The problem with Open World games is I tend to stick to the story a lot. Which is good often - unlocks gameplay and regions and contacts etc, but comes at risk of chasing the marker. So it's time to step back and set my own markers in RDR2. Which successfully gave me a memorable trip to northeast, a desolate native camp, revisit and soloing a former mission place and a return leg through swamps, gatling guns and finding St Denis.
What other games are we all playing?
- Thread starter Schindler
- Start date
RDR2
Found a craggy plateau behind some mountain stretchers with a legendary buck, unfriendly people and wolves. Got the buck, crashed into the mountain with my face while studying a goat and had to revive "Freeman" (my horse - she's a girl tho - don't ask).
Went badger hunting for the rest of the session, lol. But got a couple perfect pelts along. Even squirrel said hello. The hunt is on. Next is beavers and I'm gonna revisit the area south of the legendary buck, because the map says it's a dam there...
Found a craggy plateau behind some mountain stretchers with a legendary buck, unfriendly people and wolves. Got the buck, crashed into the mountain with my face while studying a goat and had to revive "Freeman" (my horse - she's a girl tho - don't ask).
Went badger hunting for the rest of the session, lol. But got a couple perfect pelts along. Even squirrel said hello. The hunt is on. Next is beavers and I'm gonna revisit the area south of the legendary buck, because the map says it's a dam there...
Many pelts later and things develop clearly toward the big catastrophe. I guess they had it coming. This might be the last chapter, last chapter saw me reducing my honour by firing at foreign soldiers. I guess this calls for more meet and greet in St Denis.
Also bought myself dry with a black arab, which turns out to be a ridiculously small horse. Arthur is not happy. I got it all back I think after finding the crew again in the Bayou and gunning down pinkertons with Gatling gun.
There simply is not much room to escalate the firepower further, but still family to kill off. The showdown must be close.
Also bought myself dry with a black arab, which turns out to be a ridiculously small horse. Arthur is not happy. I got it all back I think after finding the crew again in the Bayou and gunning down pinkertons with Gatling gun.
There simply is not much room to escalate the firepower further, but still family to kill off. The showdown must be close.
The Arabian...fast, but as skittish as a cat with one ear. The Turkoman is the best all round horse in the game...besides the Arabian, few are faster or more agile. Besides the clodhopping war horses like the Ardennes, few have as much stamina or have less tendency to chuck you into the scenery every time they see a snake
Brown or silver ...I like them both.
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It always saddens me that RDR2 isn't playable in an offline capacity (the same as GTA V) on PC, because I would love to sink my teeth into it whilst I'm away with work.
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You've not heard of Red Dead Online? Sadly hackers have ruined it, but for a long time it was a pretty enjoyable "MMO" version of RDR2, though I always thought it had a lot of untapped potential to be even better.
That was an autocorrect infill.. it was supposed to read 'in an offline capacity'. Sadly, when I end up in places with no connection (which the modern world doesnt seem to believe still exist) it amazes me how many single-player games like RDR2, GTA 5 or Ultimate Admirals: Age of Sail won't boot up.
Well I fired up (on Xbox series x) wow legends this morning, but am actually playing and enjoying Dredge and looking forward to Cities Skylines2 and of course Starfield ( shame about the ED on console debacle) .
Finished Dredge earlier today. It's a disappointing and formulaic game where you go to a location, complete the fish collection quest, get the MacGuffin, do the optional fish collection puzzle for an item you probably won't use, and repeat this four times until you get a A/B choice for a one minute ending to a copypaste plot. I don't know why it's rated as high as it is.
Oh yes, THIS drives me absolutely crazy. It's not a problem for me on PS4, but I'm guessing that's because I own a physical disc for RDR2. PC, on the other hand... It's especially annoying because Steam actually does allow me to authenticate games offline, but Rockstar's launcher seems to need to "double check" regardless if Steam gives a green light.
