Posts by Jetsetlemming

Watched a stream from Blizzcon for a while, her "transposer" has a five second cooldown, which seems really short, but it has a long "cast" time as she physically throws it, and teleports to wherever it is when she presses the button, so I'm expecting to see lots of hilarious failed emergency Sombra escapes to two feet away in midair in the PTR.

Her ability to hack medkits seems incredibly powerful though, a huge shutdown for single healer teams and Tracer play. Not only does it prevent the enemy team from using that point for one minute, it also makes the medkit regenerate every five seconds instead of every thirty as normal. I'm betting that gets nerfed in some way before she goes live.

Quote from (HP)

On 10/28/2016 at 8:00 PM, (HP) said: While the game's getting a lot of hate because you can't open every tap and flush every toilet, let's not forget what it really excels at, the writing. here's a really interesting vid on the historical accuracy

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It really frustrates me how short sighted the surface level criticism of Mafia 3 from major reviewers was. Yeah, they didn't focus on the possible elements of a game that you prefer, and a review is opinion, rather than objective analysis, but still, game sites make sure to assign people who like the base genre of a game for a review so their Madden 2017 review isn't just "I hate football, ugh!". IMO, the obtuse reaction to Mafia 3 is along the same lines. There's obviously merit and an audience for story focused games: Just look at the "Tell me a story" setting for Bioware's recent games and others, added by popular demand.

I hope, despite game reviewers being big dumb stupid idiots (mostly), that Mafia 3 is influential on other game developers, at least. More diversity in understood models of what a game can be, what's valuable to focus on, is important for the development of the artistic side of games, and even the "AAA" games need that. A failure to do that is what kills most "AAA" series.

Not to mention the importance of exposing people to the history and concepts Mafia 3 specifically addresses. I'm sick of games pussyfooting around politics and controversies, like using American jingoism and claiming it's "apolitical" or portraying minorities or freedom fighters as "also bad" like with Daisy Fitzroy in Bioshock: Infinite. If you're gonna touch reality in any way, you're going to need to actually address it, and take responsibility for the themes you're using. Mafia 3 does that when so many games don't, and that was incredibly refreshing, imo.

Quote from DrywallDreams

On 10/28/2016 at 2:43 PM, DrywallDreams said: The Pascal launches have been *bad*. I got my 1070 not long ago (two weeks before my motherboard exploded!), and it was still $30 over msrp. Similarly, while shopping for motherboard, I found the very same i7 6700 that I bought for $350 retailing for $305. Not the best year or so for buying computer parts...

Ended up buying a Radeon rx460, because I found a 4GB model for $120. I'll take the relatively minor looking performance hit in most games (but performance boost for Vulcan!), in exchange for doubled Vram over the 1050.... also I needed to get fucking something eventually, lol.

This is my first time switching back to Radeon from Geforce in over a decade. Hopefully the driver/optimization/etc issues are better than they were. Back in the day, on my Radeon 9250, some games like Fable 1 would refuse to launch in full screen due to weird incompatibility bugs.

My video card died two days ago (four year old gtx 550ti, RIP). Luckily, the new cheap and good gtx 1050s were supposed to launch yesterday, but it seems to be going horribly. Is this how tech product launches normally go? Because I'm not seeing any reporting on what a dumpster fire this has been, but it's totally a fucking dumpster fire. The only products listed on Amazon are third party price gougers selling a $110 budget card for $200+, all the versions listed on Newegg are also marked up and completely sold out, etc. This shit is ridiculous. Even for other video cards, despite news before launch that AMD was proactively cutting prices on their budget video cards to compete, prices instead have skyrocketed by about $40 across the board, according to the graphs on PC Parts Picker.

What the fuck, computer part industry? I just wanna be able to use my computer again.

Quote from blackdog

On 10/22/2016 at 11:58 AM, blackdog said: Is it confirmed that this is a pure console and won't have tablet features?

Just thinking because of what @grapen was posting top of this page

Nothing but rumors that I've seen. It supposedly has a multitouch screen, at least, according to "inside sources". If by tablet features you mean an Android OS and non-gaming functionality though, I doubt it.

Quote from grapen

5 hours ago, grapen said: Will this fly with the demographic in the ad? I'm 30, I commute to work, but I carry two devices and a bunch of other shit already. There's not enough time to whip it out and play Zelda during the day anyway. Feels bad man.

I've started playing my 3ds again. Good phone games are rare and fleeting, and Twitter is bad for my blood pressure during the election season.

Quote from Pampers

11 hours ago, Pampers said: Pretty cool, but I wonder what the prize and battery life will be. That Zelda game didn't seem to run all that smooth when he was using it.

If it's using the Tegra chip, as those leaks/rumors posted last page and months ago claimed, then the battery life should be pretty good. Cell phones have done a lot for battery life development, not so much by making better batteries, but by innovating on chip and screen power efficiency.

