Be Excellent To Each Other

New trailer! Mads Mikkelsen!



This could be the best thing since Silent Hill 2, but of course it remains to be seen if there is any actual game worth playing.

New trailer available at yootoob.

What the fuckity-fucksticks was that?

Huh, is Lea Seydoux a new addition to the cast or have I just never noticed that before? I'm much more interested in this than I ever was in any of his previous games because (a) it genuinely looks interesting and (b) the cut down cast will hopefully cripple his tendency to stuff games full of stupidly named characters and just loads of idiotic nonsense in general (though it hasn't stopped him saddling it with a name that reads like it's been put through Google Translate ten times). I do fully expect the story to slowly break down into utterly incomprehensible bollocks as the game progresses mind.

It looks pretty incomprehensible to begin with.

Looks weird.

I'm in.

Looks fucking brilliant. Probably.

“Gameplay” footage.

From this we learn some gameplay mechanics such as:

1) You’ve got a baby strapped to your chest. If he gets upset you can rock him to sleep using the motion controls on the DualShock.
2) Weight will be a factor you’ve got to take account of. Looks like carrying a bunch of stuff is a main mechanic.
3) Piss will build up over time so you’ve got to take a piss every now and again. Millimetres of piss that your bladder is holding is measured.

Sounds like a typical Kojima game to me.

We're still mostly knee deep in character trailers and gimmicky bullshit in terms of what's actually being shown off, I'm reserving judgement until more details of the actual game become clear (though none of the gameplay stuff I've seen so far looks particularly interesting). It'll be interesting to see though whether he's capable of writing a vaguely coherent narrative when not weighed down by decades of deep lore; or if the story will just instantly fuck itself to death in a shower of po-faced but accidentally hilarious jibber-jabber.

Some guy who played it, writes about it.

https://www.gamesradar.com/i-have-seen- ... -going-on/

Review embargo is up and they're all published. It's being received very well, but reading about the actual gameplay mechanics has done nothing at all to persuade me I should be interested in it.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019 ... rand-folly
https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/death- ... 0-6417358/
https://www.destructoid.com/review-deat ... 8760.phtml (I wouldn't usually give much credence to Destructoid as they're a pretty amateurish bunch but that review give more details about the actual game mechanics than I've seen elsewhere)

I'll definitely check this out at some point when it's cheap.

The reviews I’ve seen on the reddit list are either 6’s or 10’s, which with modern reviewing standards means people think it’s utter shit or OMFG HIDEO AMAZING GENIUS GODZ!!!1!!

I’m getting MGS4 vibes here.

Yeah, it'll be a load of absolute babbling fucking nonsense, but in some ways interesting babbling nonsense. Some games I don't really have to enjoy playing all that much in order to still like them if that makes sense. But I'm only interested in paying a tenner tops for the experience. I'm glad that he's able to make stuff like this, though.

Jesus Christ, yup, this will be MGS4 again, mark my words.

At least it sounds interesting. I'll be having a go when it's cheap.

I still haven’t played Phantom Pain

Have you defeated the last boss on Doom?

Is he the last boss? I should probably replay that chapter

Y’know when a game is so hyped and a bit weird that there’s endless posts about it? It’s all over Twatter, Reddit and what not that it’s become so hard to avoid a single spoiler and I’d rather go in blind; so I’ve got it. Tch.

Here’s the highlights:

2 hours “played” = 21 minutes actually playing
Times Hideo’s name has come up = 3

Mind you, erm, it’s been, um, ok fine I’m really interested in what’s going on. It’s so weird and strange and the playing bit looks to be so different and slow that I can’t wait to see where this is going. Norman Reedus has probably said more lines of dialogue than his entire run in TWD. And the story seems infinitely more interesting at a glance than the MGS stuff. Might be crap though: I’ll find out when it actually lets me play the bloody thing.

I've ended up watching a good chunk of a playthrough of it; generally by skipping over the actual 'gameplay' to get to the few set pieces and the actual plot. It's very, very high concept sci-fi but nothing like as fucking stupid as the Metal Gear stuff and actually quite engaging with some interesting idea (so far, it could well go utterly off the rails as things start to wind up). The actual game part of the game though can absolutely go take a flying fuck to itself. It's just hours and hours and hours and hours of inventory micro-management and walking. You can get vehicles at times but driving for miles is no more engaging that walking for miles. Absolute nonsense.

I have finished THE OUTER WORLDS so I will be starting this shortly.

