Well, I own the game so I’ll no doubt show up on your race list Rock8, but I also grabbed Doom and I’ll probably play that first. Having said that, I was also a huge fan of the first game and I would think that if you were lukewarm on that, the sequel probably won’t be different enough to grab you. But that’s from only playing the beta so far.
I have it on the Xbox one. Im letting my GF play through first, but afterwards I’ll be up for some time trial sharing. I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve seen so far, aside from the combat, which makes me despair over how thickheaded DICE are.
Man, this game snuck right by me while I was busy Witchering. I didn’t even realize it had been released last month.
Anyway, Amazon Prime members can get it today for $29.99. Deal is 28% claimed at the moment so you’d better starting RUNNING ACROSS THE ROOFTOPS TO GET IT!
I can’t decide if I want to buy it. I loved the original (after trying three times to get into it, the third attempt clicked) but I have puh-lenty of games to play right now. And all I want to do is Geralt.
Oh poop, PC version already back up to way too much.
I’ve been playing this a fair amount lately and so far my impression is that the game is … ok. Not great, not terrible. It’s fun to be in this world again, playing my own little version of ambulatory Smokey and the Bandit, but I don’t think the game has been well served by going open world. There’s too many little incidental things to do out there that don’t add up to much, just busy work to get you to find the fastest way from point A to point B. Which isn’t in itself all that bad, but the stuff that does exist to serve the plot and drive you forward is a little thin. The first game was much more structured, designed to propel you forward. It was tight, and I liked it quite a bit. And the actual levels in this game serve as the set pieces to make you try out new moves and figure out the levels. It’s just that the rest of the world is just there, and what’s there has bunches of little glowy ball collectibles and not much else. I’ll see how the rest of it shapes up but I’ll be surprised if it pulls an ace from its sleeve at this point.
One thing I need to mention that really bugs me is the diversion side missions. The idea is that one of your comrades is going to run a heist or some such, and needs you to distract a lot of guards who are just hanging around in groups of four or so. You have to reach each group within a time limit, in my experience so far about 30 seconds per group. But the direction on where to go to find the next group is fairly nonexistent - the runner’s sight is iffy, showing a path when it feels like, and while the map will show you a line to reach your next objective the little icon for Faith has no direction indicator - you don’t know if the direction you’re pointing is correct so you have to spin around and look for the little waypoint icon on the game screen, using up seconds you need to actually reach it. It’s highly annoying and I haven’t successfully completed one of these missions yet.
So I finished the game and I figured I’d throw some final impressions down for why not. It ended stronger than I would have thought, there was more going on under the hood and some interesting setting and story background that drew me in when the missions themselves did not. Catalyst is set a little further into the future, in a time where city states (and pretty much everything within them) are run by corporations. The city itself looks more sci-fi than the original did and something I didnt’ pick up on until quite a bit into the game - there are no cops, just KrugerSec operatives. Functionally the same, but playing more to the game’s aesthetic.
The story doesn’t really go anywhere surprising, and there’s a reveal about one character that you’re going to see coming from a mile away, but it does put the game in an interesting place for a sequel, should one happen. There are things going on around the edges of the game that are more interesting than the corporate espionage plot, in fact one late game side mission allows you to help out a friend who is stuck in a loveless marriage with a cheating husband, to plant bugs to get evidence for a divorce. But the interesting bit is that this marriage was arranged not by families but by the corporations they work for, in an effort to draw those corporations into a stronger position. An annulment isn’t sought from the church, but by the boards of directors. It’s all slightly off kilter in a way that I found interesting.
I finished MEC recently too. I liked it but didn’t love it.
The visual design is still great; the parkour is fun when it’s firing on all cylinders; the combat is…well, still the weakest link, though bearable. But I was never really enthused about it like I was about the original. Some of that is simply because a lot of it is a retread of the original; can’t recapture lightning in the same bottle twice. Some of it is because the whole parkour thing has been beaten to death since the first game came out 8 years ago; after all, there’s been about a gazillion Assassin’s Creed games alone.
