Gaming

[r4derby]

Got the PS4 after Christmas to try some games. Completed Horizon a few months ago, and thoroughly loved it. Jumped straight into Spider-Man, expecting a similarly amazing experience. It took about half the game for me to get into though. The last act is brilliant though. Completed that and just working through the DLC. Then, it is on to God Of War.

I have loved discovering these games. Was envious of the exclusives on PlayStation compared to Xbox. Also heard Ghost of Tsushima is brilliant so that may be lined up for after God of War.

Next gen people - what are your thoughts of the Series X/S and PS5 a few months on? Worth the jump yet or are they still a year or 2 away from being essential?

[maxjam]

39 minutes ago, r4derby said:

Got the PS4 after Christmas to try some games. Completed Horizon a few months ago, and thoroughly loved it. Jumped straight into Spider-Man, expecting a similarly amazing experience. It took about half the game for me to get into though. The last act is brilliant though. Completed that and just working through the DLC. Then, it is on to God Of War.

I have loved discovering these games. Was envious of the exclusives on PlayStation compared to Xbox. Also heard Ghost of Tsushima is brilliant so that may be lined up for after God of War.

Next gen people - what are your thoughts of the Series X/S and PS5 a few months on? Worth the jump yet or are they still a year or 2 away from being essential?

I have a PS5, great piece of kit but not much in the way of games yet tbh.  Horizon 2 has been pushed back until 2022 as well.

Assuming they are in stock at Christmas you could pick one up - there should be a few decent titles out then, otherwise it might be worth hanging on until a Horizon 2 or similar AAA game comes out as you might pick up a great deal on PS5 & game.

[r4derby]

45 minutes ago, maxjam said:

I have a PS5, great piece of kit but not much in the way of games yet tbh.  Horizon 2 has been pushed back until 2022 as well.

Assuming they are in stock at Christmas you could pick one up - there should be a few decent titles out then, otherwise it might be worth hanging on until a Horizon 2 or similar AAA game comes out as you might pick up a great deal on PS5 & game.

Think I’ll wait at least until at least next year, just to give Sony time to iron out any bugs…and for stock to get back in shops.

Horizon 2 and God Of War Ragnarok both look like they could play really well. I may also wait to get Miles Morales on PS5 then too, as I doubt I will have finished other games for a fair few months yet.

[ColonelBlimp]

On 01/08/2021 at 00:36, maxjam said:

Just had a very quick look and found this PC in the online version of PC Gamer magazine (hopefully the pic will scale up enough to make it readable)

The difference between a mid range PC and high end PC, for them at least, is approx £3k ?  If we work from the mid range PC (£1400) and assuming  your lad doesn't need a monitor I would swap the free cooler out for a (silent) NZXT Kraken x63 water cooler and either swap out the RAM, Motherboard or Processor for a better brand/higher spec.  If he can push the boat a little higher than £1700 he could do more than one and would get a very good system.  

If he doesn't need a keyboard, Mouse and headphones there is an extra £230 savings there as well he could put towards the better components I mentioned.

 

 

On that @Rev you really need to decide the resolution you will be playing at and what games you are likely to be playing.

Are you going to play high refresh competitive games like Fortnite et al ? In that case you'll go 1080p/high refresh and save on the GPU as you would normally turn down a lot of the settings.

For instance, at 4k the CPU is pretty much irrelevant (up to a point) as the limiting factor is the GPU. 

GPU's are currently way out of whack pricing wise due to miners but they are slowly settling back down.

For reference, I like to play SIM racing games (Assetto Corsa,AMS2)  FPS shooters (GTA5, Outer Worlds, Battlefield series) and dabble in music software (Reason 11)

For this I use a Ryzen 3600, 16gb DDR3200 and Vega56 and I run on a Dell S2719DGF at 1440p, also through a Powerline.

I'm always above 60fps and usually nearer 100.

And you can always upgrade later, I can pop a 5800x in if necessary or a higher spec GPU when prices drop.

Essentially, what I'm saying is, the Mid Range build MaxJam posted is more than enough to play any game at 1080p maxed out and most games at 1440p maxed out. As always, with PC gaming, you can adjust quality settings if needed to gain a few fps - things like Ultra quality grass or shadows etc can always be knocked down to High. Plenty of game guides out there to maximise performance for the title you are playing.

[FindernRam]

1 hour ago, ColonelBlimp said:

Plenty of game guides out there to maximise performance for the title you are playing.

Nvidia GeForce Experience app will do a pretty good optimisation for their cards with a lot of games. Not perfect but a good starter for 10.

[ColonelBlimp]

4 minutes ago, FindernRam said:

Nvidia GeForce Experience app will do a pretty good optimisation for their cards with a lot of games. Not perfect but a good starter for 10.

The Radeon Adrenalin software also has something similar.

There's also DLSS on nVidia and FSR on AMD as well to bump the frame rates up.

[ColonelBlimp]

Though, I'm seriously interested in what the Intel Xe discrete GPU's will bring in the future.

 

[kash_a_ram_a_ding_dong]

On 05/08/2021 at 15:03, r4derby said:

Got the PS4 after Christmas to try some games. Completed Horizon a few months ago, and thoroughly loved it. Jumped straight into Spider-Man, expecting a similarly amazing experience. It took about half the game for me to get into though. The last act is brilliant though. Completed that and just working through the DLC. Then, it is on to God Of War.