The trailer looks absolutely amazing, but I don't know how much of it is actual gameplay footage and how much of it is "creative license" like Elite's many trailers. If the actual game graphics and ability to get down to street level matches the trailer, sign me up! I just hope they don't gate all the good content behind 1000 DLCs like original CS.
Baldur's Gate 3 is a "game of the decade" level of home run. Also now in the top 8 most played games on Steam. Best RPG ever with unprecedented levels of freedom.
So much that other studios are whining they wont ever achieve that scope:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63le3y2kjlI
When your competition starts crying that means you've done well
(edit) love the top comment:
Also interesting that's a solo game with purely optional co-op multi, and with zero micro transaction. And no DRM. No internet connection required.
So much that other studios are whining they wont ever achieve that scope:
When your competition starts crying that means you've done well
(edit) love the top comment:
Also interesting that's a solo game with purely optional co-op multi, and with zero micro transaction. And no DRM. No internet connection required.
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I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3 recently, but I just realized that the children in Tiefling settlement cannot be killed...and I've been playing a character who's been killing people left and right for the most trivial of slights, or just to take their stuff. Having all these relatively innocuous goblin children that die just like anyone else, then be confronted with actually obnoxious, thieving, children--who, even after going through the risk of sending the party's only healer (who was the only one who could fit) into uncharted tunnels to find the leader of this gang of child thieves with explicit orders to terminate anyone found with extreme prejudice--I find that these particular kids simply do not die, no matter how grievous the wounds they suffer.
While I'm well aware of the annoying trend of placing children in open world games, then making them annoy the PCs while protected with a fourth-wall breaking, immersion defying, mandatory content filter, I'm less sure of the reason for the speciesist distinction between these different groups of children.
In Fallout 2, when the Den kids pick pocketed my character's bottle caps or grenades, they got cut in half with a burst of point-blank SMG fire. In Deus Ex, when Louis Pan threatened to have my incarnation of J.C. Denton murdered by Triads, he was turned into a spray of gore with a LAW in the middle of a public street as an example. In Baldur's Gate 3, where it's implied that I'll be able to play equally 'dark'/murderhobo characters, when a gang of thieves runs off with my protagonists property then threaten other party members to their faces, they're off-limits. That sure doesn't feel like unprecedented freedom.
Another annoyance that forced me to significantly alter how I was going about my playthrough is the inability to remove dead characters from the party. Without too many spoilers, there is this wizard that joins up who is demanding, annoying, and evasive all at the same time...so, naturally, I had my main character whack him in the back of the skull with a large sword, fully intending to leave his carcass to rot where it fell, only to find out he was still taking up a party slot, and that he could only be removed from it by talking to him...need to find a beholder or something that can disintegrate his ass.
It's also impossible to make fat characters.
Anyway, I was enjoying up until these annoyances started to pile up. I'll probably revisit it once I learn the basics of the modding tools and have figured out a streamlined way to erase annoying party members from existence and remove the flags that prevent certain NPCs from being killable.
While I'm well aware of the annoying trend of placing children in open world games, then making them annoy the PCs while protected with a fourth-wall breaking, immersion defying, mandatory content filter, I'm less sure of the reason for the speciesist distinction between these different groups of children.
In Fallout 2, when the Den kids pick pocketed my character's bottle caps or grenades, they got cut in half with a burst of point-blank SMG fire. In Deus Ex, when Louis Pan threatened to have my incarnation of J.C. Denton murdered by Triads, he was turned into a spray of gore with a LAW in the middle of a public street as an example. In Baldur's Gate 3, where it's implied that I'll be able to play equally 'dark'/murderhobo characters, when a gang of thieves runs off with my protagonists property then threaten other party members to their faces, they're off-limits. That sure doesn't feel like unprecedented freedom.
Another annoyance that forced me to significantly alter how I was going about my playthrough is the inability to remove dead characters from the party. Without too many spoilers, there is this wizard that joins up who is demanding, annoying, and evasive all at the same time...so, naturally, I had my main character whack him in the back of the skull with a large sword, fully intending to leave his carcass to rot where it fell, only to find out he was still taking up a party slot, and that he could only be removed from it by talking to him...need to find a beholder or something that can disintegrate his ass.
