Be Excellent To Each Other

NFS had me playing past midnight last night, which is a pretty rare thing for a game these days because I'm old and basically just waiting for retirement and then death.

I have enough cash to buy any of the best cars in the game, but I'm quite enjoying seeing how far I can push my early cars. (Subaru BRZ, Mk 1 Golf GTi, E43 M3.) The hard races are getting super-challenging now though so I may have to cave and buy something better before too long, as even a single minor error pretty much scuppers my chance of a win.

You really could think of this game as NFSU3, with the style-of-the-times open roaming world element chucked in for good measure. Every event has a 'TELEPORT' option right from the start of the game, so there's none of that having to drive to every event nonsense that blighted the otherwise incredible Burnout Paradise (I know they patched in a restart option but even then you had to get to the start line for each event).

In fact, it's basically a cross between NFSU and Burnout Paradise/Most Wanted, and it costs less than £30 on Origin, so there you go.

Glad you're enjoying it. I wondered for a while if it were 'just me' sort of thing. I was a massive fan of the first two NFSU games. I even built a new PC just so I could play the first one (Athy XP 1700 OC to 2000 speeds with a Radeon 9200 Pro). Eee, them were the days ! the whole lot cost me about $300 and a decent GPU was $129. Those days are coming back though thanks to AMD !) but yeah, sorry for digressing there but I thought that maybe I only liked this game because I was desperate and that it was really a pile of honking shit.

I don't understand why there are practically no reviews for it whatsoever and reviews for the PS4 version are poor. It scored around 6/10 in the reviews I read, hardly a glowing endorsement. Yet it's actually much much better than that. I would give it a good solid 8.5/10 which puts it in the "must play" sort of category. Yet it seems EA have done everything to stop players playing it

It was eye wateringly expensive (ME Catalyst has just launched for SIXTY DOLLARS /eek emoticon) and pretty much no reviews to document all of the fixes and changes since the PS4 version.

It's almost like EA wanted it to fail just to spite all of the petitions and arguing and people sending them hate mail for not making NFSU III (and that went pretty far, especially the petition part !).

Nuts man. Just plain nuts.

I have purchased WOLFENSTEIN THE NEW ORDER for £7.49 on Steam in a sale. I am posting in this thread about it because the install is 47GB. Wasn't this on 360 and PS3?

I think it's those MEGA TEXTURE things, but even so, 47GB, for what was a last-gen console game.

A 500GB SSD doesn't go that far in this day and age.

I may have been cross-gen, but The New Order definitely shipped for PS4 - I own it.

Bought my first Steam early access game yesterday, Pixel Cup Soccer 17. I've been struggling to get into the small number of footy games on Steam but I'm enjoying this one. Plays like the old arcade game Football Champ with simple controls but very polished for an early access game.

Yep.. I've got it on the Xbox One too. I should get into it as I quite enjoyed the one for the 360.. can't remember the name of it, but it was good.

"Wolfenstein"

That's a very decent game. Graphics are a bit ropey at times (all looks a bit two gens ago) but yeah, top game I completed that one twice

Avoid the follow up DLC though. It's very hard and nowhere near as good as the first bit.

It was on the tip of my tongue

Just bought my first ever Lego game, Lego Star Wars The Force Awakens for the very reasonable price of £10.99 on CDkeys.

Downloading it now, the trailer made it look most excellent Never played a Lego title before but it sure does look like fun

I played the first 2 star wars lego game and almost died of boredom. I don't know how they manage to be so popular. Yes, i know, it's the licences, but the games are also very popular among critics and discernible gamers.

Following on from posting about Wolfenstein The New Order in completely the wrong thread yesterday:

viewtopic.php?p=918666#p918666

Played through Levels 2 and 3 last night. I've already got the 100% bug so refuse to leave a level until I've found everything on it, even though collecting everything doesn't seem to confer any bonuses to the player in the way that DOOM did (i.e. weapon upgrade tokens).

