling? Or more traction, but less acceleration? Picking what best works for you is the most strategic aspect in the game.

This game may have tons of characters, and kart parts, but it also has a huge number of courses. Some of them are more fun to play on then others; some are longer than others; some have more hazards than others; and each one has its own unique aesthetic. You know the routine, race on a course and use items (such as red shells and bananas) to knock your opponents out of the way to get first place.

So that’s all peachy and such, but is the game worth paying $60 again? Yes. What’s new is definitely worth it. The constant 60 fps is such a welcoming addition, as well as the mobility (I barely ever play on a tv). All the previous DLC being included is great, and of course the overhauled battle mode makes this game instantly better than the Wii-U version.

The graphics look better of course, and has all that Nintendo charm. The music is one of the aspects I don’t care much for. Jazz is fine for the new courses, but I would have preferred that all retro courses had their original music.

Whether you are playing with local friends, or alone online, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is going to be loads of fun for awhile. (until Splatoon 2 ^_^)

10/10

[thesimolius-blog]

Mount & Blade 2 is coming to consoles, and it’s a really bad idea.

Mount & Blade Warband is definitely one of my favorite games on PC, because of it’s originality, the freedom it gives you to take on the northern kingdoms any way you wish, the simplicity of it’s combat system that actually ends up being quite interesting and satisfying... Needless to say, I’ve been keeping an eye on Mount & Blade II Bannerlord ever since it was announced. Unfortunately, there seems to be a problem I have only recently noticed. For some reason, M&B 2 is not only going to be available on PC, it’s also going to be released on Xbox One and the PS4. To any seasoned PC gamer and fan of the franchise, this is obviously a big problem.

Developing a game with consoles in mind can result in an idea with a lot of potential turning into a game full of limitations, features getting cut out or not even being approved due to the limitations of the outdated hardware of the consoles. Massive games like Arma 3, Minecraft, Word of Warcraft, Europa Universalis, and many others, would have never been able to see the light of day if they were to be developed for consoles. Keyboard and mouse are less restrictive than controllers, computer hardware is always ahead of whatever is being used by the current generation consoles, allowing for bigger games with more technologically innovative features. Consoles are so much more restrictive, they aren’t fit to innovate and don’t allow for bigger and better games to grow on and from them. If you make a game that is the same for both consoles and PC, chances are the PC version is going to turn out the worst of them, because of all the limitations that were put on the game by the consoles. It’s an even worse idea to take a PC exclusive game,  come up with a sequel, which should be bigger and better, and develop it with consoles in mind. And, oh look! Taleworlds ported Warband to the consoles and guess what happened...

Now, we all know that IGN is not to be trusted, but for this time only, I found that their review of the console port of M&B Warband was just what we needed to look at to see how PC exclusive masterpieces are seen by the console community when said masterpieces somehow land on their potato boxes...

IGN called Warband on Xbox One “an unsharpened blade” criticizing it’s “outdated graphics and sometimes disappointing controls”. I could also quote a bunch of others critiques to the character models, map design and graphic quality, but there would be more pointless quotes in here than on a 14 year-old’s Facebook feed. Also, graphics are the most minor of problems this game has. Very few M&B fans will ever have serious complain about the graphics of the game, despite how bad they truly are. That’s because the gameplay of M&B easily compensates for the weak visuals.

 Although the amount of text in the game can be a bit annoying, IGN seems to attribute a lot more negative points to that than the average PC player, definitely demonstrating how console players just can’t be bothered with anything more complicated than “shoot bad guy, get ranks”.

They also notice the games lack of direction and high difficulty, specially when getting started. This is yet another characteristic sometimes found on great PC games. You will have to learn things, by yourself or with the help of guides. Once you do that, the game opens up and everything is wonderful. Also, if Dark Souls does it, i’ts cool, but if it’s poor old M&B, it’s not so cool. Interesting... 

They say issuing orders with the D-pad sucks and apparently there are multiple actions bound to the same button, of course. Also, as amazingly retarded as it sounds, it really seems like IGN focused more on analyzing the multiplayer than the singleplayer. They took their time to praise multiplayer gamemode variety, but seem to have completely ignored everything about the singleplayer. You can be a mercenary, a merchant, a merciless raider, you can become a lord, own territories and towns, create enterprises, rescue prisoners of war in return for renown and reputation, carry a banner, make your game harder by playing as a woman (lol)... So much to do in so many different ways. And the modding! Wow, the modding. There’s a mod called Clash of Kings which fully converts Warband into the Game of Thrones video game you’ve always wanted. It’s so good that you could buy Warband just for the mod and nobody would find it stupid. But, who cares, right? What we really want to know is: are the graphics xxX!NeXt*GeN!Xxx, and is the multiplayer 360NoScOpeYOLOsWaG enough.

