ShreddieMercury

26 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

I thought it had some of the very best fp combat in a game. The hit detection is second to none. 

It felt to me like most hits were on the shoulder or upper body, regardless of where I positioned myself or swung the weapons from.  Maybe I was playing it wrong.

I tried this for an hour last night via game pass and it's... barely a game?  Maybe it gets more interesting.  I was surprised by how janky the combat and physics feel given the lack of anything else happening.

I received a code for this.  The demo wasn't too smooth on my aging PC, hopefully the full version runs a bit better.  Anybody else playing this?

On 2/19/2024 at 8:14 PM, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

After watching the third episode of the current season, I have to say that the series' greatest strength is that it's supremely confident and competent in what it sets out to do: be a damned solid crime drama set in mid-90s Tokyo. 

 

The show definitely doesn't strive to attain the heights of what constituted the now-gone era of "prestige/peak television", but that's very much to its credit as it doesn't even attempt to allow its reach to outstretch its grasp. 

 

It knows exactly what it wants to be and it goddamned well executes it pretty near-perfectly!

I agree with this.  I also think the dedication to shooting on location and using (to my eye) very minimal effects really elevates this above lots of other modern television for me.  This is my only appointment viewing.

I don't understand how a complete federal takeover and dismantling of democracy would quite work in this country.  I know that they are trying, and fascism is on the rise, but the distribution of state power works both ways, and even conservatives will at some point not lie down and accept such an extreme attempt to strip away rights.  Not that the ensuing conflict would be much better, and I'm fairly cynical overall, but I also do believe that once you start interacting with real people outside of the internet, most have more in common than they realize, and that the cycle of hatred and oppression that we are continually exposed to online hasn't quite metastasized the way our media would have you believe.  The internet and social media are a grave existential threat and have been weaponized against us to nefarious ends, but they're also not reflective of reality in very key ways.

This election is indeed the most important in history, with extremely grave consequences should republicans again take control, but I think there are significant barriers to a plan like this.

People are going to be feeling the marginal returns like never before with this one.

This was a rare case where a movie completely exceeded my expectations.  Nolan is very, very hit-or-miss for me, but I found Oppenheimer pretty mind-blowing.  Along with Dunkirk, I think it's the best use of Nolan's cross-cutting visual storytelling and his obsession with time.

But the games are better than ever!

Finally!  Others can play all of those PS5 exclusives.

It's crazy to me how much more money is continually being poured into mainstream games when they are generally so homogeneous and unimaginative.  If you look at the industry between say 2000-2010, it's like a completely different universe of diverse, interesting, and purely fun video games in the AAA space, delivered at a fraction of today's costs.  I guess it's just the demand for better and better visuals at the cost of everything else?  Surely that's unsustainable and will need to break at some point... right?

Do we need a Chuds of D1P sub-board?

I love Resident Evil, and have played all of the remakes.  I could never really get into the style of the first several RE games, as the puzzles and backtracking became a bit too obtuse and unfun for me.  But I love the way all of these games are designed.

There seem to have been quite a few recent releases that try to deliver the same thing.  Signalis is one that I know was well received.  What else is there, and what do you all recommend?  Amnesia: The Bunker also looks pretty solid.

11 minutes ago, SaysWho? said:

If they go all digital with no optional disc drive as Sony did, I may actually buy a series X just for what you mentioned. It is a legitimately cool feature.

Along with quick resume, it's the best Xbox console feature from my perspective.  There are some incredible original Xbox games that have been enhanced and play incredibly well on the new systems.

I bought a Series X because it can play things like SSX3 and Panzer Dragoon Orta.  My only fear with something like this is what will happen to the support of these classic games.  I can count the number of new releases I've bought and played since these consoles launched on one hand, but losing access to these kinds of games with no other alternative to preserve or play them is a depressing proposition to me.  If MS can somehow preserve these games and users' digital libraries, then I don't care about whatever change in strategy they're moving forward with.

I think the issue here is that we'll have no real idea of Xbox's plans until they formally announce whatever they are going to next week.  The media frenzy around this is likely blown significantly out of proportion, and nuance and forward-thinking are not exactly strong in the gamer community. 

