ShreddieMercury

Playing RE4 on PS2 for the first time, I was so impressively immersed in the first village encounter that being killed by the chainsaw suddenly from behind startled me to the point that I had to put the game down for a few days. So I would say, at least early on, that it's effective as a horror game. As it wears on I think you get used to the tone and it gets to be pretty over the top so it definitely veers into camp, which is really fun. I don't think horror is defined by whether somebody finds something scary, which is extremely inconsistent and subjective; to me it's about the macabre subject matter and deriving tension from a fear of death, so all RE games are horror. For remakes, I hope they just do RE1 again in the new engine and call it a day. That original mansion has always been the strongest setting, so seeing it recreated with the care and attention to detail of something like the RE2 remake would be amazing.

Yep.

I like the optimism of some posters in giving examples of how developers might utilize this tech to create interesting gameplay, but I'm much too cynical to think that all of the sudden we're going to see creative applications of lighting once the hardware is powerful enough. Maybe if we get to the point that Nintendo cares about RTX then we'd see something genuinely interesting from a gameplay perspective, but my guess is that this will be mere window dressing for the same slate of games that we see endlessly in the AAA space. To be clear, I have seen cool examples of this tech and I don't disagree that it can make a difference. And plenty of people have money to burn on new consoles that offer only marginal differences, so have at it. But comparing RTX to other similar graphical advances in prior console generations, I can't see this having anything but a minimal visual effect for the foreseeable future.

Ray-tracing is probably the least impressive graphical upgrade that I've seen in all my years of gaming. Like lots of buzzy GFX terms through the ages, its impact on enhancing/innovating/improving gameplay is extremely minimal so far. It can be impressive if somebody points it out and shows the difference between a RT and non-RT image, but once a game is in motion, I don't understand why we should give a shit. In terms of actually affecting the image, to my eyes HDR makes more of a difference, but it also does not enhance the gameplay to any degree. This gen is a bust.

On Xbox, make sure that you have Dolby Vision enabled. I didn't realize that I had it turned off, and I had issues with HDR in games (particularly RE2). For whatever reason it's superior on Xbox to HDR10 or whatever the other option is from my experience. You can also calibrate HDR from within the Xbox settings. On top of that, my TV has independent HDR settings and calibration as well. Played through the demo last night and loved it. Can't wait for the full game!

You've never played any version of RE4?

Definitely want to play this at some point, but it seems a bit off putting how close it looks to the original. The gameplay was already very tight, and I'm not sure if a visual facelift alone is worth it for me.

Personally, I really don't care about Dark Souls, and the addition of difficulty options would not make a difference to me. And while some of the discussions about accessibility become a bit irrational and veer toward outright entitlement, I think difficulty scaling is one of the absolute no-brainers that adds flexibility and opens games up to a wider audience. My main issue is that I don't like to see the influence of Souls games in anything that isn't directly inspired by them. Despite the art and settings, I don't think they have that many compelling gameplay elements aside from the difficulty and pointlessly punishing save systems, so when games en masse decide to implement these specific mechanics, or to up their difficulty in crude and cheap ways, it's baffling to me. This is a trend that I don't like and one that I think runs counter to the direction that the industry has been moving regarding accessibility in general.

Nice post and I appreciate the point that you're making about all of the haranguing about accessibility while still abiding by the "creator's intent" regarding difficulty. One thing that I do think that gets missed in any of these discussions is that the difficulty in Dark Souls (and many of its spinoffs) is the game. When people say it would cheapen the experience to add options, I don't necessarily agree, but it would fundamentally alter the main point of playing these games, which seems to be (based on the effusive discourse) memorizing and repeating the same actions ad nauseam until you beat a boss upon which you have undergone intense self improvement and become a better person (?). While I'm all for accessibility options, I don't think there is enough inside the Souls games to make them worthwhile absent their main mechanic (making you die). There are lots of ways to make video games challenging, and I just don't respond to the DS approach. I'm glad people love these games, but the same needlessly punishing mechanics have seeped into so many games that it's just baffling to me at this point. The reviews of Wo Long I find genuinely funny, because it's as if game critics have some sort of Stockholm syndrome about this type of absurd difficulty.

Man, Dark Souls really ruined action games huh. The blurbs from those reviews are genuinely hilarious.

Thanks to @Spork3245 I have a month of Ultimate! I'll download FH5 this afternoon and let you know what I think. I think there is a general misconception in gaming circles about what arcade racing really is, because in revisiting older games in that genre, I've realized that lots of them have unique and challenging handling models with incredibly deep gameplay. Daytona USA has three tracks and one car, and I've played it for dozens of hours because the races are always unique and you are on a knife's edge at every corner. Arcade racing does not mean that the game is shallow; from my perspective it just means that the focus is entirely on the actual racing, and making sure that central element is as fun and perfectly challenging as possible for the player. I'm not sure if it's specifically to blame, but when Gran Turismo came along, it seemingly widened the genre in shallow ways by focusing on every detail aside from the actual racing itself. You no longer were focused on learning the exceptionally designed tracks and fighting interesting AI, you were instead grinding ovals in order to unlock more generic cars with slightly better stats. I've thought about creating a master thread for arcade racing recommendations but didn't know if there was enough interest at this point.