“Graphics aren’t everything - but they’re something.“ - IGN

Part of this quote is correct. Part of this quote is meaningless.

“It already looked a decade old when it first came out on PC in 2010 (and received a review score of 8.1), and some minor updates to its Xbox One and PlayStation 4 release do little to make it look remotely modern.“ - IGN

As if the game wasn’t worthy of running on an Xbone or a Piss4 until it got “updated” to look more “modern”. What do you even mean with "updated” and “modern”? Does the game now run exclusively at 30 FPS on a 1280x720 resolution?... For cinematic purposes, of course.  Also, yes it got a 8.1 when it released on PC, and you gave it a 6.3 on consoles, even after “updates”. It’s almost as if the problem isn’t the game itself, but the crap boxes running it.

“And yet for all that, this remains a roleplaying game that does a better job of conveying the rags-to-riches journey than a game like Skyrim.“ - IGN

Mount & Blade Warband is an open-ended RTS/third-person action hybrid with RPG and simulation elements that allows you to participate in massive 200 vs 200 unit siege battles and open field battles. You can also get the Napoleonic War DLC and play out historically accurate battles with muskets and such... They compare this to Skyrim.

The best they ended up doing was praising the game’s living world and it’s “depth, replayability, and ambition“.  

“This is clearly a game designed for mouse and keyboard“ - IGN

Yet M&B Bannerdlord is somehow going to be on both PC and consoles. Deal with that, developers.

“Mount & Blade: Warband may not have a carefully guided plot or even reasonably attractive graphics, but it recreates the sensation of living in a medieval world like few other games by allowing freedom to decide your own approach to carving out your destiny in a dynamic world of rapidly changing alliances. Controls are awkward at best, making it tough to appreciate how good the combat is, but there's a lot of fun here, especially in the eight multiplayer modes for up to 32 players. As a veteran of the PC version, which I love, I feel bad not being able to recommend the console version more highly, but this port doesn’t fully allow Mount & Blade’s charm to shine through.“ 

As a “veteran of the PC version”, I don’t understand why you put so much stress on the game’s graphics and crappy controls, specially on the controls, since that’s obviously a controller issue and not a fault of the game. But seriously, how is Bannerlord supposed to be the sequel we all need if it’s going to have to deal with console parity now? That’s a freaking riddle right now, at least to me. I can’t see the game coming out and being a hit on all platforms. Either the console versions are going to be handicapped by default, or the PC version is gonna be handicapped by console parity. Pick your poison.

That’s my opinion on the matter. I hope you enjoyed this medium-sized read, and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @theSimolius.

[scithemodestmermaid]

now for bethesda e3

my notes as follows, although i am finger knitting as well so we shall see how this works out

they showed footage from the fallout 76 marketing party in their butt-kissing montage

this year i’m just watching bethesda to see how they cover up the fallout 76 fiasco

pete hines, that’s a name i havent heard from since before fallout 76′s crash and burn.  

the audience is eating pete’s crap right up, have we really completely healed and moved on?

pete hines is in full ass-kiss mode.  like, even more than the xbox and ea folks were.

wow todd howard had the balls to get on this stage.

“incredibly exciting years, given how exciting it was we are surprised you’re still here.”  and that’s probably the closest to an apology we will get.

WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE CHEERING FALLOUT 76.

“we got a lot of well-deserved criticism,” okay that’s a good start, “and now we have an amazing post-apocalyptic wasteland and here’s some more one-liners and ass-kissing and here’s the future and this is all we are going to say on this matter, let’s talk about the other games.” you started out so well todd, where’s the freakin apology for the broken games and shattered promises and doxxing?  how the hell did you take that scenario and spin it as a good thing.

wait, blades is in early access?

blades on de switch.    that’s good, because i really wanted to play blades and i doubt my phone could handle it.

i’m still impressed how giddy this audience is, like not a single shred of bitterness.

more fallout 76

millions of players?

wait that one lady screaming, that is the same lady who was screaming at this crap last year

wastelanders dlc guess what it adds?  human npcs and speech checks!  like what should have been in the game from the beginning!

but....but can we kiss these npcs? 

WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FREAKIN MUTANT

i mean i am glad that full dialogue trees are back, also halfway decent speech checks. 

free trial on the game for everyone from june 10-17.  that’s nice.

also, battle royale mode.  but here’s the great part, it seems that it is hosted by a cold-voiced AI.  i’m on-turned, personally.

i’m tempted to give the trial a go, but i also just wanna wait until it comes to steam.

speaking of, are you guys gonna say when it comes to steam?  no?  ok.

todd kissing his company’s ass some more.

and the audience’s.

a new game out of nowhere, ghostwire tokyo.

the girl doing this announcement is adorable and doing really well seeing as how she apparently doesn’t speak english, and she has sold this game for me and i don’t even know what it is about.

more asskissing!  hey, how about instead of making us forget your mistakes and distasters from the past year by buttering us up, you fucking apologize.

elder scrolls online, and the guy who worked on the game can’t even call the khajit by their name.

i still like how they went against the lore they came up with by having dragons just show up even though the skyrim lore says they shouldn’t have been there at that point.

also the dragons are just mindless beasts instead of the nuanced warrior kings from skyrim.

the khajit looks astounding though, so thats good.

THIS KHAJIT SHOULD BE A MAJOR CHARACTER IN A SINGLEPLAYER GAME, THEY’RE WASTED ON THIS MMO TRAILER

audience needs to shut up, none of this is THAT exciting.

“scalebreaker” ONE ASSHOLE LOSES HIS MIND EVEN THOUGH NOBODY KNOWS WHAT SCALEBREAKER EVEN IS ABOUT

new game to be premiered, right now.

“classic saturday morning cartoon in free to play mobile game form?”  okay, impress me.  “ITS COMMANDER KEEN”  wow, i didn’t even play commander keen as a kid and this is hurting my childhood.

what the heck is this gameplay?

“at bethesda we, like you, enjoy  mobile games.”  ummmmmmm, yeah not really.  i uninstalled shelter a while back.

and now legends, with a really stupid looking live action trailer.  they spent money on this.  money that couldve have been used towards game making.

dragons again.

if you’re looking for a card game that is a bit more difficult, you could friggin play artifact but everybody butthurted out of that so nvm here’s our overhyped card game instead.

rage 2.  that game came out already?

lol iits so quirky and funny, it’s great love us love our game

wolfenstein.

the two games they announced last year, let us just remind you all they exist.

the vr game and the co-op game with the guy’s twin daughters.

coming out a few days before my birthday, though.  thanks bethesda?

wait its the dishonored devs.

wait the hell is this?

is that dave fennoy again?

so is this a time loop battle royale?

Deathloop. two people constantly fighting, story-driven, and lots of ways to approach things.  but nothing else even explained about it.

more.  ass.  kissing.  now they are saying about how games made them less introverted and dumb stuff.

the director of bethesda publishing is saying that they’re the inventors of the fps, when really they just freakin bought the people who invented.

also they were low-key bragging about creation club.

new tech for game streaming called orion.

it is an integrated streaming device?

they’re streaming from the computer to a mobile phone, and honestly that really looked like it could be easily faked.  i am filled with doubt.

doom eternal now.  this is apparently the highlight of the conference, but i’ve never cared about the doom franchise so i can’t bring myself to care.

holy cow, gameplay???  at e3??????

i just hear doomy ternal instead of doom eternal.

walked away to put up dishes, came back and they are still on doomy ternal.

doomy ternal releases in november 22, for those of yall who care about it

preorder the collector’s edition, that went so well with fallout 76!

also doomy ternal battle mode

and that’s the end of the bethesda conference.  and it kinda sucked.  i went in with low expectations, and i’m still kind of disappointed.  although fallout 76 may have added a new psycho AI husbando for me so at least i have that

[brothermouzongaming]

