Video Game Chat Thread - Pre-Alpha Experimental Version

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

I like the metaphor you're making here and I agree to a point - the main problem is it's not just gaming turning into 'pop-music', but it's broken pop-music that's not even catchy. Gaming went from the basement dwelling crap music to popmusic in the early 2000s, some of the AAA launches are so bad now it's honestly baffling. At least with music, when the album drops, you don't have to worry about it being unmixed or missing verses for a month till the studios updates spotify.

"you don't have to worry about it being unmixed or missing verses for a month till the studios updates"
Didn't that happen with the Doom Eternal soundtrack? Bethesda finds a way.

Everything is its own thing so it's not a 1:1 comparison to music and it can't be but it becoming similar to music is what my tiny mind actually predicted as something inevitable. And patches didn't really exist so I did not factor that into it, or games as a service or a lot of other modern things. Just how it would spread and become more diverse.

I'm actually very happy that games have spread so far and are enjoyed by so many, it's a childhood dream come true in a way. But at the same time I hate you all for having bad taste and playing it wrong, fuck hipsters, resetera, sudden gamer grrls, twitch, big releases aren't good and you're enabling them. I don't know if I'd rather play the last of us 2 or listen to Cardi B, I'm actually psyched about all of this, it's wonderful and I'm not joking.

 

[Marissa Moira]

so I was looking at one-handed keyboards and trying to figure out who exactly they're for, and I came across one that looks like it might just be the same one they sell at Five Below, and I saw this picture:

View attachment 2791072

and it's kinda funny but also just kind of sad, like imagine a kid hunched over their little smartphone on a little stand with their big ol' half keyboard and full-size mouse plugged into a hub and it's all running off of a little tiny telephone, so they can try to be the best at PUBG

One handed keyboards like that were used for MMOs for awhile.

I'd compare them to Hitboxes, but hitboxes actually work despite their weird configuration. They're mechanically sound.

 

[Least Concern]

so I was looking at one-handed keyboards and trying to figure out who exactly they're for, and I came across one that looks like it might just be the same one they sell at Five Below, and I saw this picture:

View attachment 2791072

and it's kinda funny but also just kind of sad, like imagine a kid hunched over their little smartphone on a little stand with their big ol' half keyboard and full-size mouse plugged into a hub and it's all running off of a little tiny telephone, so they can try to be the best at PUBG

I used something like that for a while for FPSes and such on my normal machine. While it's nice to have more than one button for your thumb, in the end I decided it's not really any better than a normal keyboard, especially if the game has chat and you need to use the full keyboard for that anyway. I donno, maybe for a phone like that it's useful, or if you're traveling and don't want to game using a laptop keyboard, but outside of those cases I'd say stick to just a normal keyboard.

 

[Potatoherder]

So what happened to Avalanche Studios? Just Cause 2 and Renegade Ops were well regarded games but after that they seemed to have shit the bed. I just installed and played Just Cause 4 because i got it free on epic ages ago and it's a full on dumpster fire. The controls for kb/m are insanely bad and the gameplay mechanics are a downgrade in every way from what i recall in 2. Whomever decided it was a good idea to back out menus with backspace instead of escape should be shot.

 

[Thiletonomics]

So what happened to Avalanche Studios? Just Cause 2 and Renegade Ops were well regarded games but after that they seemed to have shit the bed. I just installed and played Just Cause 4 because i got it free on epic ages ago and it's a full on dumpster fire. The controls for kb/m are insanely bad and the gameplay mechanics are a downgrade in every way from what i recall in 2. Whomever decided it was a good idea to back out menus with backspace instead of escape should be shot.

JC4 being a dumpster fire on release, and the weather emphasis, is giving me serious Battlefield 2042 vibes too, in terms of how Avalanche messed JC4 up. On the other hand, because there were a lot of other, much bigger, dumpster fire game releases at the time, i.e. Fallout 76, ATLAS, and Artifact, it meant that JC4's failures went under-reported, and fewer people made a stink about them, compared to FO76's fuck ups.

 

[Kulee Baba]

So what happened to Avalanche Studios? Just Cause 2 and Renegade Ops were well regarded games but after that they seemed to have shit the bed. I just installed and played Just Cause 4 because i got it free on epic ages ago and it's a full on dumpster fire. The controls for kb/m are insanely bad and the gameplay mechanics are a downgrade in every way from what i recall in 2. Whomever decided it was a good idea to back out menus with backspace instead of escape should be shot.

All I know is that Mad Max utterly infuriated me. A Mad Max game should be a straight forward action packed thrill wide like the movies. The Mad Max video game is fun enough in combat & driving (as long as you can enjoy Arkham Asylum style beat em ups) but then it's filled with horrendously tedious busy work.

And on that note Arkham Asylum is easily my favorite of the Rocksteady Batman titles. Open World Gameplay is a hindrance rather than an enhancement if said open world levels are not exciting or interesting.

 

[JamFlowMan]

And on that note Arkham Asylum is easily my favorite of the Rocksteady Batman titles. Open World Gameplay is a hindrance rather than an enhancement if said open world levels are not exciting or interesting.

I'll start by acknowledging i'm just screaming into the void but my one wish for game developers this gen would be to learn a dense world is so much better then a giant sprawling map full of nothing. I'll take an Asylum over a city or something like Kamurocho from Yakuza over Los Santos anyday.

 

[BananaSplit]

While I agree 2015 was definitely a decent year for gaming, I disagree that there hasn't been anything since. IMO, 2021 is the first year I cannot think of a single AAA or AA game that lived up to my expectations.