And yeah, it's a great game, which makes the unfathomably awful opening stretch even more mystifying, it's like they felt they had to do some sort of CoD-style explosion onto the screen to kick things off, when there's really no need for it at all.

The stealth aspect is a little bit bollocksed, the enemies often have that amazing laser-line-of-sight vision going on, apparently spotting a sneaking silent assassin, some twenty metres above their current position, with no trouble at all. As such stealth does have its limitations, there's generally no Dishonored-esque taking down an entire camp of baddies silently and/or without even being seen, and breaking out the assault rifle at some point is usually required.

The story is engaging and I like the characters, the cinematics are well done and worth watching. And of course, when it comes to baddies they don't come much badder than Nazis, so killing the fuck out of them is hugely enjoyable.

Overall then, very enjoyable stuff, lots of similarities with DOOM although it seems to have been developed by an entirely different team, so not sure what the deal is there. (Obviously it's published by Bethesda, same as DOOM, and has iD's logo on it, so who knows.)

Yes I know I'm always about two years off the pace with this sort of thing but WTNO really is great, Level 4 was pretty much a full-on stealth level but it's kind of like they acknowledged that the actual 'normal' stealth is a bit broken as stealth was enforced for nearly all of Level 4 and the mechanics of the level were designed around it. It did feel very good to break out the MEGA GUNS on the end stretch though, dual-wielding automatic shotguns, that's fun.

Level 5 wasn't even a 'level' as such in many ways as it's basically the resistance base and just looking for a folder and there are no baddies to shoot, but so many little details and touches that were really great, different dialogue from the various characters, and the original Wolfenstein 3D level easter egg upstairs.

It's all very, very DOOM though, I find it hard to believe that a lot of the same people weren't involved. In fact it's a lot like DOOM but with Nazis instead of demons. (This is very much a good thing, of course.)

German-esque versions of The Beatles (with newspaper clippings around the place to explain where they came from), totally unnecessary but a genius addition. This is just a single collectible in a single room. Fab game.

Just whatever you do, don't feed it after midnight, I mean, play the sequel. I was absolutely gutted when I had to give up after about three hours because it was ridiculously hard.

Definitely ignore this advice. The Old Blood is great.

Glad you enjoyed it

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2015/ ... d-review/2

I just didn't think it was a patch on the first one.

60% is a pretty good score

Also overall it got just about the same sorts of reviews that the first one got. Having actually played it all I reckon it to be as good if not slightly better in many places. Just great fun games that have no goals loftier than keeping you entertained.

I'll play through WTNO first, and then most likely snag Old Blood after that, it's £15 at the moment (which would be fine) but doubtless will turn up cheaper again at some point.

I think WTNO is brilliant, so if Old Blood is merely in the same sort of ballpark in quality terms I'll be happy.

£7.99 on CDkeys

Maybe I will return to it again and try and slog through the stupid huge things that you have to switch off. I remember doing it once (swearing as I went) then I lost my save game so I had to do it again and I ragequit lol.

I got Old Blood free with Doom.

It isn't that hard really. Once you work out how to tackle the giant robots, I enjoyed it as well.

I would say I enjoyed them both equally.

Welcome back Nemmie.

OK well I'll definitely give it another go then if it's OK to Mr Misery then it must be good

I'll no doubt see you at the weekend dude good to see you !

I loved Wolfenstein but didn't get on with the Old Blood. I got stuck right at the start where they take all your weapons away and you have to get past the big robot things.

The Thursday challenge reminded me I took this photo last night.

What in the name of giddy fuck is going on with the depth-of-field here? There are two settings, HIGH and MEDIUM. This is MEDIUM, you can't turn it off completely without fucking about with config files which I tried and it doesn't appear to work.

I don't like DOF as an effect at all, and ordinarily just turn it off.

WTNO has a particularly bad implementation of the effect though, apparently your chap can't even see into the next room clearly. (It's bad enough when you're outdoors IMO, but when you're indoors it's borderline comical.)

