ShreddieMercury

While that kind of obligatory appointment gaming is indeed sad and somewhat pathetic, it's not too far removed from the general landscape of service games in general. I feel like MMO's used to be their own sad little niche, but now that same sort of addictive but pointless and empty compulsory grinding is a core component of most mainstream games. Even if it's not service games per se, most stuff is bloated beyond belief, swimming in in-game currencies, upgrades, costumes, etc. Whatever will keep you "engaged" with the product. It can become destructive, like any addiction, and stuff is so well designed now that it can be tough to get that same sort of stimulation elsewhere. I guess I don't have much to add, just that I find the current state of games pretty depressing overall.

Yeah, the whole one-take angle was dumb with the original GoW and I'm guessing it's still dumb with Ragnarok. It really has no meaningful effect on an experience that lasts for 20+ hours. The problem with one-take anything is that you become quickly acclimated to it and it ceases to alter your experience. If anything, it's limiting. It reminds me a bit of the silent protagonist issue, where for some reason developers thought it would be awesome to "assume the role" of the character, but it sucked from day one and still sucks.

I'm surprised that more people here aren't playing this. The game is completely phenomenal. It's the most creatively generous and ambitious game I've played in years, and it's Platinum at their pinnacle. Bayonetta 3 makes the entire industry look creatively bankrupt in comparison, particularly relative to the current crop of software for the past few years. I'm so thankful that this exists, because they - very literally - don't make games like this anymore.

Hang in there. You seem to be a great person. Grief and pain present themselves in all sorts of different ways, and there is no singular path to healing. There are a ton of very intelligent and politically active members on the board, so I wouldn't hesitate to have real conversations here. But it's always better to ask questions and be open to other opinions and ideas rather than having your mind made up before you engage. I hope you have a great week!

Just received my Xbox copy! Excited to dive into a real deal SEGA game that isn't Yakuza.

I estimate that I'm roughly 50% - 75% of the way through the story now, and this is inching towards "greatest pure action game ever made" territory for me. Previously I would have said maybe Ninja Gaiden. I would consider it Platinum's best game, and coming from Astral Chain that sure is saying something. It seems like they have a very symbiotic relationship with Nintendo at this point, because you can feel both sides' game design strengths weaving back and forth throughout the entire experience.

Can't wait to play this. Still working my way through Bayonetta 3. Feeling so lucky to have two games that are this fun and this good after having been lukewarm on most new games for the past couple of years.

This is all pretty incredible, definitely not the result I was anticipating. Seeing a pretty significant rebuke of the GOP at this level is energizing and should give people hope. This is also very good news for the next couple of years, as I think we see a more and more fractured right wing in the lead up to 2024. Long term it's still difficult to see a path out of the mess we're in, but I'm not sure how this election could have gone much better given the circumstances. Fuck the GOP and all of its enablers.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. I think it was supposed to come out a couple years ago. It was just delayed again until next year. My guess is that they can only imitate JSR effectively at the surface level, and realized that the game was missing that special alchemy that made JSR so effective and transcendent in the first place.

Game is amazing. I haven't felt this much unbridled joy playing something since probably Mario Odyssey. Still only a few chapters in, but Platinum clearly put everything that they had into this and it's likely their best game. The gameplay is phenomenal and razor sharp, and I'm pretty awestruck at how it continues to reinvent itself every hour or so that you play. The best game I've played this year by a wide margin.

Real video game criticism has ceased to exist at this point because Metacritic is just another cog in the marketing machine. Gamers lack the critical thinking (and reading and writing) ability that's necessary to properly evaluate the quality of something as multidimensional as a video game. A review or critique does not matter, it's now the aggregate that people singularly focus on. It's pathetic and has contributed to the rotten, milquetoast state of the industry. What I'm saying here is, GOTY.

I also want to encourage taking mental health seriously, and there is no downside to seeking professional help whatsoever. There can only be a benefit from doing so in my experience. It's very, very easy to retreat into this virtual world of increasingly distressing information, but the thing that helps me most is just going outside. Interacting with friends or family. Waving and smiling to somebody that you see. Find time to do something that puts you at ease, especially if that means shutting down the damn computer. Know that this community cares, and everyone deserves joy.

Coming from my experience with PSVR and from trying out a few PC-centric headsets here and there, I will say that the technology is amazing. I've had some really wild experiences with PSVR and have been left awestruck by quite a few games. That said, I still can't foresee that VR will be any closer to more widespread adoption in the near future. In my experience, its greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: the immersion is so great that it becomes overpowering and disorienting. Even after all of the logistical complications and headaches caused by setting it up, finding space, and managing the gear are taken care of with future iterations, it is still a big ask to plug in to a digital world in such a way that your senses are completely overwhelmed. The best I can see is that there is a small but strong market for it, which is great. I've enjoyed my time with the headset that I have, but I almost never use it anymore because it's proven to be just a step too far. Modern videogames already demand so much of your time, energy, and patience, that adding a layer of sensory deprivation on top of everything will continue to only appeal to the hardcore enthusiasts, I think. We would be living in a better world if the split Wii-mote had been adopted as the standard for control setups. And despite the quality issues with the joycon, they are still pretty magnificent when games are designed around them, Mario Odyssey being the best example.

