Video Games

Jarick said:
I know right? It's awesome that they have it for phones, it actually plays better than on console. Balatro makes time just fly by, I can start playing at 8pm and then I look up and it's 11pm.

Also kind of enjoy watching some of the Balatro videos on YouTube like Roffle, helped me to figure out how to actually win a run.
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Yeah I've played it a few runs almost every evening. So far I've been able to complete a run on the red and blue decks and unlock a bunch of stuff.

It's interesting how you can stumble into a very powerful setup. Last night I won the red deck by scoring something like over 3 million points on the final blind because I managed to get a level 8 Straight -> tons of multipliers. Then I promptly lost in the endless mode when I could not repeat that kind of stacking.

It's definitely a challenge to figure out how to get your jokers to play to each other's strengths.
 
laxu said:
Yeah I've played it a few runs almost every evening. So far I've been able to complete a run on the red and blue decks and unlock a bunch of stuff.

It's interesting how you can stumble into a very powerful setup. Last night I won the red deck by scoring something like over 3 million points on the final blind because I managed to get a level 8 Straight -> tons of multipliers. Then I promptly lost in the endless mode when I could not repeat that kind of stacking.

It's definitely a challenge to figure out how to get your jokers to play to each other's strengths.
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The first week I was like "it's impossible to win a run", then second week it seemed like I won every run "it's easy when you figure it out", now after a bunch it's completely down to timing of when you get jokers and how much money you have.
 
Played an hour of Oblivion. Intro feels very Bethesda. I never played the original, but yeah… i understand where Starfield came from now… its really.. reeeeealy obvious that Starfield is Oblivion in a space setting. It’s ridiculously obvious. I hated Starfield for the promise it tried to make and I couldn’t play it. But Oblivion feels genuine at least, a fantasy rpg game. A good one to. I do sense the old game under the new graphics, there’s a “old” clunky feeling that I recognize from the games 15-20 years ago.

Cool. Will revisit Oblivion later. Runs great on Xbox X.
 
I loved Oblivion. One of the first things I bought after I started at a real job after college was an expensive video card so I could run Oblivion on high settings on my PC. A few years later I played the heck out of it on the Xbox 360.

If it's not available on Switch 2 maybe that pushes me over the edge to get a Steam Deck.
 
Jarick said:
The first week I was like "it's impossible to win a run", then second week it seemed like I won every run "it's easy when you figure it out", now after a bunch it's completely down to timing of when you get jokers and how much money you have.
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Yeah I got through the green and yellow decks last night and it's definitely a lot of luck in what you get and how it all stacks.

When I started I would just play all the blinds but now I skip probably half of them based on what tag rewards they have. Especially if I get that card that increases its multiplier based on how many blinds you've skipped.

For the first round I pretty much always skip the first two blinds because all you need is a couple of straights or flushes to beat the first boss blind even when you have no jokers to boost your scores.
 
This game wasn't even on my radar. Reviews dropped today and it's one of the highest scoring games this year.

 
Jynx said:
This game wasn't even on my radar. Reviews dropped today and it's one of the highest scoring games this year.

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I'm not a JRPG guy (and almost certainly wouldn't have the patience to get through this one), but the video brings back fond memories of playing Lost Odyssey on XBox 360... almost 20 years ago. :oops:
 
mbenigni said:
I'm not a JRPG guy (and almost certainly wouldn't have the patience to get through this one), but the video brings back fond memories of playing Lost Odyssey on XBox 360... almost 20 years ago. :oops:
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and here i was, having a nice day, feeling young and vital even after work, coming home with energy in my walk and ready to tackle anything with a smile….

Nope…

Gawdamn…. 360…. Soon 20 years
Wrong Turn Oops GIF
 
mbenigni said:
I'm not a JRPG guy (and almost certainly wouldn't have the patience to get through this one), but the video brings back fond memories of playing Lost Odyssey on XBox 360... almost 20 years ago. :oops:
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Biggest influence on the is Final Fantasy X, which was a big influence on Lost Odyssey, so it's not surprising.
 