It's also impossible to make fat characters.
Anyway, I was enjoying up until these annoyances started to pile up. I'll probably revisit it once I learn the basics of the modding tools and have figured out a streamlined way to erase annoying party members from existence and remove the flags that prevent certain NPCs from being killable.
I believe that killable children will get your game banned in many countries, I think that's why the children were removed completely from Fallout 1 and 2
Was the early days of the ESRB, you can't get a M today with that. Today, your experience is shaped around what the ESRB, PEGI, and Australia's Classification Board want, along with various agendas from extremely powerful groups and what they've gotten removed from the DSM by force.
And it has a macOS version. Who would guess?
There's a "pure evil" playthrough option (which you can pick upon character creation) and the game doesnt shy from gore or sexual content - I suppose unkillable NPC would be an oversight at this point. Maybe like others mentioned that would be "too far" for censorship groups (see also: Germany..) but yeah the game will get mods for sure.
By "unprecedented freedom" I mean the TTRPG-like interactions with everything. I was pleased when I saw I could use a lot of elements in the environment to give me an advantage in fights. NPC interaction is also top notch and there's a proper chain of consequences. NPCs will also acknowledge your character origins in some cases. Too many examples to list here but IMHO this is way above Fallout which had much more limited choices in terms of interaction (and "killing everyone on sight" is not really a complicated interaction TBH).
By "unprecedented freedom" I mean the TTRPG-like interactions with everything. I was pleased when I saw I could use a lot of elements in the environment to give me an advantage in fights. NPC interaction is also top notch and there's a proper chain of consequences. NPCs will also acknowledge your character origins in some cases. Too many examples to list here but IMHO this is way above Fallout which had much more limited choices in terms of interaction (and "killing everyone on sight" is not really a complicated interaction TBH).
Enjoying BG3 - though I keep getting rekt in the big fights, so more to learn - I'm sure I'm not supposed to head back to sleep at camp after every fight 
. Already reached a few story branches which have me thinking 'now I want to play through and do X instead of Y and see what happens'.
Seriously thinking I won't have time to play Starfield when it comes out.
. Already reached a few story branches which have me thinking 'now I want to play through and do X instead of Y and see what happens'.Seriously thinking I won't have time to play Starfield when it comes out.
The story branches and there's a huge choice you have to make concerning your Illithid parasite that I can 100% predict will completely change the end game, typical of Larian. It comes with a subtle warning so you know but Larian wont give you a pop-up dialog saying "there's no turning back from there". I plan to play the game twice (pure evil run 2nd, with a different choice for the Illithids, embrace the tentacle power !!) just for that reason. I suppose Starfield can wait, not a bad thing as a Bethesda game needs at least 1 or 2 patches after release anyway.
that's DnD for you if you use regular spellcasters - they only get their spell slots back after a long rest. The exception is the Sorcerer who can cheese that mechanics a bit using sorcery points and short rests.
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I saw a video clip of a character kicking a cute squirrel to death, and I began to question whether this game is for me or not. I'm really not into gratuitous violence and raunchy sex scenes just for the sake of it, which is why I never got into Game of Thrones or Teacher With Cancer Selling Coke (forget the name of that show). I'm not opposed to violence as a means to an end - I've shot plenty of O'Driscolls in RDR2, and they all had it coming, and I've hunted animals for food and furs, but I don't go around gleefully hurting folk for the fun of it. It made me cringe in that one scene where Arthur tells one of the girls that he's killing animals and people "for the fun of it", and I'm thinking, "No I'm not! This isn't the way I'm playing this character!" Nor do I like it when the script forces me to hit women to rob a train, etc. Thankfully I can focus on being a "high honor" Robin Hood type in the open world portion of that game.
Anyway, is BG3 a "Kick cute squirrels to death for the fun of it, like it or not because that's the script" kind of game, or are these actions optional like in Mass Effect?