2014 Game Releases

[Padishar]

Very glad to hear!
Was a bit leary after the DA2 debacle...
Though I did play completely through Origins twice

[SL33PY]

Very glad to hear!
Was a bit leary after the DA2 debacle...
Though I did play completely through Origins twice

I'm stuck in da:o on my mage playtrough in redwood

Yesterday I ran into the Qun leader in DA2, I'll have to rethink my tactics battling him, being a warrior doesn't really help. I need to find a way to kill him without lowering the difficulty settings. I read up a bit, seems I should have brought 'nades and poison ... which I haven't I'm not sure if I still have a savegame right before the start of the Act2 finale

[Anubis]

I've been feeling in the mood for an Origins replay lately,but there's no way I'll get time before Inquisition sadly

Still one of the best games of the generation!

[Anubis]

So Assassins Creed Unity released...

The future is now!

[M.Steiner]

Yeah, not watching any more of these
Still really looking forward to the game myself so don't want to spoil my excitement for it going in. As such I'm ignoring all references to Unity now until I've played it for myself.

Part of me is wondering how much of this stuff has been over exaggerated though. I mean, when people start going on and on and making compilation videos and whatever else it's gonna look worse than it might actually be. But is it really? or is it just a case of people jumping on the bandwagon, hating and making the issues seem worse and more frequent than they actually are?. or not as wide spread as they may be coming across?. I suppose if it is then it has worked out quite well for those of you who can't play it yet, but I really hope not for those of us who can and are still looking forward to playing it this week.

Sometimes it can be hard to tell with stuff like this though. AC3 tends to get a lot of hate for example and is seen by many as one of the weakest entries in the series but for me personally? one of my favourites and I enjoyed it more than Black Flag. Then there's Fallout: New Vegas. That game was a <censored> mess when it released with bugs and glitches galore, some of which were game breaking for those who were unlucky enough to encounter them. It should not have released in the state that it did and the fact that it did was a disgrace. Still, even though I encountered many of those myself I can still manage to look past them and agree that it was a brilliant game regardless of all its problems at launch. Some people can't do that though and when that's all people are banging on about it's hard to tell how much of it is warranted and whether there is still a gem in there despite them, as if that's all I had been reading about NV for example I'd have been put off from getting that day one as well. BF4 was kinda the same. It should not have launched in the state that it did (even though I admittedly encountered far less issues than others and was kinda lucky in that regard) but even still it was damn good even at launch imo.
Anyway, I will see and judge for myself when my copy arrives on Friday.

Also I'm really glad to see that DA:I has been received so well. I was hoping it would and I've been pumped for that since they first started talking about it when it was clear they had listened to feedback. BioWare are often a figure of hate for some gamers (sadly) so I hope Inquisition helps to restore some peoples faith in them. I can't wait to play it and still expect it to be one of my GOTY contenders. AC Unity & FC4 first though!

[SL33PY]

Hey MS... how about we plan a game session this Friday I can twitch stream it too

[M.Steiner]

I think it's probably best we wait for the upcoming patches tbh:

remember ms
when you get it
and play it
turn internet off
of course the callbacks to the server for the microtransactions, app chests and dlc checks would <censored> the game up
It seems to be validating co-op and microtransactions, DRM etc. essentially on the same core as where the main thread is running.

http://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/commen ... _internet/
Being online and connected to Uplay appears to be screwing peoples performance up so I'll probably disconnect myself whilst I'm playing it so my game isn't running like shit. One would assume the patches won't be far away though so should not have to do that for very long I hope. I don't have or use a mic but should still be fun to try once they've fixed their shit

[SL33PY]

oh my, what a piece of shit design this is 2014 you'd think that developers would 'get' multi-threading and async calls to remote services

[M.Steiner]

Aye, just shocking :/
I'm trying not to let the negativity currently surrounding the game affect me going into it but there seems to be a lot of it going around atm. It should not have released with problems like this but if there's still a great game underneath all of it then I can probably manage to look past those until they're patched, like I did Fallout New Vegas and BF4 as I say. As long as I can actually PLAY it, not like when I was locked out of Watch Dogs for some 20+ days lol. It can't get much worse than that heh.

