Be Excellent To Each Other

Remember when everyone went crazy when Microsoft announced the Xbox One would be online all of the time?

Ahead of their time they were.

The actual racing is fine, apart from the usual complaints about GT games (the stupid licence tests and rolling starts, mainly) - like, I can see a justification for stuff like the International A and B licenses, arguably the A license, but don't make me do the B License when 90% of that is stuff that you've already made me do in actual races, and the remaining 10% of it (the stopping and starting in a straight line) is stuff that the game doesn't ever make you do again.

Most of my niggles with it are outside of the racing. In order of appearance (takes a deep breath)

• The hours needed to install the game. Doesn't seem fair to level that at GT7 specifically though, that's just modern consoles I guess.
• Forcing me to play at least one round of the shitty music rally minigame. My impression was that it was there to give the player something to do while the game is installing, but I left the PS4 installing the game by itself while I did a day of work, so to find that I still had to do it and couldn't just skip straight to the game... hnnnngh.
• The unskippable nine minute long intro sequence. Sure, it's skippable after the first watch, and can even be turned off, but you still need to sit through it the first time. NINE MINUTES.
• The "menu book" concept is utterly ridiculous, given that it basically just gives you missions, and later unlocks an actual Missions area that could have just been used for this.
• So much unnecessary dialogue with characters that I couldn't give a shit about. Forza Horizon 4 did this too, but at least that had the decency to have the audio/subtitles appear as "background noise" while you carried on interacting with the game, here you get interrupted by it.
• No way to turn off the automatic replay the end of a race. I just fucking played it, I don't want to watch it again.
• When completing a license test, there's no quick option to just go to the next test, you have to exit the "race mode", quit out of the auto-replay, then exit out of the menu it drops you in to. Three button presses with associated loading times that could be replaced with a single button.
• When you quit out of the auto-replay after a race, the next screen has the cursor pointing at the "Replay" option by default. I've just quit out of that, why would you assume I want to go back in? Default to Exit, or let me use circle to exit without moving the cursor there (it may actually do that last bit, I don't recall trying)
• Why does the right-stick move the cursor like a mouse? Does *anyone* use that means of moving the cursor over the D-pad style?
• If you buy a paint colour in the paint shop, there's no quick option to just apply that paint to your car. You have to go into the Livery Editor, create a new livery, manually apply the paint to each part of the car, then save the livery (and give it a fucking name!), and *THEN* apply it to the car - I'm not an automotive Picasso, I just want my Ferrari to be Rosso Corsa instead of silver.
• When buying a paint colour, you can see how the paint looks when applied to four (or five?) "sample cars", but not the actual car you're currently using - which would make sense if the car you're using has a complex livery applied, but if it's just the base colour still then that makes no sense at all.
• Tuning parts being winnable in the raffle thing, even though you (a) can't sell them, and (b) might not have the car that it applies to, and (c) might not have any interest in getting the car it applies to
• Cars not being sellable. They could even allow players to sell their cars in a used car market online (which I think Forza Horizon does?) - there's a Used Cars section, why not use the "always-online" features to do this?
• The always-online thing is bollocks, full stop. There can be very little justification for requiring an always-on connection for single-player play and progress. It's not like FH which brings players into the open world.

I think that's it, I've probably missed a couple of things

I agree with all of these points

Aw yeah, good point.

There’s a fair few console games that are doing this and it fucking infuriates me. BLOPS4, The Hunt, Destiny off the top of my head, and worst still are the fucking games that don’t let you even use the D-Pad to navigate and you’re stuck dragging a ponderous sodding thumb stick cursor around. They don’t even use the gyro on the PlayStation versions to navigate when you can even do that in the fucking text box. Or, I don’t know, use the fucking trackpad that no one fucking uses.

You can turn these off* in the menu.

I 100% agree with everything you said, and will ladle on top that the multiplayer is fucking terrible. Just like the main game once you're racing it's fine, but setting up the lobby and even joining the race is a hateful experience. On top of that - want to change the track, or the number of laps, or anything at all?. You need to close the lobby and start all over again. Fuck's sake.

Also also: come play MP with us

* although that actually means you can press O to skip them, the first one still appears.

I haven't tried the multiplayer, mainly on account of me not having a PS Plus subscription, but also on account of me having a pathological dislike of playing Internet-based multiplayer games

Also, I would say that the racing is terrible too, however the driving is sublime.
Plus it's very very pretty.

You wait until Riles rams you into a wall.

We've had some excellent racing with pit strategies and running out of fuel and someone ruining his car by tuning it

What's your naming convention? I'm struggling to find a groove. I've used friends and family but struggle as I get too attached. Tried random celebrities. Currently just naming the soldiers after people they actually look like, but it means I keep getting Sharon Horgan as a lot of the female troops look her (in fact 90% of my rookies on this run are female).

XCom2:

It was a kill/capture mission and everything was fine. Smashed all the monsters in the face for no damage or losses. Located the VIP soon to be killed/captured and busted into the room looking to cakewalk this home

Then a huge monster smashed into the room, knocked half my team out and scarpered. In a very reasonable under the circumstances fit of pique I killed the VIP and brought the corpse back as reinforcements arrived to further cause issues.