I’ve also gotten more than a little sick of open-world games which give you a gazillion little subtasks to perform but no real incentive for doing so, beyond tiny dribbles of XP or whatever. To paraphrase a friend, it’s like they took a thin veneer of mini-games and spread it out over the city, adding a superficial sheen of depth. The super-trite story certainly didn’t help keep me engaged, either, though to be fair I didn’t hate any of the main characters, either.
Still, I enjoyed it enough that I hope if there’s a third game, they find a way to really kick things up a notch, rather than just…well, following in its own footsteps.
Ok, @divedivedive. I’ve had this downloaded for the last few hours, but I’ve been watching The Good Place, and then Thursday Night Football. If the Xbox One still had snap mode, I would have already beaten one of your runs by now. But no, I have to watch TV without being able to play games now.
Yeah but come on, you can’t effectively divide your time between those things. You’re probably better off doing one then the other.
New protagonist looks less Asian, or more vaguely Asian-ish.
Also, “Mirror: 2 Edgy 4 U”.
All these runs are so hard to get 3 stars on. With the one I was trying last night, I kept getting within half a second of getting 3 stars, but never over that line. @divedivedive seems to have 3 stars already on all the ones I looked up, so he’s going to be tough to beat.
In the interest of fair play, if you’ve just started the game then you don’t have all the tools yet to even be able to do three star runs yet. I don’t just mean skills, but actual tools you’ll be given through the campaign that make runs not just bearable but doable at all. So don’t try to jump right into speed runs, you’re just going to get frustrated.
Awwww, but the story is so boring!
You’ll eat your vegetables and you’ll like it, mister!
There’s a character in the game called Rebecca. She’s like a rebel/terrorist leader. There’s something about her that makes her feel real, as opposed to the other characters in the game. I don’t mean her personality, just the way her in-game model looks. What is the opposite of the Uncanny Valley? Like the other characters all look like obvious video game characters to me, but something about her face makes it look like a real face.
By the way, the story missions have gotten a lot better lately, with much more variety. The game is reminding me more and more of the first Mirror’s Edge now, and that’s a good thing.
Actual people. :)
-Tom
I’m actually really enjoying this now. I never want to actively jump into it, but when I do jump in, I enjoy myself quite a lot. Going from one end of the city to the other, now that almost the whole city is available, is pretty neat too. I never fast travel, since traversal is the best part of the game. I look at all the Ubistuff they’ve added to the openworld, and I’m kind of wishing I had time to do all those things. Whenever I succumb to temptation and do a delivery mission or a race, it’s always fun. But I don’t have time! I have a backlog to get through, I can’t be running willy nilly on rooftops all month long.
I’m kind of amazed at how well I’ve gotten to know the various parts of the city. I’m getting very close to the end of the game, just judging by the pace of the story, since I’m going after the main bad guy’s mind control weapon. And just doing a few races and deliveries here and there, and the main story missions, I’ve grown really familiar with the city.
It’s interesting to me that you seem to appreciate the open world aspect of this game far more than I did. I liked the game on the balance but I felt it would have benefited more from being a more closed level kind of experience like the first game. All I ever really did in the second game’s open world was run from event to event, fast traveling when I could. I didn’t take in the sights much at all after my initial exploration of an area. Of course I collected all the items because, I mean, this is me we’re talking about. But other than that, I was more interested in the missions and time trials.
I suspect you actually did a lot more of that stuff than me. Whenever I do stop do to a race, you always have a 3 star time in the race that’s well above the minimum required for 3 stars. I don’t know how you did them all, or got 3 stars on all of them, let alone beat the 3 star time by that much. I’ve only dabbled in that stuff here and there.
I don’t know if I appreciate the open world more or not. I did prefer the first game by far, so I’m with you there. The open world does lend itself to having these races be more meaningful and interesting though. The races where you have a 3 star time in all of them.