Anyway, I'm still excited to start it so fingers crossed for us!. I'll be sure to post some pics, impressions and I may record a vid or two for YouTube over the weekend too


Some of the reviews for AC Rogue don't read all that great either btw. Destructoid's review of it (5.5/10) for example:

Those who yearn for a return to Black Flag's sandbox will take comfort knowing this is "more of the same," as the clichéd review expression goes. But, Rogue's systems do nothing to move Assassin's Creed forward, leaving it fittingly stuck in the past like the last-generation consoles it graces. Anyone who expects more will be disappointed. Anyone who just wants another open-world adventure replete with sailing, exploration, and killing might find comfort in its familiar ways.

I'll still play it when it comes to PC but this seems to confirm what I was worried about with Rogue (at least in this reviewers opinion) and why my interest has always been with Unity over it, and still is despite its reported problems.

[SL33PY]

I'll pay no more than €5 for rogue period

[M.Steiner]

Reviews for next weeks Far Cry 4 are starting to come out btw guys:

The Guardian - 5/5
Joystiq - 4.5/5
Destructoid 9/10
CVG - 9/10
Metro - 9/10
GodisaGeek - 9/10
GamesRadar - 4/5
Eurogamer - 8/10
Videogamer - 8/10

IGN - Review in progress
Gamespot - Review in progress

Very positive so far!
Will edit some more in as they appear

[Anubis]

Farcry did look and play great at Eurogamer Expo, so I'm not too surprised that the reviews are looking good

Definitely tempted to get it myself if I enjoy 3 when I get round to it!

[M.Steiner]

Got a few screenies and webm's of Unity:

That's all I've taken so far but will share more (probably better ones) over the weekend if I can!

[SL33PY]

played my first hour(s) of Unity yesterday 1920 x 1080 (on the highest available settings), no glitches *RAWR!* And it's <censored> sexeh and awesome! the facial expressions are off the chart compared to previous games

edit: look me up on uplay and add me! "SSX-SL33PY"

[M.Steiner]

Rogue looks like crap in comparison. I think it will be hard for me to go back to playing a last-gen AC title like that after I'm done with Unity tbh. Replays aside. Such a huge difference.


Also I'm hoping now that Ubi are well on their way with the patches that some people will give the game a chance now and not completely write it off. As I suspected, some of it has been completely blown out of proportion and some of those early issues have been fixed already. That being said, even before some of those particular bugs were fixed I've experienced nothing of the kind. No weird skeleton faces, no getting stuck in the hay, no falling through the floor, no random NPCs appearing in cutscenes or flying down streets. Not one crash either....

My only real complaints are #1 - the frame rate. The only setting I have lowered is AA and left everything else on max (1080) but I should still be able to get a constant 60 on my rig tbh. I do see 60 at times, but it's not consistent. They are looking at this too though:

"We are also investigating various performance issues including framerate drops, and are looking into how we can address them," Ubisoft said. "We’ll tell you more about our progress on that topic in the coming days."

#2 being the pop in but this was present in previous AC titles as well, it's just a bit more noticable in Unity but that's because it's trying to do so much more. It was a bit distracting at first but I've gotten used to it enough now that I don't always notice it.

I'll have to reserve judgement on the story for now as I don't believe one can properly judge that without seeing it through from beginning to end. I've liked what I've played of it so far but I'm not that far into it, and you can't judge a book by the first chapter alone so fingers crossed on that. Loving the other improvements though and the amount of customization in the game.
Anyhow, Unity is still in the running for being one of my GOTY contenders so don't listen to the whining and play and judge it for yourself when you can, as one should always do imo. Seems like a great game to me

[M.Steiner]

My only real complaints are #1 - the frame rate.

You can ignore this now.
After updating my video card drivers I had forgotten that SLI gets turned off and needs to be re-enabled in the Nvidia control panel, because of that I had basically been playing the game whilst only using one of my 2 cards. My own silly fault basically.
Now that I'm utilizing both cards properly my frame rate is not a problem at all really. Can run around (even in large crowds) with a constant 60 fps at 1080p. As such I'm now downsampling from 2560x1440 with FXAA & everything else maxed out and can still maintain 50+ fps most of the time. They have acknowledged the performance though so once they get that smoothed out I could probably downsample from even higher than that. Will leave it at 1440p for now though as I don't want to sacrifice too much frame rate. It looks absolutely stunning as it is
- One problem does arise from enabling SLI however and that's the odd bit of flickering. I think they fixed most of it with the second patch but there's still a couple of instances where it is still present, like when transitioning to the map. I can live with it but hopefully they've got a fix coming for that in the next patch or so.

