The Video Game Thread

[Clarity]

I may have a free game on Steam. First to type in 4GNGY-WZ2FM-Z9R9W can see if its actually a usable code

[Blackman]

It says it's a duplicate code.

 

I guess I'll download the PES demo on my 360. Now where the hell did I leave that damn thing? Hope it still works.

[D-Lyrium]

Been playing the demo of FIFA '16. I dunno whether it's just because I haven't played FIfa since last year's demo, but it seems soooooo much better than last year. The actual gameplay seems to have improved massively.

[Bigpapa42]

I'm actually tempted by this year's FIFA. The problem is that I know I would end up playing relatively few actual matches. It would mostly come down to playing career mode. And being a Football Manager guy, I always end up feeling like career mode is too simple and limiting. Don't know that I want to drop the $$$ on it just to have it sit like WWE 15

[Blackman]

Yeah, WWE15 is still ticking in at only 8 hours, with basically half of those spend actually customizing a CaW.

 

ML in PES seems to be improved, but the 360 demo didn't quite convince me. Sure, it seemed a little improved. But nothing groundbreaking to me.

[milamber]

Been playing the demo of FIFA '16. I dunno whether it's just because I haven't played FIfa since last year's demo, but it seems soooooo much better than last year. The actual gameplay seems to have improved massively.

 

I'm actually tempted by this year's FIFA. The problem is that I know I would end up playing relatively few actual matches. It would mostly come down to playing career mode. And being a Football Manager guy, I always end up feeling like career mode is too simple and limiting. Don't know that I want to drop the $$$ on it just to have it sit like WWE 15

 

I skipped FIFA 14 so FIFA 15 felt quite fresh. It took a lot of slider tweaking to make it fun and challenging, though. FIFA 16 plays better already with vanilla settings. The slower pace, women and off-the-ball dribbling are nice additions but it's not quite enough. Career Mode seems like it's getting some attention again after they streamlined it in FIFA 15. I gave up on Football Manager a few years ago because I was wasting too much time playing it but EA could take some cues from it. Things like player talks, morale, player & team stats, stadium expansion etc. Nothing as complex as FM but enough to give FIFA's Career Mode some depth. I'm on the fence about buying it.

 

I'm considering buying WWE 2K16. I only have a PC so I've never played a Wrestling game (other than TEW) before so my expectations would be low.

[Clarity]

I skipped FIFA 14 so FIFA 15 felt quite fresh. It took a lot of slider tweaking to make it fun and challenging, though. FIFA 16 plays better already with vanilla settings. The slower pace, women and off-the-ball dribbling are nice additions but it's not quite enough. Career Mode seems like it's getting some attention again after they streamlined it in FIFA 15. I gave up on Football Manager a few years ago because I was wasting too much time playing it but EA could take some cues from it. Things like player talks, morale, player & team stats, stadium expansion etc. Nothing as complex as FM but enough to give FIFA's Career Mode some depth. I'm on the fence about buying it.

 

I'm considering buying WWE 2K16. I only have a PC so I've never played a Wrestling game (other than TEW) before so my expectations would be low.

From what I can tell from a few YouTubers I've seen playing FIFA16's career mode, its the exact same as its been for the last few years (even down to the interface)

[milamber]

https://www.easports.com/fifa/news/2015/fifa-16-career-mode

 

Not exactly an overhaul but about as much of an improvement as can be expected for a FIFA game.

[Clarity]

There needs to be some kind of UI progression. It looks exactly the same as 14's

[Atticus]

I bought Madden 16 a few weeks ago and have been playing it just about daily with my roommate. Pretty fun overall, but I found the aggressive catch and the WR/DB interactions to be way too overpowered. It seems like the receiver will make a catch 9 times out of 10 regardless of who they are and what defender is on them. Just the other night, we had a game where a fourth-string receiver caught a ball over 3 defenders and another play where he caught it over four. Defense in general seems like it got downgraded in favor of the OBJ catch.

 

But it's not all bad. Draft Champions is a lot of fun and I haven't sunk in too much time into MUT so far this year. CFM is a bit screwy at the moment, but I'm a fan of the new scouting system and the draft feedback. Though, I wish the "true talent" aspect of drafting got tweaked a bit. It's a bit weird to say a kicker projected to go undrafted is the 24th best player in the draft.

