Be Excellent To Each Other

Ashen got unceremoniously deleted today.

I feel a bit gutted but it’s got some horrendous technical issues that really pissed me off today. This is about as close to a rage quit as I’ve ever had.

I was doing a dungeon, a hard one, and kept dying. Y’see, the game is supposed to be played coop either with the computer AI or a random. So there’s plenty of mobs but also a silly fucking witch enemy which pins you until you die or until your mate gets the witch off you. It’s got this fast move so if you don’t start hitting her immediately she’ll just zoom over and pin you. It’s cheap and it’s unfair. Basically you need two people.

I was getting really far into the dungeon on innumerable attempts. I was having all sorts of issues with the AI partner - sometimes they just disappeared, sometimes they just stood there and wouldn’t move, sometimes they’d die and wouldn’t come back (they normally come back after a while). Sometimes I’d get a random and they do the same fucking thing - disappear, stand still forever, die and never come back.

After losing my tit I’d get deep into the map on my own and a sodding witch would fuck me up, or some big dudes, or I’d fall off something but it was usually the witch that would pin me until I died.

I tried going offline, turning off multiplayer, turning it back on, quitting and coming back... just to get an AI companion to stay with me but they were next to fucking useless.

Eventually I got really far on my own taking an ultra cautious approach, baiting enemies, doing the Dark Souls style run through the map etc and just as I thought I’d cracked it - two witches around one corner. Immediately pinned. Dead.

It got deleted. I can’t recommend this at all. Maybe if you got lucky with a coop partner that didn’t just quit the game halfway through a map or have connection issues, it’d be fine. Maybe it was more populated on release and I’m just getting the dregs cause hardly anyone is playing it anymore. Sorry, I wouldn’t normally do this, especially after the hours put into it, but it can fuck right off. Modern gaming dependent on people and internet connections? Great. Fun. Great. Idea.

I’ve reinstalled it.

Even for a patented Sat climbdown that was quick

A classic RAGE QUIT Okay I'm back.

I’ve deleted it again. Still the same. I’ve got DmC 5 instead.

Void Bastards is just out and getting some good reviews.

OUT ON GAME PASS!

Apparently that Warframe (mentioned elsewhere) is also on Game Pass. It’s that Advance Wars clone, so I heard anyway.

It's not really an AW clone. But it is very good.

err...

isn't warframe a free to play third person shooter?

Oh. I was thinking of that other game.

Tetris?

Ahh, turns out it was Wargroove. War Groove? War Grove? I’m sure someone said it was a game that was like Advance Wars. Wasn’t it in the Switch thread. I suppose I could look, but I can’t be arsed? I’ll just download it later and see if it’s worth playing.

It was: https://www.beexcellenttoeachother.com/ ... e#p1010873

Into The Breach.

Obligatory mention for Bungo Bungo Cat Throw...

Wargroove is a poor game.

Snappa coming in with the deeeeeep cuts

Here are your Games for June.

Awesome. I'm not getting much out of my PS Plus and XBox Gold subs, it has to be said.

I can't even remember the last time I turned the PS4 on.

I don't have Portal on the Xbox, so I'm ok with that.

What? No 3:16? I’m wounded

On a PS Plus tip, the borderlands handsome collection is most welcome, and one of the few occasions where I've successfully abstained from purchasing and my patience has been rewarded on PS plus.

That said I seem to be in a housemarque groove at the moment and am just playing resogun and nex machina, so who knowa when borderlands will get fired up.

EDF! EDF! EDF!

So I tried to play some Devil May cry 5 on the PS4 yesterday but something was niggling the fuck out of me. So I reinstalled Ashen.

I’m super careful and my AI partner is following me about, but then we get to this one area where I try to walk down and this fucking guy keeps turning around. It’s like his pathfinding is fucked because he refuses to follow me. I’m trying to push him where we need to go but he’s not having none of it. I’m there ten minutes trying to figure out why he’s turning around. Eventually I’m pissed, so I try looking around to find a way to make him warp to me. Turns out if I go around the edge of this area and do a massive jump down I can miss this bridge he won’t go over and land without a massive hit of health and he does finally warp over!

Im actually progressing now on the hard section and I’m going Uber careful fighting these big fuckers. Then we’ve progressing down these stairs with a big death drop to one side and this AI fucker just jumps in to his death like his pathfinding just fucked up suddenly again. I die shortly thereafter.

Does ANYONE with Game Pass want to install this shitty game and help me get through this section!? I’ve kept it on the HD for the time being.

I have Gamepass... I might join you when I'm back off holiday next week.