Even though I've read and watched loads of reviews of DEATH STRANDING, I still don't really know what to expect, I don't know how it'll make me feel and how I'll get on interacting with the game and its world, and for that alone it's properly piqued my interest.

With most games it's possible to have a pretty good idea of what to expect and whether or not you'll like it before playing it, with this, and despite the fact I'm fully aware of the fact that there really is an awful lot of 'just walking', I honestly have no idea.

Oh, and it continues to be true that any time Kojima wants to name a character his entire team should just kick him in the balls instead. The cast has to stand there and say their lines as if Heartman, Deadman and Die Hardman were actually the sort of thing a grown ass man should seriously christen characters in his serious story. In fact if fucking Grown Assman was actually introduced in the later chapters as a new player in the story I wouldn't be in the slightest bit surprised. Jesus shitting Christ.

I actually quite like the fact that the game has been created around a singularity of vision, even if that vision is perhaps rooted up its creator's own bumhole. It's such a rare thing in 'big' modern videogames.

It's entirely possible I'll end up hating it, but I really want to give it a go.

I keep seeing that phrase, singularity of vision, and stuff like it as if it matters. The outcome is the point, not how many people were involved. And if it's stupid it's fucking stupid regardless of whether it's the stupidity of a single person or a whole committee.

I'll put you in the 'glass half empty' category then

Anyway, I'll be giving it a go once Mrs Hearthly and Jnr have retired upstairs for the evening.

Foot delivery whilst keeping your balance trying not to drop things, take a piss and every now and then shake your controller sim.

I'll pass. I've tried desperately to understand this and put it into context and all I can come up with is the above.

It looks stunning and I've got a thing for ladies with short hair but yeah, I'm not paying sixty quid for this.

The new Star Wars looks much better.

Well it kept me playing all night, and I really rather enjoyed it.

The first time Sam nearly falls over is quite something, I've never experienced anything like that in a game before.

The graphics, music and sound do quite a lot of the heavy lifting (holy fuck the game is a looker) - but I honestly enjoyed just walking from one place to another with my packages.

One thing you won’t get from watching YouTube is how well and often it uses the rumble feature.

TBH I was quite enthralled with it last night, I've never played or experienced the likes of it before.

Sounds like you’ve never played or experienced anything like this game.

Because you’ve never played Shadow of the Collosus, I’d wager.

I love this game, I spent three and a half hours playing it solidly last night.

To my mind, it actually redefines what a videogame can be, you have to experience and feel it, reviews and videos simply can't do it justice.

Time just melts away when you're in the game's world, hours pass with ease, every small victory and success is meaningful, and simply losing your balance is a disaster to be avoided at all costs.

Truly exceptional.

Sounds shit.

He'll hate it in a week.

You're piquing my interest. Not at full price, but will seek it out down the line.

How does it handle game saves?

It autosaves quite a lot by itself, and it also autosaves whenever you stop for a rest.

However, you can also just go OPTIONS > SYSTEM > SAVE GAME whenever you want, and it saves.

This is a good thing.

I'll give it a go. When it's cheap. I forsee a large number of copies available second-hand...

This game is exceptional. It has an exceptionally bad menu system of course.

First, it’s got Dead Rising trouble. The text is far too fucking small. Sure, the subtitles are nice and large but try and navigate the backpack menu (50% of what you’ll be doing in the game and the other 50% is watching a cutscene) and the tiny text will make you smush your face up against your tv screen like a orphan on Christmas looking into a butcher’s window.

Second, the menus are universally terrible. They’re all over the place. I swear to god they’ve been designed to be deliberately obtuse and confusing. Tiny little symbols will have you squinting at the screen to figure out whether you need to press left and right on the dpad or move with the shoulder buttons around this convoluted mess of abstract shapes that barely resemble anything related to what you know.

Third, will it just highlight the CONFIRM button properly. I swear sometimes I can’t find the fucking thing in its wireframe box and don’t you EVER press circle and expect that whatever changes you’ve just laboriously made to your backpack and how your boxes are stacked on your back because it won’t give a fuck and it saves nothing. Nope you’ll be back in your menu doing the fucking lot again and spending 5 minutes figuring out what all these tiny text boxes actually say and then trying to figure out how to get down to press confirm and save your changes.