Warmind thots

Better if only by a bit

I understand that Vicarious Visions made this expansion, a fact that is a little troubling if you ask me and my pessimistic tendencies. Even with that information, I almost forgot another developer had taken care of this expansion because it was very much along the lines of Bungie’s typical format. I still feel that these thoughts and feelings are relevant and still perfectly appropriate despite Bungie doing this a little differently this time around. The fact remains: nothing is going in the game that doesn’t have Bungie’s approval. Hell, as far as we know Vicarious merely did what Bungie would’ve done anyway, following a template that was explicitly written by Bungie. From what I understand they did design the Raid Lair but I doubt they were given such liberties with dlc given what we have is reported to have been lined up for a while. Regardless, the overall message of this is that the Warmind dlc is an improvement. The subtext is that such an accomplishment means fuck-all in the face of what can only be described as a huge flop for both Bungie and Activision. Despite what the financial reports may say.  Changes to exotics are great and give us something to grind that improves our favorite guns. Escalation Protocol is a challenge that takes coordination but is still a great idea at its core. Nodes are another means of grind that again give guardians a reason to come back. Curse of Osiris was a low bar to step over, but at least they did it and did it fairly well.

“Dress-tiny”

Good god how is it that the dlc adds blander armors. I think the focus on armor is all wrong and centered way too much around looks but since it’s here; the least they could do is stand out. Hunters get straight up screwed with some of the least impressive and lazy designs I’ve ever seen. Literally solid color sleeves and a slightly different glove design. Titans are clearly the character type that inspires the artists the most because from the looks to the functionality they have it the best hands down in my opinion. My preferred class, Warlock, sits somewhere in the middle. With armor pieces that work like a dream in the field, some that are beyond useless and those are just the exotics. The legendary pieces rarely vary in any significant way beyond a couple points this way or that way between the whopping three stats you have to manage. So looks are really all that is left, and there isn’t anything definitive about a lot of these “legendary” pieces of armor. The shader situation is an absolute trash fire, hopefully, the Warmind dlc was gonna add some interesting tweaks to the color scheme...imagine my surprise when the color pallets are few and far between as far as anything really distinguishable. I put on four shaders on some pants and they all looked exactly the same. That’s one of Destiny’s many problems, it’s only half in with all of its ideas.

“Remember whoo you areee”

Lion King reference aside, I can’t be any more serious. *snaps fingers repeatedly* Hello Bungie, wake up! You are squandering all the goodwill built up in your past successes. I understand this is far from the team that brought us Halo: CE but I would’ve thought they would be fighting in its memory. The ambition is there, I commend and respect that much. The effort and execution, however, has been wildly lackluster. I can forgive a large amount of D1′s problems, it’s an ambitious idea that was gonna have some kinks and issues in it. 

Company’s like Ubisoft and Capcom are giving away the occasional free update to games like The Divison and Monster Hunter World respectively. For Destiny 2 to become essentially the biggest flop of this generation and offer no respite or token of gratitude to the fanbase that stayed is miraculously idiotic. Oh what’s that? They gave us the broken Prometheus Lens? Aw, that’d be nice if it wasn’t the only gesture Bungie has made, and it released so broken it singlehandedly turned the Crucible into laser tag. Yes, that was fun, but it wasn’t even something Bungie did, it was an accident. That accident for a short period of time was the most exciting and engaging thing that has happened in D2 for a while now. The initial concept of Destiny is very promising, especially when you find out it’s in the hands of Bungie. I can’t help but feel that somewhere along the way they realized that the idea was better than the actual physical manifestation of it. Now that they’re in way too deep, all they can do is press on through the self-made muck and mire. Doing what they want to expand the franchise rather than improve it; coming from a developer I once revered it’s both infuriating and deeply saddening. Please Bungie, get it together for your sake, not ours. I’m not buying D3 and I have a funny feeling a decent amount of people won’t either, you aren’t an indie dev with no experience. Why are you acting like it?