Now we’re talking!

Gonna stream Ashen, hopefully to capture footage of it being shit and not me being shit.

https://mixer.com/Ian_Aris?utm_source=m ... livenow_v1 #Mixer

Going to give it another shot!

https://mixer.com/Ian_Aris?utm_source=m ... livenow_v1 #Mixer

Stupid Mixer wouldn’t save my previous attempts because apparently you’ve got to turn on record stream on the website. No, not from the Xbox. No, you can’t do it from the mobile page either. No, you can’t force the mobile page to display the webpage either. Stupid Mixer.

Anyway, 30 mins and then it’ll probably get turned off and deleted.

Amazingly, my internet went off and I did it first time... fucking hell, I’ll never get to play DmC5.

I fucking hate this game. The second dungeon (hopefully the last) is, like the first, a marathon run through dark passages with, guess what, fucking Witches, but this time you’ve got bigger brute enemies to also contend with and it’s not shy about putting the Witches with mobs of enemies. No checkpoints, no saves or nowt until about 5 foot from the boss fog.

It’s about 30 minutes or longer steadily working your way through what I can only describe as an irritating slog. Each run ends with an annoying death as your AI partner just decides that he’s had enough of life and commits suicide by baton wielding mobs that instantly crush him unless I jump in and risk myself to save his pathetic meaningless life. No amount of persuading him to bakdafukup will suffice and since I can’t communicate with this numpty he does whatever he feels like. And he normally feels like bashing skulls no matter the danger. And if he goes off to the black land you might as well restart since facing mobs of 2-4 enemies at a time is a none starter. And of course none one else is playing this shit these days and I can’t remember the last time I got an actual human jumping into my game. Oh I do, it was when I was moaning about the first dungeon above about, what, 5 or more days ago? FFS.

That sucks, the reviews when the game released implied 'Dark Souls sort of thing but easier to handle because of the constant companion', but if the AI is so fucked that it's frustrating you then I'm not touching it with a bargepole.

I’m on the final boss and AI potna is being a real dick about it too. I need him next to me weighing in but he keeps getting distracted by the hordes of fannies the boss keeps spawning. More fucking mobs. It’s Ashen’s answer to everything - just more fuckers thrown in to artificially jack up the difficulty. And it’s so fucking dark as well. I’m not giving up my shield to hold a sodding lantern for the whole match and of course the boss is thoughtfully coloured a nice shade of black. Good luck trying to learn his attack patterns while

(A) you can barely see him;
(B) mobs of cunts strip off your skin;
(C) AI dude is off on a jolly.

It’s like they saw Dark Souls thought I’ll have a go at that but forgot they didn’t get past the first boss.

Oh and the mob enemies are black too because of course they fucking are.

You could play something good

4 days later and I’ve finally done it! Yay me!

It wasn’t even the final fucking boss. HNNNGH!

5 Jun
7 Jun

Four days later…

Thought it was the ninth. I’m obviously better at gaming than I thought I was. And you.

You’re not better at gaming than I thought you were, no.

The only two achievements I unlocked on DiRT Rally last night help to illustrate my skill with the game.

It's a brutally unforgiving game, I gave up on it.

Game Pass for the PC has been updated, whereas it used to be pricey and only a couple of games could be played on the PC, they have now brought out a PC only version.
£5 a month for a lot more games, some of which are actually alright...

It’s really not. It’s only about 75% sim. No way would the car survive some of the crashes you can do and carry on.

From what I’ve read, Dirt Rally 2 is a lot more realistic.

I've seen the following online. It looks like if you have Gamepass already, it will automatically upgrade you to the ultimate edition.

I haven't tried it myself yet but it's worth a look.

This worked for me.

I've just paid £1 and because it's converted my current subscriptions, I've got Gamepass ultimate until 4th April 2021.

My mate told me about this earlier - im gonna get it done later. Bargain.

Also, and possibly one for the Windows thread, if you want to force an upgrade to the latest version of Windows, download the Gamepass PC (beta) app. It'll do it all for you apparently.

The most unforgiving thing so far is the choice of font they use in the UI. It's so small and thin in places, that I can barely read it with my crappy eyesight.

Guys, I have a quick question...

I am wanting to play Fallout 3 again, but would rather play it on my Xbone. Not only that, but apparently it's been "1x enhanced" meaning it can use 4k textures (according to Bethesda). Does any one know the drill with X360 games on the Xbone? is it as simple as just inserting the disc? do you then have to use the disc from then on? and etc. I can't find exact answers online.

Try popping the disc in and see what happens.