Octopus Overlords

coopasonic wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 3:37 pm

Octavious wrote: ↑Mon Aug 22, 2022 3:34 pm It's a shame as I could really use a goofy open world game right now.

Time for an Elden Ring replay!

That's not the worst idea I have heard.

I'm off and to the races. So far, it feels like a Saints Row game and runs great for me, but I'm only just past the requisite over-the-top tutorial mission. I'll report back if I run into any issues.

That is awesome, right there.

This looks like a classic mixed review game. I think a few patches and a sale and I'll end up grabbing it.

I'm enjoying it so far, I'm still very early on in the game though. I did crash once in the middle of a mission, no idea why.

For me, the gameplay feels a lot like Cyberpunk 2077 in terms of flow, lots of side missions and challenges mixed in with a core storyline. I'm again playing on the easiest mode and I'm trying to focus on the "main story" - the same way I played Cyberpunk. The action sequences have been pretty fun, and I like feeling like a badass as easy mode lets me get away with a lot of poor skill. Also similar to Cyberpunk, I tend to not do well on any of the vehicles, I end up crashing into everything and hitting people and objects. Thankfully this game doesn't seem to care for the most part. I'm hoping I get the flying thing I saw in the preview soon so it will be easier for me to get around.

I thought the graphics would look better, but they are pretty much at the same level (to my eyes) as most recent games. Aside from Elden Ring, I haven't been really impressed with any graphics in the last couple years. Considering how much I paid for my stupid RTX card I keep thinking something is going to blow me away graphically.

I certainly think that the last few years companies have been easing off trying to push limits on tech. And for obvious reasons, people couldn't get their hands on new stuff. It's very rare lately that anything really wows me, but I think we'll start seeing some stuff soonish. I tried to go back and play Saints Row 3 Remastered and woof it feels super dated to me. I'm kind of amazed at how they got away with the terrible AI that they had. It's like they didn't even try. As it was part of the PS account I just deleted it and don't plan on trying it again.

I guess this one wasn't as good as hoped since the discussion died so quickly. Did anyone get further into the game? Does it improve?

I like it, but it came out on the same day as Warhammer 3 Immortal Empires and that's been soaking up all my time. I didn't get far into the SR story line because I kept getting distracted by running around and causing mayhem while figuring out how to unlock various weapon signature abilities.

I haven't finished it yet but I'm quite a ways into it.
My biggest problem, at first, was that I kept trying to play it like it was Grand Theft Auto which it very much isn't despite so many similarities.
Once I shook that off I found myself at least enjoying the game but it seems like at every turn the game is trying to remind me that it still needed a bit more time for polishing.
The biggest example, for me anyway, is that the game only remembers about half of the weapon/vehicle/clothing customizations that I have configured in the game. Things like weapon colors and patterns will revert back to stock for some reason. Same with clothing options.
I tend to make all of my customizations based on the same theme (in my case red/black on everything) for weapons, clothing, and vehicles. However, every time I load the game and often after about an hour of play, half of my items revert back to stock color combinations.
I've run into some strange clothing glitches as well. If I pick a specific bottom clothing option, it will sometimes revert or completely change an upper body clothing option. If I then go back and correct the upper option it will then change the bottom option again and round and round.
The weapon wheel will sometimes forget my configuration as well and I'll suddenly find myself without a pistol or with a completely different rifle option than what I had selected.
It's all very frustrating and just shows this needed more testing/QA before release.
The gameplay itself is mostly OK but with way too much repetition in some of the Venture missions. Specifically, the toxic waste disposal missions. I was so very happy once I reached the point where I would never have to do another one of those again.
The main story missions are mostly well crafted and fun and it's so very tempting to just burn through those and skip all of the "Empire Building" side missions but a lot of the story is locked out until you build your empire to a specific point.
One note: The Dustmoot campaign was very well done and a blast to work through.

One more thing this game desperately needs is a quality of life patch. For crying out loud let me select an option to set the radio station to OFF by default. Too many timed missions start off with me wasting about 5 seconds just shutting the damn radio off.

So, overall I would rate this as a solid B game which would be OK if it was priced as a B game. My advice would be to wait for a sale as this is definitely not a $60 game. It is, at best, a $40 game that could be a $45 game with a polish pass and quality of life patch.

Once I finish the main story line I might come back in here with an update but for now, I'll keep rolling my eyes while begrudgingly having a mostly fun time.

Brian wrote: ↑Mon Sep 19, 2022 10:20 am My advice would be to wait for a sale as this is definitely not a $60 game. It is, at best, a $40 game that could be a $45 game with a polish pass and quality of life patch.

Once I finish the main story line I might come back in here with an update but for now, I'll keep rolling my eyes while begrudgingly having a mostly fun time.

Speaking of a sale, $24.74+tax on Epic with the 25% coupon. At that price, I am still hesitant.

I will buy this once it hits Steam.

Question on a different game on this thread. Same Epic sale has Gotham Knights on sale $22.50. Review sites panned the game but user reviews on steam liked it. You played it. Worth it? This game just came out at $60 and now, it's reduced to this degree.

Gotham Knights thread:
https://octopusoverlords.com/forum/view ... ?p=2936244

As long as you understand it's different from the arkham games and you have an appreciation for the bat-family, I think it's worth it. I suspect it would be much better if you had someone to co-op with, but I never really got to play co-op to find out.

9 hours in and I don't hate it. Gunplay feels off, driving sucks, open world is pretty generic, progression is slow... but I keep playing.

No regrets...

I picked this up during the March Mega sale (PS5) since I finished Hogwart's Legacy and wanted something else simple to mess around with.