Copy and paste

Warmind’s loot pool is vastly more interesting and enticing than that of Osiris. The sharp geometric shapes, as well as the sounds and skills associated with the guns, are very distinct and dare I say enjoyable. They don’t drop quite as often, Destiny has reverted back to its old ways in that sense and I’m not against it at all. If we get everything in the first week what’s the point of paying so much/ what’s keeping us here? My issue is the recurring problem of both reskins and returning exotics. Osiris was fairly wrought with reskins and even worse with poor and just unsavory perks, these guns rained from the sky I practically had to set up a direct deposit to my trash bin. Even better, these weapons seem to be tiered and earned with different kinds of currency. Now getting that new auto rifle or sub-machine gun feels good when it drops and not repetitive. The bringing back of D1 exotics is nice, there’s no reason in the world why some of these guns can’t and shouldn’t exist in this game. When two of the four guns are D1 guns, that’s when I get peeved. There needs to be more, I’m not talking truckloads but half the guns shouldn’t be D1 guns not for dlc we paid for. Honestly, how hard is it to design a new gun, what are you guys saving it for D3? Why not put out as much as you can to satisfy a fanbase that is struggling in the here and now? Seriously would it kill you guys to throw us a bone beyond fixing the issues we shouldn’t be dealing with at all? I know I can come off as entitled, but realize that this is a game with so much money behind it that I’m genuinely uncomfortable with the figure itself. This money could’ve gone to like... help people. Bungie got $500 million for the franchise as a whole, let’s say it broke up evenly which is about  $166,666,666. Where the fuck did that money go? Destiny 2 is essentially one massive asset flip and when players like me were told D2 would progress the series, it’s done almost nothing but regress. So maybe as a paying customer who has been deceived and lied to since day one of this game, maybe in this instance entitlement is a little understandable. 

Change ‘Gon Come

The exotic changes are good, this is a big step in the right direction. Destiny beat its dick to no end about being a power fantasy, then D2 came around and took away the power. These guns are starting to feel exponentially better, really living up to the “exotic” term. Escalation Protocol is brutal, I’m worried it is more difficult than any random group of guardians can handle. The most I’ve done a run with is four or five and I’m suspecting it may take somewhere up to seven. Hard isn’t bad but it’s crushing to the point where I can see players avoiding the event entirely to go complete something they actually have a chance of achieving. The title of this segment is two parts, change is coming to Destiny in the form of the development end. Changes to the game that are efforts in the right direction to give this game a sense of life and purpose. We’ll see what E3 holds, this “Comet” expansion is gonna be featured due to their “brand new game mode” or whatever, something that’s “never been done before int he genre of FPS”. I have no idea what that means but it sounds like th same high aiming that got us in this mess to begin with, we will see. The other half is the changes in the form of who plays Destiny/ how many people will be playing Destiny. I said it earlier and I’ll say it again. Four years is too long for a big name dev like Bungie to say “sorry guys, making games is hard”. You signed up for this, you had time to prepare. No one asked for Destiny, and though making games is no doubt very difficult; I don’t see how you can use that as an excuse in a case of sheer negligence and outright maliciousness by Bungie. Change ‘gon come, one way or another. 

[punkwhodrinkstea-blog]

It Is Your...

Uhhhhhhg. I swear I’m one step closer to being a corpse. For those of you who follow gaming at all, you will know that the most anticipated and award winning Destiny 2 was released for PC this past Tuesday. The game was released 2 months ago on console but the first game was never released for PC. Since the game seemed to suit the PC community and mouse and keyboard controls perfectly, there was much added excitement. Once the game launched I put in nearly 24 hours straight and even the next day I put in another 12 hours and then lastly another 6 hours after that. I stopped only a few hours ago and honestly I have a maxed character and 2 other characters who are underway. I have been living in my gaming chair sipping tea and eating apples, muffins and chips (I don’t usually eat chips but I was desperate). I haven’t seen daylight in a few days and that is until last night I got to see my girlfriend. Thank goodness. I’m pretty worn out from Destiny 2 and not only do I need a break from it but I’m feeling super depressed due to not taking care of myself and a lack of sleep, food, water and general hygiene.

Destiny 2 though is a pretty great game. It’s hard to not like it. Heck, it’s hard to not love. The overall graphics are on par with today’s standards but the lighting effects are a bit better which makes it look really good. The gameplay is silky smooth for some reason and plays beautifully. The movement mechanics and flow of each fight has been well designed to keep the player moving instead of spending too much time simply pouring bullets into a single stubborn enemy. The campaign comes with the base game (and will likely be added to upon DLC) is good but simple and most of the characters are good but some aren’t very enjoyable in my opinion. Also the story is very expendable because since the game is an FPS MMO RPG, most players simply don’t care and the Campaign takes less than 10 hours to finish. The Campaign really just acts as an easy warm up for those of us more hardcore players, meanwhile will act as a decent challenge for your casual stay at home dad or lesser experienced players. But just like any MMO RPG, the game doesn’t truly start until you put the ‘final’ boss 6 feet under. The campaign actually seems to hold back the player from gaining “Light” which is the measurement for how powerful your character is. After killing the boss from the Campaign, the grind begins with the player doing side missions. There are two types of side missions, “Adventures” and “Quests”. Adventures are available from the start of the game and run on an endless loop providing a decent mini mission for players of all skill levels and character levels (they’re really easy). The “Quests” on the other hand don’t seem to be endless. They are a chain of mini missions which usually are about the same difficulty as a Campaign mission but not as long and once you complete all of them, you get a nice prize. Lastly there are “Public events” this is fairly unique to Destiny. This is when an objective appears in the open world part of the game and any and all players nearby can simply walk in and fight side by side to complete an objective, which of course requires you to kill lots and lots of bad guys. The game also allows you to buy treasure maps which will tell you where loot chests are which may or may not give you a good reward. There are two other game modes as well, one is “Strikes” and the other is the “Crucible”. Strikes are simply missions that three players can play together and complete and usually offer better loot. The Crucible is Destiny's Player vs Player mode which has been made better since the first Destiny however it’s not on par with games like Halo, Call of Duty and many other PvP shooters but it’s not bad either. Anyway you get the point, the game is amazing…. However….

