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  • GTA V for PS4 is pretty fun

    I bought Grand Theft Auto V for PS4 before release day, but haven’t really played it much until Thanksgiving weekend. I have all the previous GTA games on Steam and have played bits of them, but never really got into them. I liked the look of GTA IV, but didn’t enjoy beating up shopkeepers, so gave that one up. The driving in GTA San Andreas and Vice City was super annoying, with cops following at the slightest infraction. So while I was a fan of the concepts of the games, I never enjoyed them much. GTA V seems like fun, though, so I’m enjoying playing it.

    GTA V on PS4 looks really great. They’ve condensed Los Angeles County into a sprawling, yet manageable Los Santos. That the port is just south of the airport, skipping the South Bay, is a little disappointing, but it looks like they transplanted the Strand of Hermosa and Manhattan Beaches to just south of the Santa Monica area. So driving around Los Santos is a real treat for those of use familiar with LA. For others, they did such a good job that you can feel that you’ve had a bit of the LA experience through the game (but come visit LA anyway, because they need your tourist dollars).

    When I comment about what you’ll see when driving around Los Santos, it is because you’ll be doing a lot of driving. Seriously, too much. But at least the driving is pretty good in this game. Traffic is terrible, which is correct for the region, and all the stoplights are red, which matches my commute most days. In fact, they other drivers are pretty stupid, and often make left turns from the right lane and vice versa, thus really messing up traffic. If I waited for traffic, I’d never get anything done, so I mostly split the lanes, drive on the wrong side of the road (or the sidewalk), and in generally disobey traffic laws to get where I’m going. Luckily the cops and other drivers are very forgiving. The other drivers, in fact, have terrific reaction times, so almost never run into me. The same can’t be said of me – I hit lots of cars, posts, fire hydrants, and a few pedestrians. Luckily, NPCs in the game are pretty tough, so they tend to get up and curse you out, so no harm done.

    So getting around kinda stinks in the game, compared to games like Saints Row 4 where you could call for a car anywhere and even a jump jet. In GTA V, I have a blimp (pre-order bonus?), but it is placed in just a few far away spots when I call for it, so I still have to drive to get there. I did have fun in my blimp, until I went over the military base north of town and got shot out of the sky. A better way to travel is by cab, but they’re not always good at getting to you, especially if traffic is lousy. I’d say they show up in a timely way about 50% of the time. When in the cab, you can pay extra to just skip the drive and arrive at your destination, so that’s handy.

    The game doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is a nice change from GTA IV. Sure, there’s lots of killing, but the banter and attitudes of the companions make it not seem so dire. The dialog, particularly when playing Franklin, has more “N words” in it than I’ve ever heard in my entire life. I hope that’s not really the way people talk and that it is just exaggerated for the game. There are some very funny bits in the game and the scenery, so I’m very impressed with the effort Rockstar put into making this vast game.

    Since I’m still reasonably early in the game, perhaps the travel problems will get better, but overall, I’m enjoying it. More than Destiny? Well, yes, because I feel like I’m making progress and having a minor impact on the game world (the stories on the radio news say I am 8-). The shooting mechanics are way behind Destiny’s, but they work well enough. And there is a plot, which is a nice change. I still like the fun and gameplay and banter of Saints Row III and IV better, but the amazing city of Los Santos is not to be missed.

  • Destiny is Rage Inducing

    Is Destiny like an abusive relationship? I ask myself, nearly every day, why I keep coming back to Destiny. I have lots of great games and are more meaningful than Destiny or look like lots of fun (GTA V, Infamous Second Son and First Light), yet I keep coming back for more Destiny. I suppose it is because Destiny is very comfortable and predictable, plus the game mechanics feel about as perfect as I can imagine.

    But yesterday, Destiny pissed me off several times. The first and most upsetting was when I jumped to the Tower to turn in a bounty, then promised to rejoin a friend on the Moon Patrol (she needed to kill Hive and I needed to get public events for another bounty). From the Tower, I joined her fireteam and started flying to the Moon. My friend told me that a “Defend the Warsat” public event was starting. I was still loading (covered up by the flying animation). After a minute or so, she said that the Warsat was about halfway done, but I was still loading. After another seeming interminable time nothing changed and my anxiety to get there turned to FURY. I was so mad at the fucking load screens that take forever on modern gaming systems with the game loaded on the hard drive. At that point, I just turned off my PS4 and played LOTRO for the first time in 2 weeks. LOTRO was very relaxing and non-rage inducing.

