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Throughout the pass few days I’ve been chipping at Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. The Mass Effect Trilogy has been one of my favorite pieces science fiction media in terms of video games. The world building, lore, and characters have been something I personally look forward to every subsequent playthrough of the series. Currently speaking I’ve completed Mass Effect 1 which had the most changes in Legendary. The game looks really good especially when you contribute the smooth frame rate, 4K Visuals with added things like HDR support. My only issues with the first Mass Effect are the seemingly copious amounts of bugs that launched with Legendary Edition. Most of these usually involve collision, but some others involves your party members seemingly disappearing from the world or enemies in objects. While the experience is playable encountering these bugs have to me atleast proven to be jarring.

Mass Effect 1 I tell people that it takes some time for you to really get into it since it’s more RPG heavy compared to the rest of the series with that 2000’s jank that is either nostalgia to some, but a turn off to many. I do think it’s something worth experiencing if it’s your type of thing, but if you actively seek something more consistent I recommend skipping to Mass Effect 2 and simply use the interactive Genesis Comic to artificially implant your choices from ME1 if you feel inclined to skip it.

With that being said I am a believer that this series is best experienced as a trilogy and strongly wish whoever is interested in jumping into the series to go ahead and start from the beginning due to its overarching character import systems where a little choice like in a dlc in ME1 can have subtle outcomes in ME3.

I’m currently continuing my journey throughout the Milky Way in Mass Effect 2 and will see Shepard’s Journey up until it’s conclusion.

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452

have you been introduced to our lord and saviour stellaris…?

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453

Unfortunately grand strategy war games aren’t my cup of tea since one I personally find them boring and two these type of games fail to keep my attention.

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454

fair enough. i don’t play any strategy games really (chess?) because who gives a fuck about spreadsheets? but this game, man, it’s like military-grade crack. it’s a procedural story generator as well, which is half the appeal. mucho clevero.

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455

I bought Stellaris a little while ago on Humble Bundle with a few of the DLCs. Must admin, I’ve yet to really find a strategy game that has ever put my hooks fully into it, but Stellaris does look fun. Although to be honest the only thing I’ve really seen of it is the genocide memes about the game.

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it has taken me a long time to learn. i won my first game a few days ago and ive been playing since console release. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

it is very hard to be moral in stellaris, but i imagine that can be said for most strategy games.

there’s a ‘famous’ story of one player capturing a planet from an enemy empire, converting the population into food, then selling the food back to the enemy, who were apparently rather grateful as they were running low. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

on the other extreme, a player destroyed a meteor that was going to wipe out an ai controlled primitive species. the primitive species was then taken over by an enemy empire and uplifted (basically made into a small vassal empire with space-flight capabilities). decades later, one of the player’s colonies was going to be hit by a meteor and he had no fleets that could reach it in time. out of nowhere the formerly primitive ai empire sent a fleet to destroy it and saved the colony. 🥲

it’s crazy the kinds of stories stellaris can make.

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That’s very interesting, didn’t know that the AI was capable of stuff like that. Sounds like a vast improvement over, say, the pretty dumb AI of Civilization VI.

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no one did. :smile:

for balance, be aware that the ai can also be super dumb. it ain’t hal 9000.

i got civ 6 on sale because i liked stellaris but not given it a go. i only have so much brain power to learn the complexities of these things. other than chess, i think i’ve only played about 5 strategy games in 30+ years of gaming, two of which were early, mindless rts games, so they don’t count.

i’m tempted. i played me1 because it reminded me of starflight (i enjoyed it), but i heard they took out the planet exploration and a lot of the rpg stuff in me2, so dropped it.

am i being a silly billy or do you reckon it might hamper my enjoyment not having that stuff?

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459

Finished S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl for the millionth time. One of the few games that I can easily play from start to finish multiple times without ever getting bored. Sure hope that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will have the same effect :smiley:

Stalkin’s a good job, mate! It’s challengin’ work, outta doors. I guarantee you’ll not go hungry. 'Cause at the end of the day, long as there’s two stalkers left in the Zone, someone is gonna want someone’s canned food.

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460

Today I just played the entire Hitman WOA trilogy from start to finish,

Playing the whole trilogy as one story is really … Weird? It’s a narrative that has taken over 5 years to unfold and to experience it all in a day is really quite strange. Would recommend everyone gives it a shot :smiley:

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No it really doesn’t. Despite the Mako beings excluded from every subsequent entry you still find new and exotic locals to explore even if it’s on foot.

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Oh so they added DLC where Shepard goes around on a tasting tour of the galaxy. That is an interesting story choice.