I have loved discovering these games. Was envious of the exclusives on PlayStation compared to Xbox. Also heard Ghost of Tsushima is brilliant so that may be lined up for after God of War.

Next gen people - what are your thoughts of the Series X/S and PS5 a few months on? Worth the jump yet or are they still a year or 2 away from being essential?

After exclusively owning PlayStation's since the PS1,i bought a Xbox series s a few months ago with a ultimate game pass.

Got to say it's been a revelation partly because of the number and quality of the games for free on game pass but also the quietness and speed of the series s.

Plus it was seriously cheap in comparison to the ps5 whilst losing very little in terms of spec.

[RadioactiveWaste]

Just to give a shout out to anyone who likes racing games to give Rush Rally Origins a go. It's made by an indi developer and is only a fiver on mobile and switch. Great fun top down arcade style rally game, or Rush Rally 3 for a more traditional style rally game.

Support indi game developers.

https://www.brownmonster.co.uk/

[r4derby]

Managed to get a PS5 at the start of December, which my wife then gave to me for Christmas. Unbelievable that there were still online queues of 20 thousand people trying to get them a year after release! The timing did sway it, with a higher demand for Christmas I suppose.

Anyway, only just finished setting it up with all the updates. Already impressed. What’s a good first game to play? Tempted by Ghost of Tsushima, the new Guardians of the Galaxy, SpiderMan Miles Morales…

[maxjam]

2 hours ago, r4derby said:

Managed to get a PS5 at the start of December, which my wife then gave to me for Christmas. Unbelievable that there were still online queues of 20 thousand people trying to get them a year after release! The timing did sway it, with a higher demand for Christmas I suppose.

Anyway, only just finished setting it up with all the updates. Already impressed. What’s a good first game to play? Tempted by Ghost of Tsushima, the new Guardians of the Galaxy, SpiderMan Miles Morales…

We've got Spiderman, God of War, Guardians of the Galaxy and Horizon Zero Dawn - any of those are excellent

[r4derby]

On 27/12/2021 at 08:57, maxjam said:

We've got Spiderman, God of War, Guardians of the Galaxy and Horizon Zero Dawn - any of those are excellent

Yep. All are excellent! Played all and completed most, working my way through Guardians then God Of War. Looking forward to Forbidden West and Ragnarok in the next few months. 

[Van der MoodHoover]

I'm part way through guardians of the galaxy with assassins creed valhalla waiting in the wings ?

[r4derby]

Guardians of the Galaxy is an excellent single player campaign. Story is great, characters are brilliant and the way dialogue is delivered works so well with this franchise. Action I was a little sceptical of, but it works really well.

Just started God Of War on PS5. Already can see why it got such good reviews. 

[DJFern94]

10 minutes ago, r4derby said:

Guardians of the Galaxy is an excellent single player campaign. Story is great, characters are brilliant and the way dialogue is delivered works so well with this franchise. Action I was a little sceptical of, but it works really well.

Just started God Of War on PS5. Already can see why it got such good reviews. 

100% agree with that about Guardians of the Galaxy. After being stung by the Avengers game, Guardians of the Galaxy is actually worth your time.

[maxjam]

Played through the first few hours of Horizon Forbidden West on the PS5 - well worth its £70 asking fee ?

If you liked the first, its everything the first game was and more.

If you've not played the first game, it broadly carries on from where it ends.  You don't need to have played it but you'll be missing out if you haven't.

If you didn't enjoy the first game then you should donate your PS5 to someone that would appreciate the chance to play it ? 

[May Contain Nuts]

Got a Switch now, stayed up all night playing Metroid Dread and haven't been to sleep yet!

Only ever had the GameCube from Nintendo before and haven't properly played any of the main franchises, lotsnof catching up to do!

Was supposed to be dedicating my time to Horizon but that was taken over by Elden Ring. Both excellent, but have had a few days break from open world stuff 

Edited March 5, 2022 by Coconut's Beard

[maxjam]

FYI if you have a gaming PC and Amazon Prime you can grab 30 games for free today including the following;

Mass Effect Legendary Edition ?

Need for Speed Heat

Grid Legends

Star Wars Republic Commando

Jedi Knight : Jedi Academy

Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

[Day]

2 hours ago, maxjam said:

FYI if you have a gaming PC and Amazon Prime you can grab 30 games for free today including the following;

Mass Effect Legendary Edition ?

Need for Speed Heat

Grid Legends

Star Wars Republic Commando

Jedi Knight : Jedi Academy

Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

Just don’t buy any that Ubisoft have published, otherwise you could see them disappear in a few years even if you have purchased.

[maxjam]

1 hour ago, David said:

Just don’t buy any that Ubisoft have published, otherwise you could see them disappear in a few years even if you have purchased.

Thats not a new thing in the gaming world tbh - old games do get shutdown ? 

In this case however, it was single player games that were being shutdown, which was concerning.  Ubisoft however have issued an update stating that if you already own the game it will remain available to redownload and play, its just the online elements that will be removed. 

Unfortunately it does cost money to maintain servers for old games and when next to no one plays them I guess the money men start getting a bit twitchy.

https://www.pcgamer.com/ubisofts-online-decommissioning-may-render-three-games-unplayable-for-people-who-bought-them/