Destiny 2 is no doubt a great game but frankly… it’s too easy. Back in the 1st Destiny enemies varied more in their threats. For example there is an enemy called a ‘Wizard’ it’s basically an alien monster about 12 feet tall and flies above the battlefield and hurrells lightning or plasma or something at you and it used to deal lot’s of damage. They were scary! And worst of all they would scream extremely loud and fill your ears with this high pitch screech which would terrify you, these things were freak’n terrifying but in Destiny 2 you can kill them with a single clip and they don’t scare the player with high damage attacks or loud screams. I think every bigger enemy in the game has been nerfed. (“nerfed”: Gamer lingo for, made weaker). It simply makes them less scary and makes the game easier. Now enemies can come as “elites” which do deal more damage and have more health making them a bit scarier but still, the last game had that too and the elite versions of enemies were a player’s bane. The kind of thing that would make a player walk into a room and say “OH HELL NOOO!”. Now the advantage the game has to making these enemies weaker is now players kill more enemies and switch from one enemy to another which helps keep the excitement for the modern person who generally has a shorter attention span. I think this hinders the actual game and kinda dumbs it down but… there’s more. The whole game seems to be dumbed down for the casual audience. Not only by making the enemies easier but even the bosses, ya know those really big things which are suppose to be really hard and make your hands sweat or make you have to try again and again to over come… yeah those are also easy. My online friends and I had no struggle against those and were very underwhelmed at how easy it all is.

Now I’ve done some digging around on the internet and found that not many console players have found the game to be much easier but they think it’s different due to bigger enemies being nerfed. Which is true. But it would seem that PC players, like myself are having a cake walk (which I am too). The reasons are fairly obvious. On PC we play at 60fps or higher meanwhile console players are at 30fps which I find makes making precise movements and shots more difficult. Console players are also forced to play the game with a field of view of 55 degrees…. That’s like looking through a tube. Meanwhile on PC the game allows you to play at 105 degrees which is just shy of distorting image like a fish eye. I personally perfer 110 degrees but I’m not too picky. However anything below 90 degrees is simply stupid in my opinion. The primary reason rarely play games on console these days is because of the field of view. I simply can’t go back to looking through a tube. Now if the frame rate and the field of view wasn’t enough to give PC players a huge advantage, we also have mouse and keyboard controls. When using a controller you can only rotate your character so fast and can only be so precise. For example jumping into the air and shooting enemies on console is hard and you will likely one have time to shoot one enemy but on PC I find myself jumping into the air and killing one enemy and then turning 180 degrees to shoot an enemy behind me, this is simply a dream for a console player. Also it is but easier for PC players to hit weak spots on enemies and control weapon recoil. So not only are enemies in Destiny 2 generally weaker than the first game but now PC players can consistently hit the weak spots of enemies. Giving PC players another advantage when it comes to gun play. Anyway these are the reasons that PC players are having such an easy time with this game. But how would Bungie fix this? I mean I don’t mind too much. Having a casual FPS MMO RPG as amazing as Destiny 2 is super nice and I’m not complaining. But if Bungie wanted to make the game harder, how would they? They could crank up the enemy difficulty but then it would be unproportionate from the console version. I have no issue with that but it would be the first time in gaming history that PC gets a gamer but modified to be harder than the console version. Meh I dunno, it doesn’t really matter I guess.

