OT: Video Game Computers/Gadgets/Gizmos Thread

[glenn]

I’ve played about three hours of Link’s Awakening and I’ll say that your mileage may vary.

I’m close to starting dungeon #3 and I love it. It’s a beautiful remake of a game that I have nostalgia for with a few QoL tweaks that makes it hold up today. It feels good, it sounds good, it plays great. It’s a modern take on the top down Zelda style that helped me fall in love with video games 20 years ago. If you want an easy to pickup Zelda game, it’s perfect for you.

My concern for someone buying it without ever playing the original is that they might blast through it in 8hrs. I don’t think that means it’s not worth $60, but if your expectation is looking to get say the same amount of content that Borderlands 3 gives you for $60, you’ll be disappointed. I think that is an apples vs oranges comparison, two totally different games, but if you maybe only buy a game once every three months and you want to milk that game for every drop of content that it has for months, then get Breath of the Wild or something else.

I've been playing it off and on since Thursday night and I'm with you. I love it, my wife and kids have had fun trying it out, and it's totally worth the price to me. Your mileage is definitely going to vary, though, especially if you are concerned about the hour to dollar ratio. Honestly, at this point in my life I'm desperate for games that don't demand 100 hours of my time.

[mattg]

RS, how are you playing Zane? Just started a new game with him today. What action skill do you use the most? Do you equip two action skills and remove grenades?

This was my path.

Put 4/5 into Violent Momentum, 3/5 into Adrenaline, and 1/3 into Hearty Stock. Then filled out my Digi-Clone tree.

It's worked fine for me but I did feel like I wasn't getting much from it early on in the game. If I had it to do over again I'd research it more to find optimal builds. This was just one I randomly came up with.

For example, the Pipe Bomb is so OP right now that it's basically a must-have. But you can't get it until around level 24 if you're on a new character. I think knowing what I know now I'd forget the points I put into the SNTNL and dump them into another tree. Then again, you can always re-spec. But I do love the Digiclone tree.

I mean does the build even matter if you're gonna use something like the pipe bomb? The way it currently works is similar to BL2 at the start with the Conference Call shotgun and The Bee shield. Skill build is irrelevant when you deal over the top glitchy damage.

Also for what its worth, I don't think its worth grinding farm in BL3 til you've beaten the game and unlocked Mayhem Mode. The drop rate for legendaries is very high and its also really high on the eridian slot machine (I've gotten 3 legendaries including the Maggie from it spending maybe 200 eridium. Or just get a purple Jakobs masher pistol while on Eden-6 and let it carry you for a solid 10 levels. Just as broken as BL1.

[Sauce Boss]

I’ve played about three hours of Link’s Awakening and I’ll say that your mileage may vary.

I’m close to starting dungeon #3 and I love it. It’s a beautiful remake of a game that I have nostalgia for with a few QoL tweaks that makes it hold up today. It feels good, it sounds good, it plays great. It’s a modern take on the top down Zelda style that helped me fall in love with video games 20 years ago. If you want an easy to pickup Zelda game, it’s perfect for you.

My concern for someone buying it without ever playing the original is that they might blast through it in 8hrs. I don’t think that means it’s not worth $60, but if your expectation is looking to get say the same amount of content that Borderlands 3 gives you for $60, you’ll be disappointed. I think that is an apples vs oranges comparison, two totally different games, but if you maybe only buy a game once every three months and you want to milk that game for every drop of content that it has for months, then get Breath of the Wild or something else.

I've been playing it off and on since Thursday night and I'm with you. I love it, my wife and kids have had fun trying it out, and it's totally worth the price to me. Your mileage is definitely going to vary, though, especially if you are concerned about the hour to dollar ratio. Honestly, at this point in my life I'm desperate for games that don't demand 100 hours of my time.