It does make sense that Xbox will eventually release some but not all of their games on competing platforms, and they promised as much to regulators.  But I think this is also very likely the way the entire industry will go eventually.  Playstation releases games on PC as well, so you have a (for now) limited but relatively holistic games ecosystem already in place, and Steam Deck makes it portable.  The lines are very, very blurred already.  This announcement is probably a long time coming, and Xbox is jumping the gun compared to its competitors, but I think their bet on the future is less radical than it might seem right now.

The 343 Halo games are pretty abysmal overall, and the franchise doesn't have an ounce of the cache that it did in its heyday.  But to write it off entirely doesn't make any sense.  Halo 2 revolutionized online multiplayer gaming on console, and 3 was the largest entertainment product launch of all time.  And the games are phenomenal.

They might not do anything differently to PC games if you don't have an Xbox, have never played Halo, and live in the year 2002.

Sony kills Dreamcast, Xbox partners with SEGA, Sony kills Xbox.

If the modern industry wasn't already a nightmare of subscriptions, services, and skinner box game design, this would hit harder.  I really like having Xbox hardware, and their backwards-compatibility push has been my favorite part of this generation of consoles.  But a future where you only have Sony GAAS and Xbox cloud subscriptions is bleak.  I'm so thankful for Nintendo.

46 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

lol reserera clowns, ppl asking if they should sell their Xbox consoles as if it's gonna happen this gen 

 

"Master chief coming to PlayStation would be Earth shattering" bitch no one cares that much, Halo is a dumb franchise and it's sales reflect that it was just a novelty for console owners who never played an FPS because they didn't have PCs. 

Halo 3 was the largest ever entertainment launch at the time, much less video game.  But for sure, novelty.

3 hours ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

I like 'em.

 

I suck at 'em.

You won't suck at the ones that remember to be a fun game first and a sim second.  Unfortunately at some point in the past generation or so racing fans decided that realism is the only factor that matters, so you get boring, punishing, and unfun games that are solely designed for people with expensive simulation rigs.

On 1/28/2024 at 3:53 PM, stepee said:

I got sega rally revolution pc version downloaded on deck last night but I’m missing something at the beginning of the instructions I found. I’ll figure it out though, the psp version I have doesn’t look nearly as good.

Sega Rally Revo is an amazing game.  Sadly, on PC the frame pacing is messed up in the career mode, as it's somehow locked to 62.5 FPS.  This issue goes away in the quick race and time trial modes after you restart a race, but there is no fix for the career mode.  Even with that issue, it's more than worth playing and getting used to, as the gameplay is peak Sega Rally.

The problem is two-fold:

1. Nobody knows how to review video games

2. Gamers don't understand criticism

If I was a publisher, I would absolutely strategically exclude certain media outlets based on the lack of skilled writing and analysis present in the majority what they put out.  And since gamers don't know how to read and only look at the metacritic average, why would you cast a broader net knowing how inconsistent the reception will be?

A product only needs to be as smart or interesting as its audience, and... woof, video games.

Update on this, as I've dropped EA WRC for now.  It's a remarkable simulation of the sport, but they forgot to put a game in.  They don't give you a good reason to do anything, and the career mode has lots of superfluous mechanics (hiring/firing a crew, budget management) that do absolutely nothing if you just ignore them.  I've gone through two seasons and there is zero friction or game design outside of the actual driving.  Lots of racing games have this issue, but I've noticed with Codemasters games this is often the case.  I need to give Dirt Rally 2.0 a try, but from what I can see that is similarly anemic outside of the specific sim aspects of the rally driving. 

I cleaned up my original Xbox and got a copy of Rallisport Challenge 2, and it's incredible how well that game holds up.  It might be the best rally game ever made, and it's a real shame that there is no modern way to play it.  I remember pining for it during the last wave of BC announcements on Xbox, but due to the car licensing we'll never see it again.

Also gave Test Drive V-Rally a spin on Dreamcast, and it's fantastic.  Older, arcade-focused racing games > modern sim racing.

Video games are dead.

Take violence and its ensuing trauma seriously!! Also here's a cool roguelike mode for more killing.

Nothing interesting to see here at all!  It's obviously all idiots who are way below the intelligence threshold of D1P users.