dwarf

Imagine working on something for two years only to see it thrown away. I feel sorry for the developers, not the fans. The bad thing about this is that Retro will probably be asked to play it safe with Prime 4, and that's not something I'd be interested in playing.

Vast tracts of the Capital Wasteland in Fallout 3 were far from any important quests. It was one of the best things about the game.

The PS4's last big year? Sekiro, Death Stranding, and The Last of Us 2 top the list for me. Will consider Ghost of Tsushima, Control (if the writing isn't as bad as the trailer makes out), and Doom Eternal (if it stays on track for this year).

Played this for a few days and they've nailed all the core aspects of the game - the large capture zones, the gunplay, the movement; pretty much everything. Like in past Battlefield games I love how it rewards creative positioning - choosing the right flanking options, stuttering your runs to avoid sniper fire, vaulting in and out of buildings to lose enemies, leading enemies into explosives traps, sliding backwards into newly-formed craters to dodge enemy fire, crawling prone through bushes to hide from an enemy squad... it's so much more visceral than any other multiplayer shooter out there. The squad play seems to have miraculously improved since the beta. Even if you're in a squad with strangers, they'll generally work together towards the objectives set by the squad leader. Dice have also found the right balance with the attrition system, meaning ammo and health supplies are scarce enough to make you think tactically about your approach, while not being so scarce as to be frustrating. Tickling an enemy for damage at range often matters for something, as they won't necessarily be able to regain their health unless they find a supply station. The best thing about the attrition system is that it keeps players moving around within each capture point to resupply their resources, so camping is heavily penalised. Conquest capture zones are now much larger, which makes for more interesting battles. There's enough room to hide in if you're trying to capture the point alone while you wait for your squad to spawn on you, but there's also an indicator which shows the balance of teammates vs enemies in the zone (letting you estimate the approximate number of enemy players nearby, and where they might be given the position/spread of your teammates). It gives you just enough information to work with without explicitly telling you the location of enemy players. In fact, there's hardly any radar spotting in the game, so training your eyes and ears on the actual environment more important than ever. In past Battlefields you'd usually have to sit within 20 feet of a flag to cap it, which limited your positioning choices as an attacker. Now you can come in from a variety of angles and take cover in a number of places while still making progress on the objective, whereas before you were funneled into a narrow and dangerous area ripe for grenade spam. Uploaded a couple of my highlights from yesterday evening (only really viewable in HD) Taking out a tank ("baby a triple!") and an armoured car: Sneaky flank boy:

I feel the same. I wouldn't do away with all the detail as some of it does add to the experience beyond mere titillation. That said, Rockstar probably took an 'in for a penny, in for a pound' attitude with the realism and went too far. When the game is firing on all cylinders, it's terrific fun. I reached chapter 3 on a high. After a few missions into the chapter, however, I've hardly touched the game for two weeks. It's not that I don't intend to finish it, but more that I need time to recharge my enthusiasm between sessions. I think my main 5 problems are: 1) Overemphasis on detail, as you mentioned, which slows down gameplay (Jim Sterling dedicated an entire video to this which is worth a look) 2) Time spent horse riding - there's way too much of this and it isn't particularly fun. Some missions fast-travel you here and there, but I think you should have the option to fast travel back to camp more often. Horse-riding would be fun if chase sequences took you through densely populated, obstacle-laden areas. The horse riding mechanics are deep enough to challenge your handling skills and reaction times, but so far all I've experienced are pursuits through open fields. GTA doesn't have this problem as you can rag a car around the map for hours without getting bored. Red Dead's map is bigger than GTA's and yet the travel speed is twice as slow. 3) The minigames aren't engaging, which compounds the tedium of horse-riding. I don't play dominoes IRL for good reason, poker is only fun against real people with real money, and fishing is both boring and requires too much preparation. Even if the rewards were meaningful I still wouldn't bother with them. The five finger fillet is occasionally a worthy distraction, and ultimately that's how I see these things: as distractions to take you away from the tedium of horse-riding. It's not the idea of minigames in itself that I have a problem with, but rather the selection of games and their execution. 4) Crap inventory system (already discussed in thread) 5) Complicated control systems which are only used for rare, context-specific actions The story/characters are engaging enough, and occasionally funny, but nothing special. Arthur is inconsistent in the way he deals with people and approaches tasks, but that's an intractable problem with videogames as a form so I'm not really bothered by it.