I definitely relate. I’m still shocked that I made 100 hrs to play Fire Emblem this year (I just really loved it a lot). Link’s Awakening is in that perfect zone of long enough that it remains enjoyable without over staying it’s welcome. I’ll probably be done by next weekend (cleated five dungeons as of writing) and will be content with having accomplished something.

[ReasonablySober]

RS, how are you playing Zane? Just started a new game with him today. What action skill do you use the most? Do you equip two action skills and remove grenades?

This was my path.

Put 4/5 into Violent Momentum, 3/5 into Adrenaline, and 1/3 into Hearty Stock. Then filled out my Digi-Clone tree.

It's worked fine for me but I did feel like I wasn't getting much from it early on in the game. If I had it to do over again I'd research it more to find optimal builds. This was just one I randomly came up with.

For example, the Pipe Bomb is so OP right now that it's basically a must-have. But you can't get it until around level 24 if you're on a new character. I think knowing what I know now I'd forget the points I put into the SNTNL and dump them into another tree. Then again, you can always re-spec. But I do love the Digiclone tree.

I mean does the build even matter if you're gonna use something like the pipe bomb? The way it currently works is similar to BL2 at the start with the Conference Call shotgun and The Bee shield. Skill build is irrelevant when you deal over the top glitchy damage.

Also for what its worth, I don't think its worth grinding farm in BL3 til you've beaten the game and unlocked Mayhem Mode. The drop rate for legendaries is very high and its also really high on the eridian slot machine (I've gotten 3 legendaries including the Maggie from it spending maybe 200 eridium. Or just get a purple Jakobs masher pistol while on Eden-6 and let it carry you for a solid 10 levels. Just as broken as BL1.

You're not wrong at all. Furthermore, my current build gives me grenade regeneration per kill. So yea, this has been about the easiest BL experience I've had, like you said, similar to the Conference Call and Bee pre-nerf.

[MissKhriddleton]

If I never played BL2, should I just buy the handsome collection instead of getting BL3?

[StickeeFingaz]

If I never played BL2, should I just buy the handsome collection instead of getting BL3?

Just my opinion but I bought the BL2 collection a few months ago and played maybe 5-8 hours before buying BL3, I wasn't having a great time. I bought BL3 and have been having a great time. I keep forgetting that BL2 was released in 2012, it does feel dated.

[ReasonablySober]

If I never played BL2, should I just buy the handsome collection instead of getting BL3?

You definitely don't need to play any of the previous BL games. But I'd play 1 and 2 first because they're awesome and cheap. The Handsome Collection is the wrong thing to get because it includes the very not good Pre-Sequel.

BL3 feels like BL2, but with so much better gun play. I'm biassed as a BL2 honk (can't stress that enough), but BL3 is easily my GOTY so far. I love it so much, and it's because the weapons are so amazing and feel so good.

[mattg]

Yeah ignore the Handsome collection because the pre-sequel is garbage and some of the random DLC is low quality. Borderlands 1 is still playable IMO (especially the General Knoxx DLC which is the blueprint for the rest of the series) but it's less polished obviously. Borderlands 2 is still good and playable, and 3 is a big step up in terms of gun play, graphical polish on the weapons, and overall depth.

Realistically though, Borderlands is a time sink game. You'd have to be pretty serious to go back and play through the earlier games without even having played a Borderlands game before. I'd recommend just playing BL3 and if you're into it then you'll likely have plenty of new DLC to play as well as normal end game stuff. If you became a superfan then you could go back and play the earlier games to see where everything started if you were desperate for new content.

[crkone]

But the lore guys!!! Don't forget about the loooooorrrrreeeee!!11!!

[humanrefutation]

So I've jumped back into BOTW, and I'm already starting to be reminded why I stopped playing it - it's really hard to feel like you're actually making progress because it's not obvious what you should do next. Like yesterday, I putzed around for 2 hours collecting food/herbs/items, solved a couple shrines, killed some random monsters who I came across. But I don't know if I actually accomplished anything meaningful, or whether I should just go straight from one divine beast to the next.