    But LOTRO got boring after I did a bunch of quests in Western Gondor, so I needed my FPS action fix, so I jumped back into Destiny. Then a couple of other annoying things happened, both involving “Kill Target” public events. I didn’t bother rejoining my friend’s fireteam, because I was embarrassed that I rage quit because of the stupid load time. Instead, I found a Kill Target event on Earth. I wasn’t able to kill the target alone, because I couldn’t keep his shields down long enough. In fact, the only Kill Target that I can do by myself is a Servitor on the Moon that doesn’t have shields – it’s an easy one. So I failed and got a “participation notice.” Thanks, Destiny.

    Then I went to Mars to kill Cabal elites. There is a circuit there where we can kill between 1 and 4 elites every few minutes (depending on who spawns). I had 3 other people doing the circuit with me, which led to timing issues of someone killing an elite before I could get there, but it worked out. Then another Kill Target event started, while the other 3 were still around, but as soon as I jumped down to engage the target, they all disappeared. Once again, I could hurt the target, but not kill him, because I couldn’t keep his shields down long enough. What the hell happened to all the people competing with me for elite kills? I have no idea, but I was completely puzzled by it.

    So the two Kill Target  event-related annoyances are no big deal and part of the game, but that damn forever load screen was just too long and too infuriating. I need to find a way to cut my addiction to Destiny and stop the abuse it does to me. Time to go beat up hookers in GTA V (or whatever the bad behavior is in that game).

    On a side note, I got an Xbox One that was on sale at Costco, so I may have to shut down the PS4 for a while and try XBone games, including AssCreed Unity that came with it!

  • Very Disappointed with PSN’s Pre-loading of GTA V on PS4

    I pre-ordered Grand Theft Auto V for PlayStation 4 for via the PlayStation Store weeks ago with the promise that it would pre-load on my machine. Well, that didn’t actually happen. Though I’d had my PS4 in “rest” mode (which means it is wasting only 100 watts of power ALL THE TIME) all weekend, no preload started. I checked the PSN store’s download queue yesterday morning and saw that GTA V was queued, so I called my wife to have her wake the PS4 and then put it back into rest mode in the hopes that it would start the download. It did download the Destiny update, but didn’t touch GTA V.

    When I got home last night, I checked that GTA V wasn’t loaded, so I chose to manually download it. Well , that looked like it worked, but it only pulled down about 2GB worth of program and update file then declared it was done. The machine was in rest mode for a couple hours then I used it to play Destiny, so there was plenty of time to download at least a fair chunk of the nearly 50GB download.

    Then, just before bed, I launched GTA V, which them promptly declared that it was only 7% downloaded and installed and that I should just leave the machine on and walk away. Well that’s BS of huge magnitude! So much for the vaunted pre-loading. Instead, the damn game wanted to download itself on my time! Screw that! So I put the PS4 back in rest mode, and if the game is written at all well, the download will have continued. I didn’t check it this morning to know whether I’d been thwarted again, because I had to get to work, but I am very disappointed in the way this pre-load failed so miserably.

  • The Problem with Digital Download Games

    I’ve been buying more games recently as digital downloads rather than physical media for many reasons, including convenience, not having the disc spinning and vibrating in the drive, and simply not having to keep track of the disc media. When things are working, it is great, but sometimes the system breaks down, and then we consumers are screwed.

    Recently, I’ve had a few problems with games bought through the PlayStation Network (PSN). When PSN is down, these games lose their ability to be played on my second PS4, which is the one I use, as opposed to my “main” PS4 that my wife uses. So last night, as I was playing Destiny (yes, my last post was a bit of exaggeration, and I still play Destiny sometimes), PSN went down for (all too frequent) maintenance. Then the system told me that I would be kicked in 15 minutes because the PS4 couldn’t verify my permission to use the game. Of course, I was in the middle of a Nightfall strike at the time, so I was quite concerned. Luckily, we finished the strike, but I was booted a few minutes later and remained unable to play. Of course, when I fired up my other PS4, PSN was down, so I couldn’t log in and play from there either. It wasn’t a Destiny server problem, but PSN was preventing me from playing. So I played LOTRO on my trusty PC.

    So the problem is that Sony has draconian anti-piracy measures in place that punish their own customers when Sony breaks its own network. I can’t recall ever having a problem with Steam preventing me from playing a game, nor even Origin doing so, but Sony has done this to me a few times (Columbus day, for example – thanks Sony). Do I believe that Steam and Origin have better, more clever network engineers than Sony? Well, Steam for sure does, but given that Origin is EA and Origin has other stupid problems, perhaps the Origin folks are only a little better than Sony’s.