Jynx said:
Biggest influence on the is Final Fantasy X, which was a big influence on Lost Odyssey, so it's not surprising.
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I was just skimming another review and looking at the screen caps. It's uncanny how much some of them look like specific places from Lost Odyssey. Same camera angles and everything. I know it can't have been intentional, because I'm the only person in the world who even remembers Lost Odyssey ;) but man, it's like having deja vu.
 
Clair Obscur is legit. A perfect blend of East and West RPG. The turn-based combat with added dodge and parry mechanics is fun, and the story feels mature. The graphics and setting are amazing.

A AA dev showing the AAA guys how it's done.

This is definitely going to be a GOTY contender.
 
Jynx said:
Clair Obscur is legit. A perfect blend of East and West RPG. The turn-based combat with added dodge and parry mechanics is fun, and the story feels mature. The graphics and setting are amazing.

A AA dev showing the AAA guys how it's done.

This is definitely going to be a GOTY contender.
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I have plenty of complaints about it.
  • It's a technical shitshow.
    • DLAA, the highest quality Nvidia upscaling, looks blurry, whereas DLSS Quality, the next step down, looks sharp.
    • There's no HDR controls. Had to use a mod for that.
    • It didn't even detect resolution correctly, going for 4096x2160 (because it's a listed resolution for my TV) instead of my native 3840x2160 resolution.
    • There's already mods that tweak Unreal Engine 5 settings so the game stutters less etc.
    • Keyboard/mouse controls work way worse than controller. I had difficulties selecting enemies for example.
    • You can't remap controller bindings.
    • No toggle option for run so you need to keep holding a button or key down.
    • Needs mods to show Playstation control labels instead of Xbox if you play with a DualShock or DualSense.\
    • Pre-rendered cutscene quality is really bad. Apparently they are 1080p videos and look very low bitrate and blurry.
    • There's too much depth of field which adds to the blurry look in many places.
  • Gameplay has lots of simple issues.
    • The dodge/parry timing seems really hard to nail when there's no good indicators for it. You have to trial and error it per enemy. And I'm a Souls parry veteran!
    • The QTE indicator on attacks is really hard to see when you have a lot going in the background. It's simply a bad design. It took me a lot of time to figure out what I'm even supposed to follow when those pop up because the tiny dot wasn't obvious.
    • The level design is too simplistic. It's pretty, but there is literally nothing else to do in the world but run around, fight an enemy and collect a thing in a nook. It feels like a route rather than a world to explore.
    • The skill assignment (Pictos and whatever the other one was called) UI sucks. It's somewhat hard to follow what is where for each character.
    • The skill tree hits a weird wall very quickly where you need tons of points to unlock anything, and don't have options to choose from either.
    • I think the "max 3 characters in a fight" system is not that great, unless you can swap teams later on. 3 feels just a bit too few so atm one of my characters is mostly sitting on the sidelines.
    • There's some weird difficulty spikes. I just did Esquie's Nest and having to perfectly dodge an enemy's instakill attack seemed like a weird thing to put in.
BTW I recommend using the French audio for this. I find the voice actors much less annoying and get to brush up on my French.

It just baffles me every time that game developers seemingly don't figure out how to get the most out of their chosen game engine when modders figure that in a few days. Or don't see very obvious issues in design and performance.

I think Clair Obscur has a fairly good combat system, but this is definitely a game I'll play once and forget. I have it on Game Pass PC so it doesn't really cost me anything to try.
 
I finally discovered Balatro and after a little stumbling learning the game mechanics, I am hooked.

Equally enjoyable, entertaining, aggravating, addictive, and satisfying, it is now my goto time waster.
 
gearJunkie said:
I finally discovered Balatro and after a little stumbling learning the game mechanics, I am hooked.

Equally enjoyable, entertaining, aggravating, addictive, and satisfying, it is now my goto time waster.
Click to expand...
Yeah it's a perfect mobile game to play. Traveling by train for a few hours next week and I'm already planning to just play Balatro through it.
 
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