I'm assuming that you didn't own a Wii U either right? At this point, the Switch has enough phenomenal software to be considered an all-time great console, possibly Nintendo's best.

Despite talking all sorts of shit about it, I bought this game because I'm weak. I just can't miss out on any big swings that Platinum takes, obnoxious anime or not. They make the most pure video games in existence at this point. Will update with impressions once I've played it.

Pretty wild to me that Gunn, coming from the Troma scene and making something as unhinged and confrontational as Super could pivot so hard and become this much of a shameless sell out. I supposed it's literally just money, but it's continually surprising which initially talented filmmakers Marvel/DC are able to plug straight into the machine.

Great news, love this principled stance. D1P is punk rock and all the phonies can get bent. Another reminder of why this is the only message board that I interact with anymore.

I'm desperate to play a big new release on switch that has that special Nintendo alchemy, but between the multiverse premise and the description of this game as "a horny anime directed by Christopher Nolan" (from the Guardian) I'm gonna have to pass hard here. The gameplay in Bayonetta 2 was amazing but everything else was just insufferable and this looks to dial all that up. Astral Chain was just about all of the anime I can physically handle. I might have to get Kirby instead.

"...it feels almost like a personal insult when the ending doesn’t line up with where you wanted the series to go." That Polygon review is everything wrong with modern fan culture/games/film criticism, wrapped in such a neat and tidy package that you can almost call it a gift.

Is the demo playable within Village, or was it a separate download for you? I own it already and saw there was an update recently. Wondering if that's what it is. This looks a little OMG GRITTY in the visuals department, but does seem to have captured the combat of RE4 in important ways. The village layout looks roughly the same too, and based on the story trailer, the game's gonna play the hits. GOTY 2023 and I can't imagine it will be remotely close for me. I do wish they would also remake RE1 with their new engine and the movement from RE2. I have never been able to get on with the old RE games, the puzzles are just too obtuse for me and I get stuck pretty quickly.

It will be interesting to see what that even looks like. My guess is that almost everything that releases could probably be cross gen with the appropriate optimization anyway, given that the only area where games are really advancing is in their visual fidelity. Otherwise video games are fairly identical to what they were 10 years ago. Lots of cool stuff still gets made, but until somebody starts taking risks, we'll receive diminishing returns in regards to generational transitions.

Ragnarok is coming to PS4 too. Next gen continues to be pointless.

I just received the new Fright Night 4K disc in the mail yesterday, super excited about that. When I recently found out that Series X could play UHD's, I jumped on a couple and I have to say, the difference in quality is staggering. I've always preferred physical media and have a healthy collection of Blu Rays, but I didn't expect the difference in 4K content to be as obvious and amazing as it is. However, I really think this only applies to movies that were shot on film. I can't imagine digitally shot movies would have the same richness and depth of color. So I've opted for the most part for older movies that didn't originally have great transfers. The recent release of Lost Boys is amazing as well.

At this point, I just treat "open world" as code for a general lack of game design talent, because it's almost always a copy/paste exercise designed to interminably draw out limited mechanics. BotW is the notable exception because the entire game is designed to make the act of exploring intrinsically rewarding, instead of relying on a game loop of unlocking or acquiring specific items or skills ad nauseam. All of that to say, yes, levels are better and I miss them too. The saturation of bloated open world games is another indicator of how rotted and depressing modern gaming is in general. I'm not really worried about the mention of the the Ishimura being "open" or explorable. To me, this seems to be part of the idea of wanting everything in the game to be seamless. I haven't seen any indication that the game will require you to backtrack or explore in a way that the first game did not, just that it's possible to do so because the entire ship is in effect one cohesive structure. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like this is probably hollow marketing more than anything else. This is one of the only games I'm looking forward to in the near future, but the $70 price tag stings. I have yet to spend that much on a single game and it just doesn't compute for me. I also don't think this is as unnecessary of a remake as some are making it out to be. I feel like this game is perfect remake material - it was very interesting when it came out, but also pretty flawed in several ways. The sequel improved in most areas except notably the atmosphere and environment, which was a huge draw. If something is going to be remade, I think the optimal candidate is a flawed original like Dead Space over something like The Last of Us, which was already exceptional the first time around.