Oh man I just realized how much time I just spent writing about destiny 2… I should do something else today other than think about that game. Also today I’m trying to recover from my lack of sleep, food, water, hygiene, etc. Peace out folks and happy hunting.

[boywith2faces-blog]

Payday 2 Level Hack

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New Post has been published on Vin Zite

New Post has been published on https://vinzite.com/batman-arkham-city-3d-review/

Batman: Arkham City 3D Review

3D saves a PC game plagued with bugs and a missing DX11.

Chances are you know who Batman is. If not, he’s this dude who wears tights and likes to swing around tall buildings. Not to be confused with Spiderman, who also wears tights and likes to swing around tall buildings. Chances are you have also played Batman: Arkham Asylum and know the score. If not, Batman Arkham Asylum is a third-person action-adventure game based on that Batman guy. Batman: Arkham Asylum was developed by Rocksteady Studios and was released in 2009. It was a good year to be a Bat, and the game was met with rave reviews and its fair share of awards.

Batman: Arkham City is the sequel to the successful Arkham Asylum. Arkham City is a maximum security prison for the nastiest criminals that Gotham City has to offer. As chance would have it, Bruce Wayne gets his ass tossed into Arkham City for opposing the new prison’s existence, and is forced to go all “Escape from New York”. Within moments, Bruce manages to score his crime-fighting equipment and become his alter ego, Batman. We all watch TV, anything can be got in prison if you know the right people. I don’t want to get all nuts with spoilers, so let’s sum up the story by saying that Catwoman drops in, Batman runs into an old flame, fails to get laid, Robin makes a brief appearance and Alfred is only a radio signal away. On “team naughty”, Batman bumps into a load of our favorite baddies, including Harley Quinn (damn, she’s annoying), Two-Face, Mr. Freeze (possibly the toughest boss fight of the game), The Joker, Penguin, Hugo Strange, Poison Ivy, Clayface and plenty more crazies.

Batman: Arkham City is a single-player game with the main storyline which sees Batman seeking a cure to a disease which could wipe out a superhero or two. In addition to the main story, you will regularly unlock side missions, which can either be completed right away or put aside for later. The side missions are just as good as those that are included in the main story, which makes for a lot of awesome added gameplay. In addition to the side missions, you’ve got the Riddler to contend with. Cataloging and collecting Riddler’s trophies is an addictive game within the game. Then there are the challenge maps, which make for some excellent mindless melee fun. Challenge maps are unlocked as you play through the game, and more are available in DLCs. There are three funky flavors to hone your Bat-skills with, including ranked leaderboard combat, timed campaigns, and custom rules.

Technical

In Arkham City, there is always a superhero around when people need one, in real life, there certainly was no superhero around to help me gain access to the game. First, you enter your key on Steam, then you enter your key for SecuRom (if you’re lucky it accepts it the first time; I was not lucky), then you have to tie it all together with Games for Windows Live. GFWL was the primary bottleneck. I spent an hour trying to log in to GFWL as it gave me some song and dance about needing to update. Like really, what’s the point of this kind of layering? The games are going to get pirated all the same, and according to many, the reason the PC version of Arkham City was delayed was so that they could maximize sales from the console versions first.

When Batman: Arkham City has released just over two weeks ago, PC gamers were disappointed to find out that DX 11 was buggered. Upon launch, Rocksteady immediately recommended DX 9, as reports of DX 11 performance issues began making the rounds. People wondered how something like this, a selling point like DX 11, could have made it through testing and out the door for launch. It took a couple of weeks, but a DX 11 patch was finally released. The outcome was not really worth the wait, and many are still plagued with low FPS and game-breaking bugs. I consider myself one of the lucky, as I only spent about four hours dealing with crashes and bugs that would not allow me to proceed further in the game.

Arkham City comes with a built-in benchmark tool, so using both that and Fraps I grabbed some quick stats to share. Right before publishing this review a patch was released for Batman: Arkham City, which in part addresses the DX 11 issues. Running Alienware M17x laptop /w NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M and 6GB RAM / 3D Vision (not 3D Vision 2), at 1920 x 1080. Both DX 9 and DX 11 were run with all settings max, including detail level, tessellation, and PhysX.

The DX 11 patch seems to be hit and miss. For many people, it solved the issue of poor frames while running DX 11. For others, it buggered things up even more. For me, the patch DID improve FPS in DX 11, but oddly lowered frames with DX 9. Go figure.