Rockstar received a lot of flak for excluding staff who quit the company mid-development from their credits, so maybe they made amends with this game. Sure it'd be hellishly long even if they didn't honour everyone tbf.

Worth mentioning that Firestorm (i.e. the BR mode) is launching in March as part of the online service. All post-launch content will be free. 19 days left.

You can find baths in hotels, or whatever they're called. Pay at the counter in Valentine and walk through the door downstairs. As for aggravating people for no reason, sometimes it's unavoidable but you can defuse some situations if you're quick on the L2. /// This is worth a watch btw: I'd add that ginseng elixirs are worth drinking straight away - they give a flat buff to your core. I had 4 or 5 after the first few hours of the game and left them sitting there like a noob. Drink them up. Also, another tip (no spoilers): You can get a side mission from an author in Valentine (in the small bar) who tells you to take pictures of notorious gunslingers. When you get to the gunslinger who lives in a snowy area, make sure to check his cabin properly. I thought I'd looted it fully but apparently there's a treasure map inside somewhere, which means I'll have to make a long journey back. I only know this because I got pictures of all four bounty hunters for the quest, but there was no map icon to complete the quest. I checked online, and apparently you can't turn in some side quests until you've reached a certain chapter in the main story - in this case chapter four. Thought it was worth mentioning to save confusion. The same article mentioned the treasure map I missed. Anyone else got some nifty tips? I feel like there's all sorts of stuff I'm neglecting/missing out on. Thing is, I don't want to read a tip guide e.g '27 things you need to do at the start of Red Dead' because I'd rather discover most of it myself. Things like the above would've been useful, however.

Thing is, unique weapons don't seem to have any noticeably different stat attributes either from what I've experienced. I hunted someone down in the middle of nowhere after a difficult firefight, and expected the leader's weapon to be worth picking up. Couldn't tell if there were any differences after repeatedly swapping it for my own, in the way that Ronnie mentioned (which is ugh, I agree). A notification did say special weapons have different stats, so the inability to compare them directly is an oversight.

Can you set a waypoint/markers etc on the app? I've turned the GPS back on now. If you turn GPS off, the game doesn't let you set a waypoint on the map with X. That means you have to place markers instead, but to delete them you have to scroll over to each one manually. Say you've been on a few journeys and you forgot to delete the markers as you went; suddenly your radar is cluttered up and you have to spend more time finding and erasing them on the map screen. The lack of a 'delete all markers' option has forced me to use GPS/waypoints instead, which is annoying because it drastically changes the whole experience. Maybe I'm bothered more by the GPS from a purist design perspective than I actually am of the system in practice. GAH. I think there's a compromise whatever you end up going for. Sometimes it works great to have a minimalist set-up if you're just roaming around, while during missions you want more info, but because you frequently shift between these states there's not a one size fits all. I could write a long and boring essay about the UI/inventory stuff in this game because of the sheer amount of time I've spent trying to tame it (it feels like I already have done in the thread) but it's almost beside the point when you come across your first city and weep with adulation at how fucking amazing it looks. I can understand why the reviewers might've overlooked the drawbacks when it came to scoring because it's clearly doing something unique with the world-building. These outlets backed themselves into a corner by giving a million identikit shooters a 9/10, leaving them no way to distinguish Red Dead from the rest of the pack without downplaying its faults in the rating. [this comes back to the problem with scoring in general but we need not go there] Usually I get over impressive graphics pretty quickly but this game is an exercise in sustained awe. Every new place is a treat.

OK back off pal

Micro Maniacs would've been a no-brainer too but hey, this is the problem of limiting the library to 20 games.

