Video Games

I loved riding around RDR-land, wandering Skyrim and searching the open bits of Tomb Raider - the biggest issue with the current TR incarnation is that it's turned into a complete murder-fest.

Maybe my memory's fogged over, but iirc, in TR1, she killed a bunch of wildlife and a handful of guys only. Maybe a few supernatural beasties as well.

Years and years ago, I wrote a feature for the Official PlayStation magazine, where I posed as a young game designer and sent out a series of offbeat, idiosyncratic game design proposals to a number of major publishers. One of them was called Country Life and it just involved wandering a lusciously detailed natural landscape, taking photos of wildlife, stopping at little pubs and inns for refreshment, swapping notes with other walkers and just taking in the peace and beauty of the world.

I would play the fuck out of that! Get on it, game devs.

I played Firewatch earlier this year after putting it off for ages because I couldn't understand from any of the reviews what it was, but it's easily one of the best games I've ever played. Dear Esther is great as well. Spent so much time just staring at scenery mumbling happy noises to myself.

My only regret is that they're so short, but the narrative of most shootybang games is lean too, and they're just bulked out by having to pop hordes of mooks in the face for hours.

I have Firewatch on my list - might pick that up soon.

Have you played What Remains of Edith Finch? Amazing, amazing amaaaaaaaazing game. Short-ish but the narrative is outstanding. Amazing game writing.

I don't think we'd end up with a few of those possibly to licencing issues.

Would love tony hawks and tekken (which it looks like we're getting).

Yeah, a SEGA arcade one with HDMI-optimised graphics would be awesome.

That and a mini N64 with the Rare licensing muddle all ironed out so they could include their games...

Firewatch is soooo good.

The dialogs.

To be honest, all of the games I want to replay from the PS1, I already have on the Vita.

I am tempted to get one just for the novelty though.

No! And I really want to, but it's not available on Mac and I'm too cheap to buy another machine. I've been resolutely avoiding Edith Finch spoilers for years now. I've read that it's similar to Gone Home, though.

Definitely get Firewatch, it's a cracking story and a beautiful environment. It's hard to say too much about it without spoiling the story, but you won't be disappointed!

I’m a fan of puzzles in games, Prince of Persia, uncharted and I find the relentless hack and slash, cover/shoot gameplay a bit repetitive, and I’m usually trying to get through them as soon as possible to get to another puzzle.

I much prefer non-fighting content, too, but combat is cheaper to make--all you need is a combat system and NPCs with fairly standard behaviour. Puzzles/quests need laborious programming, often individually. (I'm sure there are repeating puzzles/quests in many games, too.)

Another vote for Firewatch here, absolutely loved it. Edith Finch is also excellent from narrative perspective but I’m not convinced I got much more out of playing it than just watching a run through on you tube.

hmm 2080 & Ti reviews are out.

2080 is basically the same as a 1080Ti on current games, but with less VRAM. Note: none of the new fancy games seem to have been tested so I would expect the 2080 to perform better

2080Ti crushes everything, but man, that price of 1200+ is a bit crazy.

I am waiting to see how the EVGA 2080 Ti cards do

If you want a weird, but fun game, Breathedge is pretty cool. It's still early in it's life though, but I'm having fun (esp. with the immortal chicken!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ7GrwFvdic

https://cutelifebot.github.io/sierpinski/

Scored 7864 so far

Firewatch isn't really a game, is it?

Been following all this quite closely. Wallet was ready if the performance justified the silly premiums, but wallet is now closed.

The whole reason to get excited about an nvidia launch was that typically the new vanilla card offered the same performance as the previous generation's Ti, but at a lower cost. This time round, the regular 2080 costs more than the 1080Ti but performance is almost identical.

Of course there's the new RTX features, but of those it seems DLSS is the only one which might offer a practical benefit anytime soon. Unfortunately no one knows yet cos there isn't any software available which takes advantage.

I was incredibly annoyed by the spoilers time-skips in firewatch. I'd entirely expected/wanted it to be an entire summer of not much happening.

Also for the tiny venn-diagram intersection of people who liked Firewatch and haven't read it, I would recommend Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac. It's a bit heavier on the proto-Buddhist stylings than On The Road, but it also really captures the whole summer incredibly well

Firewatch on Switch - is there any other information around other than it being released Spring 2018?

Given that it's not Spring any more...

I’m waiting on the 2070 in hopes it will drive my LG 5k ultrafine thought its USB C port. Not 100% sure it will, but fingers crossed...

How's it playing?

Heard a lot of reports of it being very buggy still. Want to hold off until it's a bit more stable.

i have a free weekend. what should i pull the trigger on? Fallout 4 or Witcher 3?

Hmm I absolutely love fallout, but the narrative of Witcher is better.
You won't go wrong with either, but
Witcher III

Alternatively you could start writing that novel you've always wanted to/[insert other worthwhile past time here]

Oh a lovely monitor that!

Have you played earlier games in either series? Do you have a preference over fantasy type gubbins (aren't you a WoW head?) or future-y steampunky stuff.

They're both solid. I much prefer Witcher 3 but I like a long sprawling campaign and swords/hacking giant fuck-beasts to death.

I always play the fallouts but they often feel a bit "aren't we clever".

giant fuck-beasts ftw

which has the most stabbing?

fallout is cheaper... might be a deal breaker