Me too. I made it past once but couldn't manage it twice.

I'll give it another go though

That seems such a shitty section that I don't think i'll ever try this game.

Anything I've got in ASSAULT or DEMOLITION has been entirely accidental, the STEALTH I've made a deliberate effort to max out but the TACTICAL I'm just sort of letting happen naturally.

And everyone went for the Fergus timeline, surely?

The dual-wield auto-shotguns remain a thing of glorious wonder, and there's always a chance to break them out as the game simply doesn't allow for 'all stealth' like Dishonored does (which is fine, as WTNO is a very different game).

Could do without all the bastard wire-cutting though. Yes. There's a wire grille in front of me. I can work out what to do. For the fiftieth time. Oh now I have a LASER CUTTING GUN which will cut through THICKER THINGS. No problem, I can still work that out. Cheers. (Although the game did joke about it I suppose as your chap chucks away the wire cutter immediately, once he gets his hands on the Laserkraftwerk, the name of which made me chuckle in itself.)

what is the difference between the £20 and £40 version of Elite.

As I am tempted to give it ago

4 £5 notes

other than the price

The £20 is just the base game, and will not give you the Horizons expansion (which gives you the ability to land on planets (although not atmospheric ones) and drive around on them, amongst other things)

The £40 version gets you the Horizons expansion, and a Season Pass for the rest of the Horizons expansion tree, which includes the Engineers update (secret NPCs you can gain reputation with and then do missions for and get special upgrades) and which will be adding a lot of new things over the coming months (ship-launched fighters, NPC multicrew, a character creator etc.) and a load of paintjobs for your ship. The paintjobs are balls really, they're just cosmetic and are a few quid each on their shop normally.

You want the Horizons expansion though - it adds a lot of extra depth to the game, although admittedly the game itself is still a little "barebones" content wise. But then, Elite always was - you make your own game, basically.

If you can find the Elite base game available for under £20 anywhere (Steam, CDkeys etc.) then buy it on there, and then get the Horizons Season Pass from the Frontier store. Same as the £40 pack (minus the paintjobs) but for cheaper.

Where are you looking?

EDIT: Never mind, Gaz is here.

Cheers... i am tempted now, I have a good graphics card, and a bit of time..

Yeah, it runs well on the card I sold you - you won't be able to slap it up to Ultra settings I expect, but it looks gorgeous on even medium settings in my experience. I think I used to put it on Very High when I had that card in.

Cheers Gaz.... i am hovering on buying it

If you want to give it a try, you're welcome to pop around to mine first. Or buy the "Arena" game, this is £5 and is just like a multiplayer dogfighting game (it's included in the main game too)

managed to get a cheap key. Downloaded.

It looks pretty, i can image it will take a lot of practice

There are some tutorial videos reachable from the launcher, they do a good job of explaining the basics needed to get started.

i am enjoying it so far. just doing the data missions as the sidewinder is too smaill for cargo.

(is there an Elite Thread)

Yup - what's your commander name, dude? Will add you to my friends list.

KovacsC I think

Ooh, Night in the Woods has semi-secretly released on the steams today. But no one has reviewed it fully yet! Bah.

As far as I know it's a adventure platforming horror game or something. Who the fuck knows. I've been watching this one for a little while and it's certainly looks super interesting and kooky with a great art style.

Most recent trailer for face.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/36752 ... ewReleases

Hollow Knight has semi-stealth released too! Damn, this is looking good if you like Metrovania shit.

Alright?

HOC #64 (I've long lost count) wants to buy a gaming PC and monitor. She has £1k and likes to play Guild Wars 2 and things from Steam.

RHD, chums!

PC: £599 http://www.ebuyer.com/762139-pc-special ... s-d1135873



Monitor: £210 http://www.ebuyer.com/695562-asus-vx24a ... tor-vx24ah


Pocket the change.

Spend the change on swapping the spinning rust out for an SSD, surely.

Yeah, good idea.

Depends on the way the OS is installed, but hell yeah.