 

Side note, but I'm really looking forward to NBA 2K16. The MyCareer mode looks really awesome this year with being able to play through high school, college, and then get drafted into the NBA. Pretty exciting stuff.

[D-Lyrium]

Definitely not having the experience you're having with receivers. Granted, I'm pretty awful, but even watching guys on Twitch play, it seems pretty reasonable. Obviously sometimes a receiver will catch throws in double or even triple coverage, but that happens sometimes in real life too. Especially when you're against the Steelers defence. I haven't had the experience where I feel like I can make ridiculous throws and expect to catch them most of the time, for sure. Especially not against good CBs. And that's on Rookie difficulty.

 

Draft Champs is great though, I agree. They've obviously ripped it wholesale from Hearthstone, but why not? It's a great idea. Having a lot of fun with it (offline, of course. Online I get utterly demolished.

Even in MUT, the matchmaking has no regard for team OVR ratings or experience of the player, so I regularly get crushed by teams with 20+ team OVR more than me, making it pointless until I've ground out enough coins to get a semi-decent team). A lot of that is the fact that I'm still learning the sport, let alone the game, though.

 

I think the biggest praise I can give it is the fact that I'm still having fun, despite not really knowing what I'm doing too much yet.

[Atticus]

Definitely not having the experience you're having with receivers. Granted, I'm pretty awful, but even watching guys on Twitch play, it seems pretty reasonable. Obviously sometimes a receiver will catch throws in double or even triple coverage, but that happens sometimes in real life too. Especially when you're against the Steelers defence. I haven't had the experience where I feel like I can make ridiculous throws and expect to catch them most of the time, for sure. Especially not against good CBs. And that's on Rookie difficulty.

 

Draft Champs is great though, I agree. They've obviously ripped it wholesale from Hearthstone, but why not? It's a great idea. Having a lot of fun with it (offline, of course. Online I get utterly demolished.

Even in MUT, the matchmaking has no regard for team OVR ratings or experience of the player, so I regularly get crushed by teams with 20+ team OVR more than me, making it pointless until I've ground out enough coins to get a semi-decent team). A lot of that is the fact that I'm still learning the sport, let alone the game, though.

 

I think the biggest praise I can give it is the fact that I'm still having fun, despite not really knowing what I'm doing too much yet.

 

Yeah, we play on pro and get some insane catches. We've also had plays where the defensive player basically commits pass interference and the receiver still catches it. Perhaps it's a Play Now thing? Leads to a lot of rage. That being said, I don't complain when my receivers make some one handed catches

 

I agree with MUT matchmaking being rough. A lot like last year too. I pretty much just stick to the single-player games even though they're complete grinds. Especially when your team gets good and then you're playing against teams that are around the 60s while moving through the challenges. Best thing to do is just the challenges and play the auction block/market until you get a halfway decent team. Then you can be the one crushing all the people with awful teams

[D-Lyrium]

The problem with MUT solo challenges, at least at the start, is that the scenarios generally put you within one or two plays of completing the challenge. So it ends up taking far, far longer to load into the game and start playing then load back to the main screen afterwards than it does to actually play the challenge.

 

Are you on PS4 or XBone?

[bigtplaystew]

MGS 5 is a masterpiece

[Atticus]

The problem with MUT solo challenges, at least at the start, is that the scenarios generally put you within one or two plays of completing the challenge. So it ends up taking far, far longer to load into the game and start playing then load back to the main screen afterwards than it does to actually play the challenge.

 

Are you on PS4 or XBone?

 

YES! I hate that! I mean, I'm grateful that since you're usually better, you can just stomp the game and it's pretty easy, but they take forever to load and like you said, they're often short scenarios.

 

I'm on the PS4 btw.

 

On a side note, I don't know if anyone has gotten to play Mad Max yet, but it's pretty fun. It's got that open-world thing like the Arkham games and Shadows of Mordor. Same fighting system too. Game also gets hella bright which is a nice contrast from MGS5 where I live in the darkness all the time.