My two favourite people have been captured!

Disaster!

God XCOM 2 is so good. I managed to kill 2 alien rulers and permakill 2 Chosen in four missions on the trot, extremely pleased with myself. Then of course the game immediately followed up with the Avenger being downed by a UFO while most of my A and B team were in the hospital. Aargh!

I love it so much. It's probably my GOAT.

There's not much in life as satisfying as setting up an ambush on a group of Sectoid/ADVENT cunts, making them scatter with a well placed grenade and then watching the fun as your remaining soldiers overwatch them to oblivion.

Title of your sex tape

I have restarted this on WoC chosen and on the first mission I learnt about mind control the hard way.

Also, half my soldiers deploy in hot pants and vests which is amazing

I can get xcom collection steam key online for about a fiver. Is there a reason why I wouldn't do that? Are they stolen keys through Green Man Gaming?

GMG are pretty legit, as far as I am aware. There's cheap XCOM2 deals everywhere but the direct pricing on Steam is really expensive, for no obvious reason

Oh and if you do get it, make sure you play War of the Chosen. All of the base game and DLC are rolled up into it so there's no reason to launch any of the rest of the collection

Downloading now, as it seems the perfect background game for work.

Not sure I agree with that assessment, unless you're not bothered about doing any actual work

Indeed, work is stressful enough as it is

X Com 2: a mission went completely tits up, and the entirety of my B squad was eradicated. Half were killed by a mind controlled person. The aliens even had THE AUDACITY to reanimate my dead sniper.

Always kill Sectoids and Priests first

Flashbanging the psychic enemies will make them release control over your players.

Also shooting their dicks off

Additionally, mindshields are cheap. If you know you're facing mind control enemies, and especially if you're going up again the Warlock, make them and take them.

I'm considering getting an SSD for my PS4 because XCOM2's loading times are... hnnngh.

The switch is an eternity

*Cough cough*PS5*Cough cough*

I've only just got a PS4 dude (thanks to Joans!) and I'm not really that fussed about the ExTrA pRoCeSsInG PoWeR or anything

Even assuming I could get hold of one.

I obviously just restarted WotC. Ironman, highest difficulty but one.

Just had to rescue a VIP and an unconscious dude from the Lost. All went well until the bloody worst Chosen showed up (Sword Girl). Got all but two people out. Penultimate soldier bleeding out. Picked her up... inches from the pick-up zone and Chosen knocks out the character and fucks off... my first two losses...

Also, boy do they scale up the number of Lost on missions as you put the difficulty up!

Sword Girl is the worst. When you appear from offscreen, attack, then disappear again, being immune to overwatch is just rude.

If you're lucky you can see where she vanishes off to and blanket the space with explosives

Sadist.

I lost my hard as nails ranger, the stig in a supply drop mission, my least favourite way of losing people. The risk of getting a couple of extra supplies boxes rarely feels worth the reward.

I lost my entire squad on a simple intel retrieval mission last night, wasn’t even any Chosen involved. Just some shitty luck, a couple of MECs and turrets, and a fucking Stun Lancer being a dick.

Yes, I loaded an earlier save

Stun Lancers are like every Lance ever. A dick.

Also, I too would have been loading an earlier save, no question.

I'm determined that on this run I'll kill all three alien rulers. As such I've defeated all the chosen, I've built and researched everything, and I'm just doing the basic mandatory missions everywhere with squads full of colonels. Will the last ruler show up? Nope. Bastard.

I purchased XCOM on the Switch last night, although I've never played one, and 8 bucks is a reasonable price to take a gamble on. Too big to download straight onto the switch, but that's OK, I'll pop in a memory card... But could I find one? Nope

So I played Unpacking, as I recalled some hype around it. It's... OK. Nicely drawn and presented. I enjoyed the nostalgia hit of unpacking at uni.

The loading times on SSD on PS5 are....the same as spinning rust on PS4.

XCOM *shrug*

I mean, often much of the loading time isn't pure disk access, so...

Warhammer Deathwing: slow FPS that is very dull. Got bored after the first tutorial and a. It into the first level. Other games do it all better.

Moving Out: Super Fun "couch co op" (awful phrase, cf. "forever home") which is a hoot.

Cities Skylines remains king.

Football Manager 22.

I should not have bought this massive time sink. It is thoroughly enjoyable looking at spreadsheets though.

Descenders: ride a bike down a procedurally generated course and do some cool tricks whilst listening to some sweet drum and bass. It's lovely.

I agree... Until it got really hard. I mean, it can't be my gaming skills, right?!?

Haha no way!

I spent a very happy ten minutes building a ship canal in Cities Skylines, then a very annoying 50mins wondering why it wouldn't fill with water all the way. I went to bed and then realised "water can't flow uphill you dolt".

Telling L!es: you have a database of secretly recorded video calls, and you watch them and try and work out what has happened. It is searchable by keyword. It's oddly compelling, but I haven't gone too deep yet.