On my system, the best settings for performance and aesthetics are DirectX 11 (very high) and PhysX set to “Normal”, this works out perfectly both with and without 3D Vision enabled.

Combat

Combat in Arkham City is ridiculous, while also being ridiculously fun. Here’s the ridiculous bit… there were very few times during the game that I needed any sort of strategy in order to win an encounter. A couple of bosses had an attack pattern that had to be learned in order to defeat them, but outside of that, you can literally finish the game by repeatedly hitting your left mouse button. In fact, I broke a mouse playing Arkham City. Yup, button-mashed it to death. While using special attacks makes combat more fun, it isn’t actually necessary. Now for the ridiculously fun part… combat is an absolute joy to watch, and even if you don’t have mad take-down skills, the simple act of punching, kicking and evading is wicked fun. That said, if you want to kick ass on the challenge maps then you’ll need a bit more than button-mashing. The challenge maps are slightly more skill-based and if you want to rank then you’ll have to use combos and special moves.

Sometimes I thought I preferred combat while playing as Catwoman because she’s mean, lean and fast as hell. But after a while, I’d sort of start missing the Bat. Both characters have their own missions, skills, and gadgets, but the character I really would have liked to play is Robin. While the Robin Bundle DLC will allow you to play the Boy Wonder, you will only be able to do so on challenge maps. I’d rather be able to play him inside missions like you can with Catwoman. Sadly, Robin’s appearance in the game was very brief, and although he was looking buff, tough and not at all like the Robin we all grew up with, Batman simply bitched him out and told him to piss off. So that was that.

NVIDIA 3D Vision

One of my first experiences with 3D was seeing Friday The 13th Part 3 in 3D. I walked five miles through the snow with no shoes to see it at the theater. It was crap, but exciting at the same time, and it was the best we had. For the next quarter century, I would associate 3D with eye strain and headaches. Whenever I post about 3D Vision on VE3D the post is met with comments like “I’m too old for 3D, I don’t need the eye strain” or “3D gives me headaches”. Exactly the things that I had always associated with it. Well, Toto, it looks like we’re not in Kansas anymore! This ain’t grandma’s 3D. I’ll admit that I’ve reached the age where reading glasses come in handy. I didn’t have much interest in 3D. Mostly I was afraid to try it because I thought my head would explode. I guess I had read into the old school hype a bit too much. But I survived 3D, and am loving every second of it. Eye of the tiger baby, an eye of the tiger. Plus I look cool in the glasses.

Since I just recently began gaming in 3D, my experiences are limited. What I have noticed so far is that 3D Vision adds an extra layer of realism to games. 3D games come alive, giving you a greater feeling of actually being there. In Batman: Arkham City this is especially true, particularly when grappling around the city and using gadgets. Even cut scenes are great in 3D. All of the villains in Arkham City look amazing and force you to keep watching, even if you don’t normally enjoy cut scenes. Graphics look sharper, and cleaner and flaws that you would see while out of 3D tend to get smoothed over. If I was to slap a number on Batman: Arkham City without 3D Vision, the game would land a 7/10 (70%). While Arkham City is a truly entertaining trip through the gutters of Gotham, the bugs and the graphic issues that the game shipped with are not acceptable. Waiting over two weeks for a half-assed patch is also not acceptable.

Because 3DV enhanced my Arkham City experience, Batman: Arkham City 3D is a 9/10 (90%), and worth its weight in guano.

What I Liked:

Gloom and doom atmosphere makes for some very immersive gameplay.

The story is actually interesting, you’ll want to watch the cutscenes.

Both Batman and Catwoman show wear and tear in their costumes as the game go on.

Catwoman side-missions, it was fun to take a break from Batman and spend some time crawling on ceilings.

Challenge maps are a good workout and a nice change of pace, actually requiring some combat skill.

Voice acting is great.

I can’t wait to get back in and collect more Riddler trophies.

Arkham City is totally engrossing, and the experience is even further enhanced when playing in 3D.

What I Didn’t Like:

A three-layer activation process.

No side-missions for Robin.

Getting stuck to my Batarang on a block of ice for two hours.

Spending another two hours trying to figure out why I couldn’t dive-bomb.

I would have loved to see Arkham City in the daylight.

A little too much traveling back and forth across the city.

Combat, while fun to watch, requires no skill.

Crashing during the closing cinematic.

Finishing the game before a DX 11 patch was released.

Trying to find a good tutorial on 3DV video rendering.