I still feel very fondly about the game in many ways, but I also feel overwhelmed by it all, tbh.

[MikeIsGood]

1. Just go right to BL3. You don’t play BL for the story. It’s kinda fun, but not worth delaying your BL3 experience by 80-200 hours.

2. HR, those are my thoughts and my exact experience with BOTW. As time went on, it became clear that’s why I didn’t go back. Open world can be so wonderful, but that was too big and vague for me.

[ReasonablySober]

Read on Twitter

Did Naughty Dog really go with the Bury Your Gays trope here?

[humanrefutation]

Read on Twitter

That looks **** amazing and I can't wait for it to be released.

[tydett]

2. HR, those are my thoughts and my exact experience with BOTW. As time went on, it became clear that’s why I didn’t go back. Open world can be so wonderful, but that was too big and vague for me.

I'm pretty certain I have replayed every single Zelda game at least 4 or 5 times. I love the progression, the atmosphere, everything. But I have not once ever wanted to replay BotW. I enjoyed the experience. It was something cool. But I don't think I finished even a quarter of the game before I said "ok, time to go do some dungeons", finished the beasts, and then defeated Ganon. I do hope for a return to formula, but it seems like they're going to double down on the playstyle and that makes me sad.

[jschligs]

Last of Us II looks incredible, I never finished the first as my PlayStation broke during my play through and I never got back to it, might have to now.

Also, the CoD MW beta was pretty great, definitely went back to their roots in a good way. Cross platform play seeks to work well, I had no issues or anything. I’ll provably pick it up over the holidays on sale as there are 30 other games I want.

The gaming season is finally back!

[TroyD92]

Never got the hype for The Last of Us. I beat it and enjoyed it, but I really didn’t think it was this legendary game that everyone else seems to think.

[ReasonablySober]

I've read some stuff today with regards to Zane not really being a viable end-game character on BL3. That's a bummer. I took a couple days off from playing it and just finished my first run through (level 37) only to find out as it stands I'm gonna really struggle if I keep playing him. Meanwhile, at least two of the other characters are laughably OP.

So I either start over and play as someone who'll probably get nerfed, or keep going and hope Zane gets buffed and/or I get crazy lucky with the drops.

[StickeeFingaz]

I've read some stuff today with regards to Zane not really being a viable end-game character on BL3. That's a bummer. I took a couple days off from playing it and just finished my first run through (level 37) only to find out as it stands I'm gonna really struggle if I keep playing him. Meanwhile, at least two of the other characters are laughably OP.

So I either start over and play as someone who'll probably get nerfed, or keep going and hope Zane gets buffed and/or I get crazy lucky with the drops.

Damn. I have a level 20 FL4K and a level 15 Zane. Playing Zane has been OK, not great.

I think I’ll go back to FL4K and keep pushing forward.


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[Ryan5UW]

Ho ly chit

https://www.engadget.com/2019/09/25/amazon-alexa-celebrity-voices/

I can't wait to hear "it's gonna rain mother ****!"

[FrieAaron]

2. HR, those are my thoughts and my exact experience with BOTW. As time went on, it became clear that’s why I didn’t go back. Open world can be so wonderful, but that was too big and vague for me.

I'm pretty certain I have replayed every single Zelda game at least 4 or 5 times. I love the progression, the atmosphere, everything. But I have not once ever wanted to replay BotW. I enjoyed the experience. It was something cool. But I don't think I finished even a quarter of the game before I said "ok, time to go do some dungeons", finished the beasts, and then defeated Ganon. I do hope for a return to formula, but it seems like they're going to double down on the playstyle and that makes me sad.

I think of BoTW as more of a return to the series roots than any other game that came before it. The reason it's my favorite Zelda game is because of that completely open ended nature of not needing to do the dungeons in any particular order (or at all if you want) but if you want there is always something over the next hill for you to do. In those ways it's the most like the original NES game than any of the others.