    So what’s the solution? First, Sony should NOT enforce the crazy 15 minute license expiry when they caused the problem by taking PSN down. If the PS4 is verifiably on the internet and yet PSN is down, extend that timeline to 12 hours or so. That will give Sony time to fix PSN yet not inconvenience customers. Seriously, Sony, patch that into the next OS update! It is more important than fancy themes.

    The long term solution is for Sony to stop thinking of PSN as a monolithic entity that is either “up” or “down.” The login and licensing servers should be separate and VERY stable, basically never going down for more than a few minutes at a time. Then, player communications should also be a separate service that is very reliable. Things like trophy handling and inspecting other player can be less reliable, because they aren’t as critical. The PSN store is only critical to Sony and its revenue, so it is in their best interest to keep it working, but if it is down for maintenance, it shouldn’t affect other things. Yes, I’m suggest re-architecting PSN so maintenance on one service doesn’t wipe out everyone. It’ll be a challenge, but your customers will be more satisfied and think more highly of you. This is an area where Sony has trailed Microsoft in the past, but Sony needs to take the lead now since they have the most popular console! Time to fix your network problems, Sony. And maybe then, we could try that Drive Club thing you’ve been teasing for a year…

  • Done with Destiny

    After embarrassing myself in Destiny’s Crucible last night and playing a “daily heroic” mission that was quite a challenge for my level 21 Hunter, I finally came to agree with all the critics that Destiny kinda sucks. The story is crap, the gunplay is good, the missions are okay, but there are too few. The Crucible is clearly not for me, so what’s left? Oh, the same old missions, just at punishing difficulty. What will I get if I do that? Some XP and maybe RNGesus will grant you a nice loot drop, but no really great rewards.

    Well screw that. I’m going to go back to games that provide story and fun. I haven’t decided whether to actually delete Destiny from my PS2 hard drive, but I have unsubscribed from the Destiny subreddit and will try to avoid going back. Sometime when I’m feeling really good about myself and need to be brought down a peg or two, maybe I’ll venture back into the punishing worldlet of Destiny. I’m glad I didn’t pre-order the DLC…

  • Destiny is KILLING me!

    Destiny has been out for a few weeks, and while the critics kind of hate it and the shine is wearing off because of all the grinding, it still has me in its clutches. Whereas LOTRO or Star Trek Online used to be my “comfort games,” now Destiny fills that role. I always felt like playing LOTRO or STO, even if I just has a little while. I could blow off steam, accomplish something, and complete a mission or two. I didn’t touch either LOTRO or STO this weekend, but opted for Destiny in every moment I could spare. I’m a little sad about this. I have a lifetime subscription to STO, so I’m not wasting money by not playing it, but there are still places to see and aliens to kill. I do pay yearly for LOTRO, so if I’m not playing it, I’m wasting money. Besides, I still haven’t even finished the new story that came with the latest update. So I feel guilt over my choice in how to waste my time.

    Destiny, on the other hand, has a very short story that I’ve finished. Everything else PvE is just replaying the same things over and over, with the exception of the Raid, which I won’t be able to tackle maybe ever. But the gameplay mechanics are so comfortable and natural and satisfying (note that I didn’t say “rewarding” – more later) that it is easy to jump in and do a couple patrol missions or even a short story mission when I have a few minutes available. If the infernal and interminable loading could be reduced or eliminated, the game would be even better and less annoying.

    The game isn’t very rewarding, however. Most missions give no reward or perhaps some random crappy reward. The Queen’s Wrath missions are a great way to get good gear, but they are very hard and often give the same damn helmet over and over! Random loot drops are all we can hope for, and I got very lucky yesterday when my first and only Legendary Engram turned into an Exotic sniper rifle. Yay!

    And then I went into the Crucible (PvP) and got my ass handed to me.

  • Finished Destiny’s Story Missions

    I finished the “story missions” in Destiny last night after nearly 18 hours of play. So all the people that claimed the Destiny world is small (myself included in previous posts) are both right and wrong. It turns out that we only get a small region to explore on each of the game worlds (Earth, Moon, Mars, Venus), but those areas are pretty big, detailed, and complex. Also, if you think about it, 18 hours is a lot longer than it takes to finish most games other than RPGs and MMOs these days. It’s way longer than The Last of Us and Tomb Raider, to name a couple.

