Wariospeedwagon wrote:

Earthworm Jim 2

This starts off fantastic, I love how it mixes up everything each stage.  Like it starts off as a normal platformer/shooter, then you're shooting up a level made out of dirt to tunnel your way to the end, then you're bouncing puppies into a funnel (!), then you have a level where you're floating and you can't touch the edges, then you've got a quiz.  Then fuck me you've got the shittiest isometric shooter level, and a puppy bouncing level that's way too hard, then a shocker where you have to carry a cow while a UFO tries to take it off you.  That UFO level is just the worst.  Tedious with too many shit obstacles.  I can't believe how quick it went from 'this is awesome!' to 'bugger this!'. 

Triangle Strategy

I'll come back to this; it's too good looking and the battles seem to be pretty bloody good.

Christ the dialogue though.  Everyone just banging on about shit.  I can't remember who anyone is and I can't concentrate and diplomats talking about trading salt or whatever.  As good as the graphics are they do not make for good cutscenes where you're just looking at people from an isometric perspective.  The dialogue is very dry and expositiony and it is not delivered well.  

I tried skipping the cutscenes but there are bits where you have to talk to NPCs to get bonuses in battle.  I'll come back later when I'm in a more laid back mood but it's just too boring at the moment.  Very frustrating, like if it had brief or interesting cutscenes I'd probably be doing a glowing 9/10 - 10/10 review in the 52 games thread by now!

Metal Slug Tactics? This feels like heresy.

Lol yeah the free one is done mp thing. The single player is decent but ain't what came with ps+....

Hahaha

High On Life.

Got to the first boss and was like nah.

At least you gave it another go. Disagree strongly with the 'not a very good game' part, obviously. Once you've forgiven it for not being Super Meat Boy 2 it's the best runner out there.

You have to wait half an hour of game time for Rockwell to appear, otherwise if you touch the burnt bit of map it's game over. Did you at least ring for a pizza?

Michael Beale, football manager.

Given up on a big one.

EA FC 24


I've had enough. I've had my absolute fill. Yes yes, I know, at this point it's like a junkie looking for sympathy after selling his weans PlayStation, and I know I've been warned by others in the past, but I had to find my own way here and here I am.

The writings been on the wall the last couple of years. Gameplay has disintegrated into a completely rotten meta, things get patched but new issues come along. Last year was trivelas were broken, so they got patched then the step over exit boost was found so then everyone was doing that. On and on it goes. And we all know each yearly release is the codebase of the previous years, few modifications, couple things added then it's papped out the door at full price. We know this. But this year, they're just not bothering their arse. The same gameplay issues that's been prevalent in the fucking closed beta, are still here.

Since a couple years ago, the cutback came into play. That's where you exploit pace down the wings, come up the by line, then quickly pass to a forward in the six yard box and they finish first time. The defending AI can't read it so you have to manually control. Overcommit to the cutback they have a clean shot on goal, overcommit to the winger they have a easy cut back. Last year it got worse but this year, it's literally the only way to score.

People realised soon within EA FC that if you set up a custom tactic (a cottage youtube industry kinda like FM tactic files where little settings/instructions do make a difference) with a defensive depth of at least 72, the game applies "auto team press" where the defending team basically park the bus, stay really compact, and block all lanes. And the major issues is, the game is so broken, attacking AI literally can't deal with it. They don't move, they don't show for it, they don't make runs. It also has zero effect on the defending teams stamina! So you can do this all game! Yay! The depth also applies auto offside trap too. So when you're attacking, you look up for options as, say, your full back or CM, and there's absolutely. Fuck. All. Like, I can't describe it any better. There's. Fucking. Nothing. So! You need to go down the wing, oh look, pass inside, pass, into the box for a nice free easy cut back.

Every single team. Every single game. This has been a thing since launch, and there's fucking ZERO comms from EA about it, they're too busy locking packs behind an obligation to watch the twitch stream of their esport comps. Yes, that's a thing they're still doing.

But with cutbacks, they're not new. It's became the community shorthand for a prick. "yeah, he's a cutbackin fuck, him", heck, me and Chaz etc have an agreement; No Cutbacks VS Pals. It's the hallmark of a meta chasing cunt.

So why is it worse? Well, in addition to another year of fearing select players due to knowing what people are going to try and do with them, we now have a major, major, object collision/physics problem. Guys, I have lost count how many times in this game where I've made a perfectly good tackle, timed it well, got speed and force and momentum on my side, only for it to somehow deflect off the pair of us and land at his teammate close by. Guys, I am literally going Pepe Sylvia ripping my hair out with it. The least I expect when I tackle and win the ball is to actually get possession of the ball, but when that doesn't happen multiple times in a half, let alone a game, and you're against someone who's instantly going down the line looking for a cutback, and this then happens across 10/20/30 games in a weekend? You expect people to stay sane?

It's broken. It's utterly fucked. Show me, guys, one single Frostbite game that hasn't had launch/online issues. Show me one. Yous all read Jason Schrier's book, Blood Sweat & Pixels? Frostbite fuckin destroyed Dragon Age, it tanked Mass Effect, every Battlefield is a cluster fuck, Battlefront? Hahahaha, mind that one?

But why isn't there more of a thing? Surely I can't be alone in feeling this way. Thing is, look about on twitter and you'll find plenty of people like me, same issues, same problems. But why don't the press look at this? If this was any other full price game, there'd be outrage, so why do i/we have to sit and take it? Is it because maybe a lot of the hardcore press are people that IRL just don't follow/care about football? Maybe. Or maybe it's just we've all resigned ourselves to thinking "oh yes, it's that yearly updated sports game with the loot boxes, pass". But this fucks me off.