Also, if it's using the Tegra chip, it's definitely not going to play your WiiU games, HP WiiU is PowerPC, just like the Wii and Gamecube. Tegra is ARM. Maybe they've learned a thing or two from the 3ds's launch though, and will focus on streamline ports and accessing existing purchased digital content through their store. The 3ds's store security is laughable right now, though, clearly they haven't put a lot of work into it: Pirates can literally download and run legit copies of games directly from Nintendo, unimpeded and undetectable.

Personally, I'm interested, but have two big questions: Price, like Pampers, and storage. Flash memory has been cheap as fuck lately, but platform makers are still charging enormous premiums for onboard memory, like $100 extra on the price tag for 16GB, and SD card slots are like unicorns on any recent phone (thanks Apple!). 3ds uses SD though, thankfully, so hopefully the Switch will, too. Digital distribution is 1000x better than buying physical games and having to swap them, but games lately have been fat as hell (bring back compression for 2017, game industry!), and having to delete and redownload something is obviously a nightmare compared to swapping disks.

Edit:

Looked into it: Nvidia has confirmed the Switch is based on Tegra. Last year Nvidia showed off their latest Tegra model, Tegra X1, running Unreal Engine 4. The upcoming Tegra X2 "Parker" is faster and even has GPGPU support, so maybe the Nintendo Switch will have fancy particle effects and cloth physics like circa 2010 PC games They haven't specified what version of the chip they're using, though, only implying that, at least on the driver level, things have been heavily customized for the Switch. Nvidia's press release has a lot more details than Nintendo's and mentions "a revamped physics engine", but has no tech specs. It also says the release date is March 2017.

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/

I never knew the jokes about the Irish multiplying so fast were literal

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I'm like ~25 hours in and only just realized there's only three big radio stations instead a bunch of fine grain ones like most open world games, lol.

Some tips for anybody coming to the game after this (and I still really recommend it! It's great imo, even after 25 hours!):

1. You need three fuses (the horseshoe looking icons on the map) for each wiretap you install, and the fuses are individually placed hidden items. That doesn't mean you have to collect them all, however! There's far more fuses than you actually need, even if you're going to wiretap every phone junction box in the game, and you don't even need to. The wiretaps reveal items and enemies on your map. If there's no enemies in the area, it just reveals items, mostly the very fuses that you spend to wiretap the box. Instead, if you're doing other things in an area, wiretap the nearest junction box first, and then as you go about shooting dudes and stealing things, you'll come across more than enough collectables to keep you going. You never need to go out of your way to collect fuses, and the junction boxes are all pretty easily accessible (and are marked on your map in a district as soon as it opens up for missions, and whenever you're near them on top of that). Otherwise, you can safely ignore both things.

2. Besides the bonuses you unlock with your underbosses based on how much money/income they're in control of, each racket/district has unique items they'll offer to entice you to give them control. These are things like silenced or special guns, or car performance upgrades, like bulletproof tires. That might make the decision about who to give what seem more complicated, but something the game doesn't tell you that's really worth knowing: The bonuses you don't unlock by rewarding an underboss will be available to buy after you take over the overall district. The underboss will give you free and early access to their particular item, but you aren't locked out of the others.

3. In the harbor district in the northeast, the unique items the underbosses offer are silenced guns: A silenced SMG, a weak but accurate silenced pistol, or a stronger but less accurate silenced pistol. I actually recommend the SMG from Cassandra. It's still very accurate and controllable (especially since rewarding Cassandra gives you access to weapon upgrades for accuracy, ammo, and recoil). The pistol slot is best left to a strong, high ammo count workhorse, like the Blackburn, which kills most people in 2-3 shots (1 headshot), and has a 15 bullet clip. The pistol's extra maneuverability when near walls/cover especially makes it better suited for your general killing weapon rather than your stealth gun. It makes it easier to shoot shotgun guys as they rush you before they can get off a shotgun blast to your gut.

4. The game doesn't have fast travel, which is a little annoying given how enormous the game world is, but when you load a save/checkpoint outside a mission, it takes you to the nearest safehouse you've unlocked, with few exceptions. You can exploit this by doing something that triggers a checkpoint (sadly, no manual saves, qq, but almost every action triggers a save, and they're on a timer on top of that), and then loading that checkpoint. It'll teleport you back into the city, at your nearest (maybe last visited?) racket or safehouse you've taken over.

5. Speaking of travel, the introductory ability you get from getting in contact with Thomas Burke, the Irish underboss, is a free, unlimited ability to order a car to be brought to your current location. It starts with just a basic, slow car, but more unlock through the story, and there's DLC (sigh) for a few more cars, too. Even if you want to do the Mafia 2 guy's missions first, at least go meet Burke, so you can order cars.

6. Reverse of the above: Meeting Vito unlocks the free, unlimited ability to have somebody come take your cash and deposit it in your safe for you. With some more money to Vito, that henchwoman will also pick up your underboss kickbacks whenever you call her, too. Very convenient.