I haven't used it enough to be able to properly identify the problem tbh. The inventory is indeed crap. It seems dumb that they don't lump all health-only items together, followed by stamina, dead-eye, and mixtures. Plus I think part of the reason things are so complicated is that you don't really know what all the items do, if they can be used in crafting, or what they're worth. For that you need to acquire knowledge about items from the world (i.e. outside of the inventory system), and also get a sense of the value of money and the rate at which you're likely to earn it. At best the system is going to take a long time to get used to, and at worst it's just a mess. Will only find out by playing more. Thing is, I'm sure you can get by without paying too much attention to the item management stuff. Sure you might miss out the odd upgrade here or there, but as long as you play a fair few missions and keep your wits about you in shootouts, you'll be fine.

I'm finding dead eye tricky too, for two reasons: 1) I accidentally press R2 to shoot straight away, instead of selecting multiple targets with R1 first, because I'm constantly using R2 in normal combat. Maybe I should remap the controls so I don't fuck it up every single time 2) I forget dead eye exists

I thought about using the app but is it not counterproductive to divert your eyes from the screen so often? Maybe if I rested my phone on a makeshift book stand I could make it work. I'm totally with you on the minimalist HUD in theory but I find the extra hassle isn't worth it. Even the option of turning it off completely and recalling it with a button press is too distracting. I've kept all the HUD defaults except for GPS, which I got rid of. Journeys take longer but I like making my own choices and going off the beaten track.

It's only been out for half a week, though. Am I missing something?

I was getting annoyed at having to press two buttons to display the map, and then I thought, 'maybe if I hold options down that will take me straight there.' It did. GOTY

It's a fucking joke how pretty this game is. Playing it has reminded about this piece on BotW: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-06-05-how-will-the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild-change-the-open-world-paradigm There's a dizzying number of systems in the game, many of which don't make for conventionally fun gameplay, but that's not necessarily what they're there for. Normally I wouldn't be such a fan of 'busywork' but here I don't mind it at all, at least not yet. Dat texture, dem graphics, dose immersionz!

What aiming options have people settled on? The gunplay will probably feel slightly off whatever I choose, and at the moment I'm not sure if the middle ground between free-aim and auto-aim is actually preferable to the default or not. Did Rockstar set the default (i.e. easy snap-aim followed by a quick flick up for a headshot) because it's most satisfying way to play? It's great when it works but it's also inconsistent given enemies' heads are bobbing all over the place. I'm missing a lot of shots right now. Maybe that's the point, but it makes me sad

A peak into my domestic life, 27/10/2018: Me: [disinterested tone] Is Read Dead 2 due to arrive before my Birthday? Ma: I think Amazon said Monday *checks iPad* Oh, it says it's delivered... We stare each other out. I try to play it cool but Ma seizes the initiative – she squeezes past me and bombs it downstairs. I give chase. We both see the package and there is much hollering. She goes to grab it but she is too late; I have used the Cruyff turn to whisk the package away from her. It is mine. Giggling, I take the package to my room where it is safe and open it up. Inside is Mama Mia 2: Here We Go Again on DVD. Ha! Just kidding about the last part. Upshot is I'm rinsing outlaws with dynamite today. Yee-haw, bitches!

It was no masterpiece but I have fond memories of playing GUN on the GameCube. I basically want that kind of experience from Red Dead 2 but with all the dials turned up to 11.

In my head I didn't think you could have two accounts playing the same purchase on different consoles online. PS+ account complications do my head in (playing Rocket League online when you've got 4 players in split screen, for example). I used to rinse the 5-console PSN game shares on PS3, but they stopped that on PS4 right?

Isn't buying on disc better in pretty much every conceivable way bar the convenience factor of not needing to swap discs (which in itself comes with the downside of taking up more data on the HDD, no?) Disc version is £10 cheaper and you can lend it to friends. I guess I'm not understanding the bit in bold.

Should tide you over til November 20, at which point you can trade it in.