Videogames are the major love of my life, besides football. I just want a fair, realistic game that gives me a sense of progression, using players and teams I like in real life.

EA have us by the balls and do literally whatever we want because we're addicted. We're addicts. We crave the rush of a pack opening. They know that and funnel us through ultra-competitive gamemodes, a never ending cycle of new more powerful cards hyped up by a community fueled on FOMO/git gud swaggery, and a gameplay that this year only rewards one way to play, which is effectively a tactic that breaks the foundation of the game in a AI sense. Which then fucks it for all of us.

Not to mention the fact that, this year, pack *weight* overall seems way, way lower, and the biggest fear I had when they announced women players in UT has came true. Of course all the noise at the announcement was virginal wailing from neckbeard about realism, but I was more scared over the fact that when it came to generally opening packs, this represented a further dilution of the available player pool, thus meaning it's gonna be way more difficult to earn high rated players. Guys I could literally sit though a total of 30 games (under the conditions of the ultra competitive, time limited online ranked mode "Weekend League"), deal with 30 cutbackin utter psychopaths, rebounds all over the shop, and come out the other end with rewards that, in a coin value sense, are just not worth it. Harder to pack through dilution = less, um, rewarding rewards.

So why is it like this? Well, look to the community and it's loudest voices and they all seem to fall into one of two categories: 1. Openly criticise the game yet still pump out content/hype surrounding new events/cards cos you need the clicks always or 2. They're a partner with EA, get invited to events etc so would never criticise the hand that feeds. So there's a uninterested hardcore press, a compliant content creator scene, and then there's the millions and millions of normal full-paying customers in the middle, desperately trying to be a twitch reflex God on the park, or a fucking market analyst off it to make coins (that's a whole other side to it, but take a guess who always wins through actual real market manipulation?), who just wants a fair game. Everywhere I fucking turn I'm disappointed, annoyed, frustrated.

I truly love football, and I have loved moments with this franchise, but when I'm closing the app down genuinely upset at the frustration of having to deal with that gameplay, in that community, in that overall package, then it's time. There are far too many better things to be getting on with.

I hope to fuck one day someone nukes Frostbite from orbit and EA dedicate themselves to making something that's truly a representation of the sport. But expecting that from a multi billion dollar entity with shareholders and targets, well...

Maybe they are a representation then. I'm out.

I feel like I'm going mad because, like I say we have a silent press and a compliant content creator side, and I know here the reaction will probably be "lol Gav, fifa player lmaoooooo" but ffs, this game is popular! It sells by the bucketload at full price, makes multiple billions in mtx, and... Its just left to exist. No proper scrutiny. It's either footy banter folks who know fuck all about games, or stiff games guys that think Wayne Rooney is a good ball kicker for Manchester of United. It's this weird grey area it operates in and I feel the only one who loves both worlds slowly going insane watching it morph into this unplayable monster.

Your son sounds like he's menu grinding. With enough work via the app, you could literally not build a team or play a game, and grind to a multimillion coin balance. That's where you end up a market analyst. Whole long story. If you ever catch him spending real money on packs, nip it straight in the bud, for his sake. He may not understand now but he will in time. It's never worth it.

Shit heads buying FIFA over PES are why we're in this situation in the first place. You've made your bed Gavin

Yeah, liv you're about on the money there. It's clear they've analysed every aspect of the game to squeeze us dry. There's a whole other post I could do about the difference in packs and weight and how rewards are earned and distributed and what that all means with the game modes but the tl;Dr is EA want you to waste your coin balance then have FOMO make you pump real money into it. It's very clear once you understand it all but it is very easy to get bogged down and effectively numbed by the grind. But it is a separate issue in my eyes to the specific points of this year's actual gameplay I take major issue with. All that is essentially fundamental to the mode itself though and I don't see it changing. I'm happy to be a rat in a wheel, I just want the wheel to actually fucking work.

Paul the sparky wrote:

Shit heads buying FIFA over PES are why we're in this situation in the first place. You've made your bed Gavin

Is it such a crime to want the fully licensed virtual representation of the sport you love to, I dunno, be a little better? You think Konami, if the sliding doors moment of owning every license was theirs, would be better custodians? I highly doubt it. They had a chance going from PS2 to PS3 era but they also had a game engine that fucked it, long before Ultimate Team arrived which only accelerated the slide towards EA's dominance. It's not as simple as "just play PES" as that's also shite and has an attempt at what livs post describes, but is done in such a cack handed way.

I'll run out of steam eventually. They'll have a patch in the new year and some sub on my youtube will tell me it's changed and the cycle will repeat. Nothings gonna happen unless someone or something bigger takes a long and hard look at it. I'm just tired, lads.

I still play FC24 but offline only.
I hear you Gav, it's fucking atrocious but it's like that quote about democracy being the least worst form of government, I will keep buying the best available football simulation.
It's troubling that the major sports now have a single gaming franchise (mainly EA owned bar NBA2K), resulting in all of them becoming lazy as fuck on anual iterations.
The pes argument misses the fact that Konami had a fair hand in destroying the franchise with some substandard offerings.

Didn't know there was one.  I got my dad to record a film called Flashback in the early 90s, hoping it'd be similar to the game.  It was not.

Used to love the original (especially level 2) but it's aged poorly, and Fade to Black has fared even worse.

Mate it's the same with FM. Bugs out it's arse this year. Unreal how broken it is. Long term saves are busted.

No competition for EA or SI. They don't care.