Quote from Pampers

On 10/14/2016 at 5:38 AM, Pampers said:

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I appreciate the detail I noticed in this that the annoying ass tow truck has been replaced by something much easier to climb. I doubt most people looking at that thing realized it could be crouch jumped up until they saw someone else do it.

Quote from Taylor

15 hours ago, Taylor said: The longer the event is the less compelled you are to buy loot boxes.

Though thankfully they let you use the ingame currency you might already have to buy costumes. I'm saving up for the Zenyatta ghoul outfit, personally.

I think I give Mafia 3 a pretty big benefit of the doubt as an underdog. It's got a theme/story that lots of people will hate without even looking at it, and it's very daring in its focus away from traditional areas of development and towards areas that get neglected. There's no "Mafia Online" open world multiplayer component, the graphics are simple enough that I can actually run it on my aging PC (I can't afford to upgrade my video card, ok D: ), etc. They skimped on areas that are seen as back of the box bullet point requirements for many big budget games, instead putting a ton of time and effort into the story, setting, background research, etc. It actually reminds me a lot of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, coming after Vice City. A bunch of gamers hated the protagonist/setting, and in some areas it wasn't as focused, but SA made a way, way, way bigger world than the previous GTA games, added climbing mechanics, and broke a lot of new ground, broke a lot of taboos, etc, and had (imo) a way better soundtrack than its prequels, too.

Despite being published by 2K, I can't help but think of Mafia 3 almost as an indie game because of these things.

PS: I hope this puts the final nail in the coffin of people giving Bioshock: Infinite's treatment of race the benefit of the doubt, lol

I'm really enjoying this, don't get many of the criticisms. Sure, it's got some lower detailed aspects, but it has some areas where it's put in FAR more effort than Mafia 2, or most open world games. There's a lot more variety in setting, environments, time periods, events, etc. The story is also far better than any open world crime game I've ever played. I appreciate their up front statement, actually: Definitely a lot better than Assassin's Creed's lame non-statement of "This was made by a team from diverse backgrounds and faiths" message, lol. The game's dealing with some Real Shit, and it tells you up front it's dealing with Real Shit, and apparently that IS needed, because there's already some controversies about that Real Shit. Irish conservatives, for example, have called for the game to be banned for "praising the IRA", lol.

The upgrade system is closely tied into variable story elements, as you unlock features and favors based on how you treat your three underbosses. A lot of the shit that video last page comparing it to Mafia 2 acts like Mafia 3 doesn't have, it does, just differently. They clearly barely played the game from the video.

Anyway, the game is fun, the story is really well done imo, and I'd recommend it.

The game looked pretty good in Jim Sterling's video, watching a long unedited section rather than bug highlights.

Quote from Alf-Life

35 minutes ago, Alf-Life said: Looks interesting, I'll be keeping an eye on reviews... I'll reserve judgment until I play it, but the "Mafia" name seems bolted-on, seems like they could have made this a new IP couldn't they? Does the Mafia name really hold that much sway for a non-Italian-mob crime game?

They're doing more work to connect it to the series than a Far Cry sequel ever has, lol

Looks interesting. The inside of the house had some odd angles, I wonder if it's procedurally generated?

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I started playing Deus Ex recently, with a overhaul mod called "Give Me Deus Ex" or GMDX that adds some changes to the maps, skill system, better AI that can do shit like throw grenades and flares, etc. Deus Ex is better than literally every single other game in existence, so this is fun.

God help me, but the TGS gameplay trailer they put out... actually looks okay. It's reusing a ton of resources from MGSV, of course, but they're actually remixed in a novel way (kind of like how Volition reused Steelport for SR3, 4, and Gat Out of Hell), and the new stuff... actually seemed decent. I really liked how the fence near the end of the video slowly bent and broke inward against the mass of enemies pushing against it.

Of course, there's plenty of stuff in there that can go oh, so very wrong, plenty of opportunities to turn it into a "Fee 2 Pay" game where you're guided by the game to shell out extra money for a premium currency to buy the resources in short supply to actually play the game.... But hey, MAYBE. MAYBE that won't be the case. WHO KNOWS. (Konami does and they aren't telling)

Note the player menu, shown briefly for a second, that has hunger and thirst meters, a weight-based carry limit, and status percentages on the player's weapons and clothing. Well, we'll see. Because it looks like at least some of the people working on this are really trying for something good.

Volskaya and Eichenwald have more in common than those maps with Hanamura. They have pretty open gates, with a flight/wall ride flank, plus the window. Hanamura's gate is a lot thinner than either of those two maps, and doesn't have a long flank that's completely out of sight like those two have. However, I feel like all this really does is give an extra disadvantage to disorganized teams, rather than necessarily making the map defense-sided. Because it makes it easier for the defense to accidentally coordinate, since they're paying attention to one door, the attacker team has to actually get its shit together just enough to attack in waves, as a whole team, instead of trickling into the meat grinder. If the defense team gets wiped, they're just as likely to start trickling back in, causing a lot of wasted deaths that are fruitless in protecting the point.