StephenM

Exapunks Quick Look is just Vinny muttering to himself for 90 minutes. Perfect.

So I've definitely seen all the vignettes I can at this point, with all chapters except the mystery one filled out. Not sure how's best to proceed -- just start going around the boat again watching them from the start? Would be lovely if there was a way to play the memories from the book.

Worst detective ever.

Started this tonight — so, so good. I’m now at a point of overwhelm, though, where I think I’ve essentially seen all the vignettes first time round and have loads of gaps in my jotter. Finding it hard to match faces to models, too — might need to print the faces so I can do closer comparison. Last game to make me get a notebook out was The Witness. Love it.

So this doesn’t seem to have blown up on console, which is a real shame. I’m only on the second area, but I really think it’s quite special. Sure, it’s a card game - and I was probably the only one who was annoyed to see that Gwent had changed so massively since I last played it. But in a lot of ways it feels more like an XCOM or something — an abstracted version of looking at the numbers, working out the perks, and planning out the right moves. And that’s saying nothing of all the sauce that really makes it sing. Hard choices, a solid story, and loads of lore. My only complaint is the crashing. Which is on another level — so much so that I’m reluctant to start shouting about it to everyone I know. Nothing takes the cheer out of a victory as quickly as that blue screen... Strange the huge Witcher 3 crowd haven’t been more into it. I wonder how much is the marketing and weird road to release, though - I enjoyed Gwent in Witcher 3, played the Gwent beta for a while, and I’m probably on multiple mailing lists. And I was still surprised when I launched it and found it had so much decision making and RPG stuff around the cards. I only came in here to rant about the crashing and now look.

I found the falling through the world thing interesting as well as irritating. It wasn't a bug I'd seen around much until yesterday, and then suddenly it seemed like it was happening to everyone all at once. With the 'beta' thing, I admittedly took that to mean little more than 'Here's what we're saying so when the servers die you can't have a go at us.' But when you look back at GTA Online and the fact you couldn't even connect and move around for the first week or two, I've been impressed with just the fact Red Dead Online works. All the stuff like whether the economy is perfect can come later. It's the idea of value, too. If R* had just released a single player only experience, people would definitely feel they got their money's worth with RDR2, if only for the sheer size of it. But somehow the promise of Online makes people feel like they've been ripped off, which I can't really relate to. I see the online as a free addition to the main game, which I think is why I'm quite forgiving of how it works and all the Micahtransactions that will be coming. I'll be jumping back in tonight no doubt. Even if I just press through the story missions / strangers and then wait until their first update, that would be fine with me...

Last night was planned to be the longer look at this, but I fell through the bottom of the earth three times in the space of about twenty minutes, so gave up. It's fun seeing all the people going mental at small bugs and stuff on Reddit. No perspective at all on the fact that executing something like this is probably quite tricky to do...

Didn’t get too far on this last night — took ages to decide between male and female, took ages to make a character, then hated her so started over. Pretty excited about it though, especially when passive mode is added in (which I presume it will be eventually). Beyond the missions themselves, looking forward to just doing the pottering I’d do offline (hunting) with it contributing to a character rather than the SP bank balance!

I just realised I didn’t run into the KKK for my entire play through. Huh.

I had made one of those weird self imposed rules people make that I’d wait until Christmas for this. But it was rainy outside so what was I supposed to do with my Sunday?! Love it after a little play around — would be playing it now if it weren’t for concern about banging away as it gets later. Struggling with calibration on the switch though — any tips? Game mode on but it still doesn’t feel quite right, and fiddling with the numbers hasn’t got me far. What does the HD Rumble calibration thing do?

The endless pottering has begun. Thought I’d knock off a story mission or two tonight — instead, I played blackjack, went fishing with some pals and had a bath. One repeated annoyance is not being able to camp, though. Constant claims of nearby activity, even when it seems pretty desolate to me.

Oh maybe, I’ll have a look. I also thought for five minutes about starting over and realised there is no way I’m gonna do that. I’ll role play that John and his pals went for a wander.

Is there a play time counter in this on PS4? Keen to know how long while I debate starting over to chat to a few missing folk.

Very specific role playing in the Wild West question: is it possible to buy a ticket legitimately, get on a train and have it travel along the track while I gaze out of the window? Seems like there’s no honest way to ride a train slowly across the map, even though that’d be a classic Rockstar thing to do.

My powerful pro strats for taking out witnesses