(I also created an SSX club in the game btw for those of you who later decide to get it. "ShatteredStarExiles" as the full name so just search for that. You should have an invite already SL33PY )

[SL33PY]

I know, it's been accepted the minute you sent it. I also had the same issue with the nvidia driver install disabling sli. I noticed it when I was streaming a bit of AC:U on twitch. I must say that when I'm not streaming to twitch using the conventional tools my frame rate is a lot more stable. Tried to use nvidia shadowplay thingy... didn't work.. and thus gave up

enjoying the game while i can We should do some co-op tonight ms

[M.Steiner]

We should do some co-op tonight ms

Can do!. Might not be on for very long as I'm like a kid with a new toy atm (a guitar) but we can try a few missions together, sure (Or over the weekend if not tonight)

[Edit: Just noticed that you'd mentioned a time over on Twitter but I haven't been on there all day so only just seen it, had only just come back to my PC when I made this post too. I should be around more this weekend though if that's still good for you!]

[SL33PY]

well i'm on now for a couple of hours, will be out tonight and tomorrow i'm fully booked, if all else fails we can do some co-op Monday or Tuesday evening

[M.Steiner]

Few screenies of Far Cry 4!



Will share more during the week

It plays very much like 3 (which is a good thing) so if you enjoyed the last Far Cry you should enjoy this one too I think. Really loving it so far. Been doing a lot of hunting!
Couple of SLI issues with it atm though unfortunately which means Ava and I have to run it with just the one 970 rather than 2 (like certain areas suddenly appear a lot darker than they actually should do for example, like pitch black. Then when leaving that area it'll suddenly go light again. Ava also noticed a "burned in" texture effect after exiting shops and back into the world and which stayed on the screen). There's at least 1 patch for it coming this week though so I'm hoping there's a fix for it in there somewhere. Fingers crossed.

Oh, and Sabal is Sayid from Lost! ^^

[M.Steiner]

Just tweeted it but the first episode of Telltale's "Tales from the Borderlands" will be out later today (25th)! (With Game of Thrones slated for next month too).
So many games to play atm but I'm not complaining! lol

Still need to go back and continue with season 2 of TWD but I finished The Wolf Among Us not so long ago - brilliant.

[M.Steiner]

Few more pics of FC4 (the last):




Fantastic game. Better than FC3 imo.
Got some of the side content to wrap up this weekend but once I'm done with those I'll be moving on to Dragon Age: Inquisition

[Anubis]

You're moving through these entirely too much...I'm still on Shadow of Mordor!

[M.Steiner]

I dunno... I spent a week each with both Unity & FC4 which is pretty good going for me. I'll still go back to both of them to finish stuff off too (as I haven't gotten either to 100%) so I'm not putting either of them down for good just yet
I expect DA:I will take me a bit longer to get through with it being an RPG and all (started it tonight but only very briefly) which was why I wanted to leave that one until last of those three. Not wanting to rush through any of them, just playing at my own pace. Also, as of right now FC4 is in the running for my GOTY (Unity is a couple behind). I'm expecting a lot from DA:I though so it could very well take the top spot. We shall see!

Shadow of Mordor took me around 3-4 days of straight playing to 100% in comparison btw. Lirik on the other hand finished it day of release

[M.Steiner]

Reviews are out for Episode 1 of Telltale's Game of Thrones series

GamesBeat - 95/100
Game Informer - 8.5/10
The Escapist - 4/5
Gamespot - 8/10
IGN - 8/10
God is a Geek - 8/10
Jim Sterling - 7.5/10
Destructoid - 7/10
Polygon - 6.5/10
--
Joystiq - No Score
Kotaku - No Score
Eurogamer - No Score
GamesRadar - No Score
PC Gamer - No Score

Not quite as positive as the reviews for their Borderlands game appeared to be but I'll definitely get this too (probably around Christmas since I'm busy with DA:I atm). I see Mech has already bought it!