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so you still get that sense of exploration? might have to pull the trigger when it goes on sale…

my poor backlog

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I miss the cut content where Shepard went around saying this is his favorite restaurant in the galaxy.

Yes, the thing that ME2 and ME3 do better is the environments where it doesn’t feel like cookie cutter copy and paste job that a vast majority of ME1 did with its exploration.

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465

Well, as I expected, of the games I started a while ago, I’ve only been able to finish two so far (The Godfather and Stranglehold), whereas I basically haven’t touched Arkham Asylum and The Witcher since :sweat_smile: Wonder how long it’s gonna take me to get back to them…

When not playing WoA, I’ve mainly been spending time with MGSV(both TPP and GZ) these past two weeks after a longer pause, trying to get some of the remaining achievements (mainly all S ranks and all tasks completed). Good fun as always.

This is my main issue with Paradox games. They really have a steep learning curve and while I’d love to play them, I just can’t find the time and enthusiasm to invest in them in recent years, so they’re just collecting dust in my backlog (alongside many other games :joy:). And Paradox’s DLC policy doesn’t help either… I’m not sure I’ll be getting Stellaris though…

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466

Well, guess this is going to be my first entry in my quest to abuse my Playstation Plus subscription. Like I’ve said before, I got a PS5, and I’ve never owned a PS4. Hence, there are a bunch of PS4 games I have never played.

So, first up, is the Ratchet & Clank PS4 game. I’m looking forward to Rift Apart, will be the first “true” PS5 game I buy, and I have tried to avoid watching any gameplay footage. I’ve just watched the reveal trailer and the more recent story trailer. Got high hopes for the game.

Despite being a PS2 kid, I never played a Ratchet & Clank game, besides oddly a demo disc for the very first game. I finally played the first PS3 title, Tools of Destruction, many moons ago. And really, despite wanting to go and play other games, even owning Quest for Booty and A Crack in Time, I’ve never gotten around to playing them. (And probably won’t for a while longer because I don’t want to burn myself out on R&C before the new game arrives.)

So yeah, playing the PS4 game, really enjoy it. Probably helps that Insomniac just updated the PS5 version so that it runs at 60fps, and really, for a game like this, I think getting 60fps really benefits. Barely any loading times atall either, pretty impressive stuff. (Rift Apart will feature a 60fps “performance mode”, but if you want 4K, it will only run at 30fps.) The game is 5 years old but looks wonderful, I can’t imagine a game like this will ever age badly.

It’s just a shame that this game has to be both a movie tie-in, and also a remake of the PS2 original because the movie is a bit of an adaptation of the first game. I mean, good grief, how many movie tie-in video games are there nowadays, or back in the PS4 era? And how many were made by major studios? Feels so delating when the game is just following the movie, using very brief edited movie clips to try and tell the story, but obviously at the same time trying not to use too many movies clips, so that the kids at the time would want to go see it. Kills the momentum.

Really the best part of the game is the middle 6 hours when the movie is basically forgotten about, and it is just being a remake of the PS2 game. Just a shame the story sucks, and Ratchet himself has had any bit of personality he once had sanded off him. It’s a shame, it is a great game, but just the very distracting generic plot and movie tie-in, surprising how deflating it can make the experience. I’m not expecting the plot of Rift Apart to be a masterpiece, but hopefully the fact that Insomniac will probably have full creative control on that title will mean something that feels a bit more earnest and heart put into it.

Kindof makes me want to also try the other games, especially the PS2 original, since the remake does axe I believe 3 or 4 levels from that, and has a different weapon selection. It’s weird how negative I feel about a great polished, but really in a way, it feels like a comment on how plot can matter.

So yeah, had fun, looking forward to Rift Apart. Not sure what to play next, maybe start Persona 5 Royal.

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467

Just started playing through Alan Wake on PC for the first time, I’m not really a fan of horror-shooter games but this game has the best mechanics, lighting and not to mention, moments that made me genuinely scared. 9/10 game imo (so far).

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468

I’ve moved on to Bioshock 2 . I’m not as invested in the story, but I’m enjoying the combat a lot more. Being able to set up traps and hack remotely helps a lot and having plasmids and weapons equipped at the same time feels more natural.

Still, it seems like everything is either a big fight or preparing for a big fight and that’s starting to wear on me a bit, so I’m taking my time and mixing in other games if I’m not in the mood for yet another Big Daddy/Sister fight.

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469

That is like 80 percent of the game though.

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Yes. That was my point. :stuck_out_tongue:

Also the word “If” that comes before what you quoted is kind of important. :wink:

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