I was really surprised at how janky it is. Characters feel floaty, gunplay packs no punch, cars feel weightless. It honestly feels like a $30 game (which is what I paid for it), but nothing more than that. Everything just feels incredibly unpolished.

Also nothing is really explained up front in terms of side stuff/collectibles - I'm assuming I just need to keep doing main missions and eventually stuff will become clearer.

All that said, it's still dumb fun, even if it feels like a giant step backwards for the franchise. I'll stick with it for a bit since it's something I can mindlessly play for downtime, but wow. I honestly didn't expect it to feel this unfinished.

[Edit] I am starting to get used to the cartoon physics a bit more, so hopefully the game will grow on me as more stuff unlocks and I get a better feel for the progression.

Update!

After my initial frustrations, I'm having a lot of fun with this one now. I read a GREAT tip on dialing the dead zone down in control options, and that made a world of difference in making combat feel better. That almost single-handedly changed the game for me - I'm not sure why they default to max dead zone which makes the combat feel so sluggish.

It does seem like it's got a TON of repetitive stuff going on, but I don't mind that in my open world games. As I've said before - give me a map with a bunch of tedious stuff to do and I'm perfectly happy for 40-50 hours. The fact that doing that tedious stuff allows you to grow your empire and make more money helps a lot.

I ended up enjoying it, although I had to wait until they finished patching it up -- I was having a lot of stability issues, with random crashes to desktop, so I had set it aside and didn't get back to it until early this year.

There is DLC/FreeLC coming this year, starting in April with a Dead Island 2 promotional crossover.

Roadmap:

We’re super excited to be able to share an update on what we’ve been working on since you last heard from us. But first, a big THANK YOU to everyone for reaching out on our social channels, we really appreciate all your feedback since launch and we have tried to incorporate what we can into our future Quality of Life updates – which we’re incredibly excited for you to get your hands on!

As you know, we’ve been focusing on fixes and quality of life improvements ahead of releasing our new content. Our last update was a whopper worthy of FBs and we’re ready to deliver you an even bigger meal in our next big update in May. So, what have we been up to since then? Well, we’ve been working hard on brand new Saints Row content and we’re now ready to share what’s planned for the future. Let’s head into our DLC Roadmap.

Finished this one last night. All the main missions, 100%ed all the districts, and did the little section after the end credits. Definitely got my $30 worth, and while in many ways it felt like a big step backwards for the series, I still enjoyed it warts and all. Hopefully if they make a follow-up they'll give it a bit more time in the oven to bake.

Not really interested in the upcoming DLC; I've moved on to Gotham Knights.

Saints Row gets major update that overhauls pretty much everything including combat

Saints Row certainly has its fans, enough so that the once-dormant series recently got a full reboot. It didn't quite live up to expectations (opens in new tab), and there was a slight sense that despite being delayed it had still maybe come in a little too hot. Perhaps that was the case, because the new patch is a whopper.

Arriving May 9, the patch promises a huge bunch of quality of life improvements, new features, and bug fixes. The update will add the new district of Sunshine Springs, a sprawling resort area, as well as a Selfie Mode, an emote wheel, major changes to combat, and changes to missions throughout the game. Notably, the game's development was shifted over to Gearbox Software post-launch (opens in new tab) so this really does feel like a bit of triage.

Link to new Sunshine update description

Still on Epic, so no go for me.

Heh, I wasted a half hour trying to get the Epic launcher to download the update, despite the fact that it had already done so, because the version identifier is Sunshine_RC4_CL4610986-230328_0551UTC. My eye skipped right over "Sunshine" to "230328_0551UTC" which caused me to believe that this was the pre-update version, but apparently they either didn't fully update the version string or they've had this update in the can and ready to go since March 28.

Can you let us know if the update made any difference to the base game experience. It was suppose to be a large one. This game was universally panned as a pretty bad game. Haven't picked it up yet but with price of it getting low with sales, wondering if it is worth playing even if on sale.

From what they said on today's update/DLC launch stream on Twitch, the revamp of the game is still a work in progress. Apparently the printed patch notes come to something like 24 pages, but there are still more changes coming. I know it's a common joke to say that Epic timed exclusives are Early Access launches and the real launch comes with the release on Steam, but that may turn out to be true in this case.

RIP Volition. I know their Saints Row reboot didn't do that well, but they still made more than their fair share of my favorite games over the years.

Saints Row developer Volition has been shut down

After 30 years, Volition is closing its doors.

On LinkedIn, the Champaign, IL-based studio confirmed it's being shut down as part of the "restructuring program" from its parent company Embracer. To "maintain its position as a leader in the video game industry," Embracer "made the difficult decision to close Volition effective immediately."

The statement was further corroborated by now ex-staffers at the studio confirming they were affected by the closure.

Thirty years is a pretty good run for a game studio, I guess, but it's sad to see them go.

The core FreeSpace team had left Volition during the pandemic, but this is sad news. The former owners were incredibly smart, and the team they built was able to get things done.

It was an impossible task to reinvent Saints Row without the insanity that made it special.

It was a mistake to not release on Steam.

Descent, FreeSpace, Red Faction, Saint's Row, Summoner. Lots of good games.

Then again, they were passed around different companies every few years. That's never fun.

Free on Epic for the next 23 hours and 59 minutes.

I wrote them years ago asking about any plans for a Freespace 3. But nope..just crap I wasn't interested in due to their owners. Bah.

It was never going to happen. The name rights were tied to Interplay. Someone bought it and tried to Kickstart a board/minis game that failed.

I had a job offer to work for Volition as a level designer before FreeSpace 2 was released. 2 missions on the Space Sim of the Year edition. That was my road not traveled.