I had a “HILARIOUS” moment last night when I snuck into a bad guy base. I did it entirely undetected spending a loooong amount of time sneaking about. I spot a box where I need to rob a bunch of shit and some bloke sitting next to it. I sneak up, rob the box, and sneak out. I get out of the base 5 minutes later and the marker is still back inside the base. I check my backpack and the loot isn’t there?! I sneak back in again and wait for the same scenario to take place. The baddie sits down and I start robbing within earshot: another 5 minutes in the menu, oh I didn’t hold down x for confirm... hnnngh. I move a bunch of shit and confirm. My bloke suddenly has the leaning tower of boxes on his back. Hang on a fucking minute - I can’t even turn back around to get back in the menu cause I’m so massively overloaded. My tower just collapses into the baddies face. Boxes scatter about. Well I’m fucked so I just leg it but I’ve still got some boxes on my back and I’m still massively overloaded so my bloke just falls over again. The mission is fucked but i try and ditch my excess payload in the menu, another 5 minutes later after I’ve unloaded a load of crap that the game just decided to plop on my back, and I’m running, but I’m now being chased by some guys. It’s like a Benny Hill sketch as they zap me in the ass and make my boxes fall off and I just run around in a circle and pick up my boxes and then leg it before they catch up and they taze me in the butthole. Over and over. My butthole was on fire... etc. In the end I just said fuck it and turned it off.

The menus are shit.

Oh and the map DOES show topography (which is extremely helpful to know for a game that’s just about knobbing around the land) but only if you HOLD THE TOUCHPAD AND TILT THE JOYPAD, and even then it won’t hold it like that and it’ll just revert to 2D. It’s fucking stupid.

The menus are a bit fiddly, but it's nowhere near that bad, and I can't even remember the last time I used a Dualshock in anger, and it's my least favourite gamepad, plus I'm crap with a pad anyway.

The text is quite small though, I'll give you that.

Effortlessly sunk over another three hours into the game last night, I'm looking forward to tonight as it's not a school night so I can stay up later to play it.

Anyone who says this game is 'just about walking from one place to another' is missing the point by about three million miles.

It's also about the (genuinely) nine hours of cutscenes, right?

9 hours in the entire game or just 3 hours?

But look at the noise in this menu.

Oh yes there are loads of cutscenes, some of which don't make a huge amount of sense, but I'm sucker for a nicely made cutscene and the ones in this game are really well done.

Also the lass who wears black leather has a nice bottom.

I'm just going by a YouTube video I noticed the other night that purported to be all the cutscenes edited together and it had a nine hour runtime. I've no idea whether that's genuinely representative or not though.

ETA: I just had a quick Google and there are another couple purporting to do the same thing and they're coming out at over 11 hours! Fuck know why there's such a variance there, unless the longer ones include the interactions with the NPCs you deliver to or something.

Obviously having not actually played it, that doesn't look all that bad. I can see how to select stuff, how to multi-select stuff, and how to then select where I want to move it to. Obviously you'd need to know what each 'Move To' icon represents and I don't, but I'm assuming they either explain that or it's clear from experimentation? I've no idea why there are two separate weight values at the bottom of the screen though.

Benjamin Hancock's face has a touch of the Epsteins.

It's not that bad, Mr S. Suma is being histrionic about it.

Having the same button contextually do dramatically different things has caught me out though. I was walking across a ladder someone had placed over a river and pressed the touchpad to give it a like, but the window of opportunity to do that had passed so instead I called out (which is also done with a touchpad press), and immediately alerted a camp of baddies to my presence.

Cue running away.

Urgh, that first boss fight was just horrible.

Mechanically it was just very boring. Throw grenades at the black squid until you run out and then get more grenades lying around, fuck around with the utterly hateful menu system to equip the sodding things, and then throw some more until it dies. There’s no danger; hell I was never close to dying and not even close to being engaged with what was happening around the first few minutes.

Very disappointing given some of the MGS games had some super boss fights that were almost always interesting. Almost.

Whilst you're still moaning about the menus I've managed to steal myself a truck from a load of MULEs I kicked the shit out of, built a road, delivered a pizza (still hot!), got myself a (non-lethal) gun thingy, upgraded my bionic legs to Level 2, and now have a mission to travel a fairly serious distance - which I will save until tomorrow. It looks as if my road goes most of the way there and I can now fabricate myself a long range bike as well.

I've given up with the shit (literal shit) grenades, they just seem to annoy the BTs, which is understandable.

That boss fight you're referring to wasn't great mechanically, it was all about the atmosphere.