    So now that I’ve finished the story missions and reached the level cap (20), what’s next? Well, now the game takes on a new life. I haven’t even touched the PvP Crucible, nor have I put much effort into maxing out my reputation with any of the various factions. I’ve only played one Strike mission (twice, though). I’m not even high enough level to play the current raid nor some of the harder mission difficulties. The game changes into a lot more grinding, which could be bad if it weren’t for the good game mechanics and nearly perfect feel of the action. There is a lot more to do, much more to explore, and more fun to be had. Places to go, things to see, baddies to kill…

    I haven’t even tried out all three character classes (only the Warlock so far). In addition, each class has two different skill trees that are apparently quite different, but I haven’t touched the 2nd Warlock skill tree.

    Now that I’ve reached this milestone, however, I will try to obsess over Destiny a little less and get back to LOTRO, STO, Diablo III, and more. But Destiny certainly offers more compelling future fun than Titanfall does, in my opinion, yet the costs the same (at release).

  • Glitches in the Destiny matrix

    I played the first 4 missions of Destiny last night and enjoyed them, even though they were exactly like the beta, as far as I could tell. I got the slight impression that thing were a little harder than the beta, but that may just have been my lack of practice. But I did notice some glitching that wasn’t in the beta: Some enemies were glitching between a couple of different spots, much like laggy play in other multiplayer shooters. Except these were computer controlled enemies, not players, so it wasn’t due to someone’s crappy internet connection. These were also very low level enemies (level 2), so it wasn’t some special ability – it was a glitch. It wasn’t a terrible problem, but it sure messed up my aim as I tried to kill them. It also messed them up, too, so at least the disadvantage went both ways.

    Other than that glitch, all seemed just as good as the beta, and it was good fun. I played the 4th mission with a friend (who was much better than I am), so that was great fun.

    One of the things I like about Destiny is that the enemies are not omniscient. They can be surprised if you sneak up on them, and some of them can even be a little cowardly if you knock down their shields. Overall, the feel of the game is great, so I’m looking forward to playing more.

  • Fellow Guardians, I did buy Destiny for PS4

    Despite my previous plans not to buy Destiny, I did pre-order it at the last hour, so now my PS4 surely has it all downloaded so I can play tonight.

    I didn’t succumb to the hype, but I bought it because some of my friends pre-ordered it, and I decided that if I wanted to play with them, I’d better get the game. As with so many games (Titanfall, anyone), my friends and I have a burst of playing, then the interest fades. Since I’m not a big multiplayer shooter player, I have skipped all the Battlefields and CODs, but because I enjoyed the Destiny Alpha and Beta, I knew I would enjoy playing the game to some extent. Let’s hope my $60 was well spent…

  • Still no plans to buy Destiny

    I participated in the Destiny Alpha and Beta events on PS4 and thought the game was highly polished and fun. But I’m not going to pre-order it, nor will I likely buy it anytime soon.

    First, as I commented earlier, there are some real problems in Destiny, including the emphasis on multiplayer teams that hinder exploration, as well as the sameness of the gameplay on the Moon (and presumably Mars), which have lower gravity and should have very different game mechanics. These could possibly be forgiven, because the action was indeed really great and the game looked and felt very good.

    The next issue of concern is the amount of content in the game. It sounds like the only battleground on Earth is the one we’ve already played. Then the Moon will likely have a fair bit of content, probably. And Mars. There will be something on Mars. Venus is the multiplayer arena called the Crucible, but it doesn’t seem there will be any story missions there. So this doesn’t seem like a lot of content for a $60 game, and, of course, Bungie would like us to buy expansion packs for $35 (or a bit less if you buy one of the bundles). So seemingly not a lot of content, and we must pay for more. Sounds like a bad deal to me. Hey, but it has replay value! Maybe, but not as much as Diablo III that I’m playing now.

    Finally, the game reviewing press won’t get access until the day before release day, so we probably won’t know anything about the length of the game or if the more advanced areas are expansive and good. It is possible that the folks at Bungie are feverishly working on server code right now and it won’t be ready until the day before release, but it is also possible that they don’t want reviewers crapping all over their launch and are withholding access until it is too late. That seems more likely, given how well the Alpha and Beta went. So that’s not a vote of confidence.

    In short, Destiny seems like it may not be a good value, uses lousy physics and gameplay mechanics on other planets, and you’ll be stuck racing though areas to catch up with people you may or may not know, rather than exploring at your own pace. So I can’t see spending $60 or even $90 or $100 on it with all these doubts.