[Dawn]

YES! I hate that! I mean, I'm grateful that since you're usually better, you can just stomp the game and it's pretty easy, but they take forever to load and like you said, they're often short scenarios.

 

I'm on the PS4 btw.

 

On a side note, I don't know if anyone has gotten to play Mad Max yet, but it's pretty fun. It's got that open-world thing like the Arkham games and Shadows of Mordor. Same fighting system too. Game also gets hella bright which is a nice contrast from MGS5 where I live in the darkness all the time.

 

What is your PSN nick?

[D-Lyrium]

Mine is Monkeystyxx, if anyone wants to add me.

[Atticus]

For the PS4, mine is AtticusHunter.

 

Since AtticusFinch is always taken

[bestbitter]

Anybody got/played Blood Bowl 2 yet? If yes is it any good?

[Clarity]

Anybody got/played Blood Bowl 2 yet? If yes is it any good?

 

I have it on the XB1 and working my way through the Campaign. Its looking a little on the short side claiming that im 13% through at my 3rd match while still being tutorialised (no turnovers for failure yet, no rerolls or apothecaries). I think the 4th match I just started allows dodging failures. Its a slow process which will probably help newbies, but the experienced are probably wishing they made a How To Play tutorial section and filed it away there.

 

It does feel and play better than the first (slo-mo attacks are awesome), but i think most of the meat of the game will be in the multiplayer.

[steesh07]

Is anyone getting FIFA 16 then? I'm very tempted, despite the scripting and pace abusing players on 15, it has kept me entertained since release day last. Just wondering if anyone had decided.

[Bigpapa42]

Is anyone getting FIFA 16 then? I'm very tempted, despite the scripting and pace abusing players on 15, it has kept me entertained since release day last. Just wondering if anyone had decided.

 

I got it yesterday. Impulse buy, as I've been mulling getting Metal Gear Solid and I'm still playing through Batman. Will mostly playing Career Mode, which is silly, because I default to Football Manager once that comes out anyway.

[RKOwnage]

I've tasked myself with beating all of the Zelda games (that I can get my hands on) in order. I beat the original (I've done it before - may go back for the Second Quest though, never beaten that) and I'm onto The Adventure of Link. I think I have one or two levels left to beat, and my god is it so frustrating. I don't think I could ever beat it without a save state.

[D-Lyrium]

I've been watching some BB2 matches, the UI improvements are actually really nice. Reeeally nice.

 

The only thing I don't like is the fact that the dice are shown the 'correct' way up, which means you're staring at the side of the dice but the actual result is on top, so it's the less obvious of the two results you can see. I'm 1000% certain this will lead to me choosing skulls because I was staring at the big yellow 'block' result on the side.

 

Other than that though, the presentation looks SOOO much better.

 

Not paying £35 for it though, I just don't have time at the moment to play enough games to make it worthwhile.

[Fleisch]

Fifa 2016 should be called Fifa 15: Reskinned. I have noticed absolutely no changes, right down to the servers going down within an hour of getting Fifa (and that was 8 hours ago and they're still an unstable mess 7 minutes is the longest I've stayed on without a disconnect). Career mode is exactly the same, with the added bonus of training... which consists of skill games... oooooh. Even most of the free transfers are the same! The transfer system is the same, in other words, rubbish and unrealistic.

 

The jump between Professional and World Class is as always, ridiculous. Professional is too easy, whilst World Class has me in "WTF" mode with decisions and mistakes by AI players on my team.

 

There are NO new game modes, just the same tired old s*** they rolled out last year. Oh sorry... there's the much anticipated Womens Tournaments, because that was what every Fifa fan was screaming out for when it came to additions. Now I can give randomly generated free kicks away with boobs.

 

The only other thing is Ultimate Team draft(?) I'd give my thoughts on it, except as stated above, I've not been able to get on to Ultimate Team because of the 8 hours the servers have been playing up.

 

I'm sure there will be those fanboys who get a little hurt by my negative opinion towards the game, but look at it with an open mind because you can't tell me that there is a major difference in gameplay - not enough to charge £50 for anyway.

 

Oh there is a positive however, I get to play as NEC in Holland again now they are back in the Eredivisie so that boosts my score rating for it.

 

Day 1 Score: 3/10