Greedfall -- Colonizers vs Magic Injuns

spronk said:

watched lirik play for 2 hours, it looks really awesome like something bioware would have put out 10 years ago

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that's a pretty common sentiment. the dialogue and questing is really pretty great for the most part. they do a really good job of having GoT morality; meaning no one seems to be all good or all evil. you side with factions based on your own personal viewpoints instead of "this is the good faction and this is the evil faction."

there are a couple of cosmetic flaws but under the hood it's a really solid game.

j00t said:

i could only do a dark side/evil play through in any game once i beat it. video games just have no idea how to have good vs evil as a playable mechanic and still go through the same game with the same overarching plot. SWTOR SORT of got it right with dark side jedi and light side sith. if i remember correctly, infamous had sort of a decent viewpoint on it as well...

but yeah, ultimately games with good vs evil choices tend to let you play a psychopath in the dialogue choices but then still have you railroaded into the same story as the paragon of virtue and goodness.

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In KOTOR and Jade Empire the path was the same but the things you did could be pretty monstrous. The problem is that the 'evil' endings make a sequel completely impossible, which is why Obsidian had to make KOTOR's light side ending canon for KOTOR 2 and undoubtedly why Bioware chose to water down the consequences of the renegade choices when they designed Mass Effect to be a series rather than a one and done.

Gavinmad said:

In KOTOR and Jade Empire the path was the same but the things you did could be pretty monstrous. The problem is that the 'evil' endings make a sequel completely impossible, which is why Obsidian had to make KOTOR's light side ending canon for KOTOR 2 and undoubtedly why Bioware chose to water down the consequences of the renegade choices when they designed Mass Effect to be a series rather than a one and done.

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yeah i remember. we would all gather 'round the tv during my darkside KOTOR playthrough where i picked the most evil options. most of the dialogue got pretty hilarious. but once you get out of the dialogue mini-game, you're back to killing the exact same enemies for the exact same reason.

j00t said:

for the exact same reason.

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Not really. In Jade Empire defeating the Emperor and resolving the matter of the water dragon isn't optional, it's not like you can just decide 'eh fuck this im just gonna travel around the countryside getting drunk'. Given the diametrically opposed endings, it's clear that the motivations of the main character are different for each path. Similarly it's not like you can just ignore Malak in KOTOR but your motivations are in stark contrast to one another depending on which ending you're going towards, whether your intent is to redeem yourself or to regain your place as the #1 Sith.

I mean there's not much you can do to significantly differentiate the two paths short of trying to cram two separate games into one title and making both paths suffer as a result.

obviously the endings give some different context, but i was talking about the everything before that. i played jade empire but it was so long ago i don't remember much of anything from it other than enjoying it. kotor on the other hand, you fight the same droids, the same dark jedi, the same mandolorians whether you are light side or dark side. my point is basically that morality in games usually come across as some binary thing instead of how complex it actually is, and it has no real impact on the gameplay. kotor 2 touched on this with kreia, and it had a lasting effect on me as a person, but it didn't jive with the in-game mechanics of morality.

there's a scene on corascant (i believe) where the exile and kreia are having a debate about morality. she gives him a hypothetical situation where a poor beggar is asking for food and asks what he would do to help. there's no right answer, every option you have SOUNDS good but she has an immediate retort about the long term effects of it. if you respond that you'd give the beggar some credits, she says you're niave and have taken away his agency to fix himself and created a dependency for others to take care of him. if you say you'd let him fix his own problems, she reprimands you for your lack of compassion.

it was some REALLY great dialogue about the complex nature of morality and it's implications. but then as soon as you get done talking, you're doing the EXACT SAME THING regardless of why.

So worth the $50?

i'm not super far into it, but so far, yes, i think i'll definitely get enough playtime/enjoyment out of it to be worth the price

GreedFall review

this a pretty spot on review, though i don't think the score matches what even they rate it as, so don't pay attention to that part.

honestly i think one of the reasons it's not being reviewed higher is that it's come out right smack dab in the middle of a pretty busy gaming couple of weeks. it's kind of hard to ask people to shell out money for a game like this when there's a bunch of AAA games that people are waiting to play. luckily for me, gears 5 was $2 and i'm pirating borderlands 3. so, that eased it in a bit more

i don't know if it's a bug or a "feature" but when you kill something while stealthed, you don't get exp for it. so, just be aware

Bandwagon said:

I was interested after seeing the screenshots in the PS4 store. Then I saw it's bioware. Pass.

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Bioware-esque, not actually made by Bioware.

These days Bioware would struggle to make a game that's even on par with Spider's older stuff.

yeah. it's clearly inspired by old guard bioware, i.e. jade empire and kotor. it's also clearly not as good as those games but that's not exactly damning since those games are masterpieces.

before i actually played the game, i wanted to be a ranged build. i wanted to use firearms as my primary and magic as a secondary but the game just isn't built that way. so i used swords for a while because magic in the early game is pretty lacking since you run out of mp so quickly... but i'm at mid-to end game i think, and i was just not feeling the weapons. one handed swords deal too little damage and 2 handers are so slow that you just get stunned before you can even swing. then i switched to magic and good lord it's a totally different game. i can't quite remember the skill names, but it's straight down the magic tree that let's you teleport instead of dashing, and then the upgraded magic kick (whatever it's actually called) let's you do that from range. you just teleport all over the battlefield chucking shadow magic at everyone. magic is far and away the easiest way to play the game. i got all the healing and shield spells maxed but i don't actually ever use them

Firearms are actually game-breakingly OP if you spec into them, and they're probably the least skill point intensive build of all. Ammo is so easy to craft that it's never an issue.

I've used magic pretty much exclusively and yeah, it's very strong. Getting the thing that lets the magic "melee" attack teleport you around is a complete game-changer.