That's so kind of you! I actually have subbed before so I don't think that will work, but I really appreciate the offer. I was trying to figure out if there was some other deal I could find but I can't really identify anything at this point. I've gone back and forth and have subscribed for a couple months here and there in the past, but I prefer to just buy games I'm interested in on sale if possible.

I don't sub to game pass at the moment but thought about signing up to play this. I probably will since it would be a low cost way to at least see what it's like, and then find some other stuff to try (Windjammers 2).

So, I love racing games. Specifically arcade racers. Sim racing now dominates video games, which is a shame because it's so dreadfully boring. I've spent a ton of time with Sega classics like Sega Rally and Daytona USA, and more recently with stuff from Codemasters like the DiRT games (DiRT 2 and GRID 2 are incredible). I also have played a smattering of recent indie arcade racers (Inertial Drift, Hotshot Racing, Slipstream, etc.), which while good, just do not reach the same heights that we saw in the 5th and 6th console generations. All of that to say, I constantly see extremely high praise for the Forza games, but the vibe/aesthetic and open world aspects have always turned me way off. As someone who loves arcade racing, but generally dislikes modern game design (online/co-op focus/endless menus and stats/open world), is there enough here for me to get over these hangups and enjoy this game?

Nothing can sell me on a game more effectively than what you just described. Midway-tier AA games with an interesting hook are what we have been missing for almost twenty years at this point. I thought Evil West would scratch this itch but that one was pretty disappointing sadly.

I tend to think of altruism as collectivism; the pursuit of good for all rather than the individual. Virtuous also sort of works. I don't need a game but appreciate the sentiment.

Honestly it's sort of relieving to maybe not have to play a rogue-like game anyway.

It's a workstation and I almost exclusively emulate older games, though I've tried a few newer games on Steam and they seemed to run fine. 32g RAM Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-2133 CPU @ 3.60GHz 3.60 GHz NVIDIA Quadro P4000 Not sure how any of this compares to anything else.

Any word on performance? I don't have a super powerful PC but it's still pretty capable. May bite on this if it's well optimized and performance is good. Sucks that it's a rogue-ish game, but I can't not play whatever Housemarque makes.

Crazy to me that nobody mentioned the announcement for a SEQUEL TO SAMBA DE AMIGO???

Nintendo is really the only one of the big three whose output I consistently enjoy. The Switch has one of the best console libraries of all time at this point, and Nintendo's first party games all have the same special charge that's always distinguished them within the industry. And while solid performance certainly matters, the continual push for better and more complex visuals on these other platforms is detrimental to game development and the returns are continually diminishing. We could have the Switch for another 10 years and still get games that have far more interesting and singular gameplay design than the competition. As for Metroid Prime, this seems like a substantial upgrade. From what I can tell, the term "remaster" doesn't really do this justice. I'm excited to get this at some point soon and go through it again.

It's one of the best games of the last ten years or so. In my opinion the game is much stronger than RE 7 and RE 8. The RE engine is excellent and the visuals were recently enhanced for the newer consoles. The game is short (around 5-7 hours) and is designed to be highly replayable.

It's crazy how much promise MS squandered after the 360. One of the best libraries of games on any console, just hit after hit, and a very forward thinking and accessible online system that was leagues ahead of the competition. And then it's pretty much been miserable failure after miserable failure, perhaps (hopefully) peaking with Halo Infinite. The lone bright spots have been backwards compatibility, which is the only reason I have a "next-gen" console, and the allowance of game pass to produce smaller, riskier games. I agree that it's likely too late to be truly competitive with Sony, because by the time MS's first party studios really get rolling (2026 maybe? Lol who knows), it's not going to be near enough to move the needle. Sony's first party output hasn't much interested me, and at this point I find modern games to be almost painfully dull. Of the three, Nintendo seems like the safest bet for interesting games, but even they've cooled their heels and become the safest and most predictable version of themselves over time.

Nostalgia is absolutely the main draw of this game at this point, nobody is expecting it to hold up to modern sensibilities. But it still does have its charms, and I would argue that local multiplayer (which is sadly so Rare nowadays) is where this would shine. People have to understand that this was revolutionary for consoles. FPS games were of course already pretty advanced on PC at this point, but for a certain generation of people this was like a cultural atom bomb. I wouldn't put it on par with going from 16/32 bit consoles to Mario 64, but it's in that same general league, representing a huge leap forward that wouldn't be surpassed until Halo again revolutionized (and seemingly perfected) the console FPS. Perfect Dark is the better game (and it has a better remake that's playable in enhanced fashion on Xbox), but this is an important piece of gaming history, and the fact that any of it holds up at all is a testament to what they accomplished the first go around.

4 player split screen Goldeneye would be more fun than about 95% of modern videogames so I'm not really understanding the whinging.