Just the ones I can think of that I played through completion offhand - there's plenty more Indies missing here, but just my quick highlights:

• 2016
  • Dark Souls 3
  • Xcom 2
  • Overwatch (at launch it was a good time, then they ruined it)
  • Fallout 4 (It's not NV, but it's still better than a lot of the junk out there)
  • Witcher 3 Blood and Wine
  • P5
• 2017 (probably the best year in recent memory)
  • Breath of the Wild
  • Mario Odyssey
  • PUBG
  • Divinity Original Sin 2
  • Cuphead (AA)
  • Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (AA)
• 2018
  • Monster Hunter: World
  • RDR2
  • Smash Ultimate
  • Hollow Knight
  • Forza Horizon 4
• 2019
  • Sekiro
  • Disco Elysium (AA)
  • Death Stranding*
• 2020
  • Animal Crossing
  • Hades (AA)
  • Ori 2
  • Yakuza 0
• 2021
  • ???

I'm not saying all of these games were 10/10, but I'd say that I beat all of them (*didn't beat Death Stranding, but I did enjoy my time) and I look back at this whole list fondly. When I look at 2021 games (Horizon 5, Infinite, GTA Trilogy Remaster) all I get is angry - the best thing to come out in 2021 that I can think of was the Mass Effect collection, which barely counts as it's remasters of already great games. I don't own a playstation, so I'm missing some of the good ones there I'm sure (God of War, Ghosts of Tsushima, etc).

I don't recall any game I've purchased in 2021 to be a particular disappointment unlike last year with RE3make and Serious Sam 4 (especially the latter), both on PC. My personal game highlights I've completed this year were:

• Astral Chain
• Densha de Go Hashiro-Yamanote (even got the official usb controller for extra autism)
• Earth Defense Force 2 & 3 for NSW + World Brothers
• Ender Lillies
• Famicom Detective Club remake 1+2
• Hades
• Luigi's Mansion 3
• Mad Rat Dead
• Metallic Child
• Monster Hunter Rise
• No More Heroes 1+2
• Part-Time UFO
• Pikmin 3 Deluxe
• The Talos Principle
• Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition
• Xmorph Defense

I still have to finish SMT5 and Super Robot Wars 30 yet.
Main games I'm looking forward in the upcoming year are Metal Slug Tactics, Turtle Ninjas Shredder's Revenge, the DLC expansion of Cuphead, Triangle Strategy and the Switch ports of EDF 4.1 & 13 Sentinels. There is also the recently announced PC port of Granblue Fantasy Link which might be a decent game (I will never touch the gacha mobile game but I liked GBFVS quite a lot last year).

I stick mainly to japanese games because they remain the kind of fun I remember from playing old videogames in the 90s/00s, with the occasional western indie (most often from eastern europeans and frenchies). Western AAA has been pretty bad for an entire decade so I learned to just ignore it.

 

[SilenceIsViolence]

I don't recall any game I've purchased in 2021 to be a particular disappointment unlike last year with RE3make and Serious Sam 4 (especially the latter), both on PC. My personal game highlights I've completed this year were:

• Astral Chain
• Densha de Go Hashiro-Yamanote (even got the official usb controller for extra autism)
• Earth Defense Force 2 & 3 for NSW + World Brothers
• Ender Lillies
• Famicom Detective Club remake 1+2
• Hades
• Luigi's Mansion 3
• Mad Rat Dead
• Metallic Child
• Monster Hunter Rise
• No More Heroes 1+2
• Part-Time UFO
• Pikmin 3 Deluxe
• The Talos Principle
• Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition
• Xmorph Defense

I still have to finish SMT5 and Super Robot Wars 30 yet.
Main games I'm looking forward in the upcoming year are Metal Slug Tactics, Turtle Ninjas Shredder's Revenge, the DLC expansion of Cuphead, Triangle Strategy and the Switch ports of EDF 4.1 & 13 Sentinels. There is also the recently announced PC port of Granblue Fantasy Link which might be a decent game (I will never touch the gacha mobile game but I liked GBFVS quite a lot last year).

I stick mainly to japanese games because they remain the kind of fun I remember from playing old videogames in the 90s/00s, with the occasional western indie (most often from eastern europeans and frenchies). Western AAA has been pretty bad for an entire decade so I learned to just ignore it.

I'm talking about games that came out this year; Only 2/16 of these game out in 2021. Pretty good list of games though:

• Astral Chain
  • 2019, okay game forgot I played it honestly.
• Densha de Go Hashiro-Yamanote -
  • 2020 release, 2021 for English release but technically not a 2021 game. I had no idea what this was and...is this actually fun? It's like EuroTruck Sim but on (literal) rails?
• Earth Defense Force 2 & 3
  • 2005/6 ports in 2021. Fun games though, EDF4.1 is probably my favorite.
• Ender Lillies
  • 1/2021 so it just makes the cutoff. Forgot this came out, is it actually good?
• Famicom Detective Club remake 1+2
  • Remakes of old games
• Hades -
  • 2018 EA/2020 Launch. Great game tho, almost got the platinum and should probably get back and finish it.
• Luigi's Mansion 3
  • 2020 game, was pretty fun but forgettable.
• Mad Rat Dead
  • 2020, never heard of this but as a NIS game it's peaked my interest.
• Metallic Child
  • 2021 and looks pretty interesting, added to my wishlist.
• Monster Hunter Rise
  • 2020, waiting on the PC release next month
• No More Heroes 1+2
  • Remakes of old games
• Part-Time UFO
  • 2020, another I haven't heard of - good list of indies here mate, looks fun.
• Pikmin 3 Deluxe
  • Another remake of an older game, never got into Pikmin.
• The Talos Principle
  • Fantastic game, but 2014
• Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition
  • Remake of older game (2020 remake of 2010 game).
• Xmorph Defense
  • 2017 game

 

[BananaSplit]

I'm talking about games that came out this year

oops my bad although they were all games I have never played before (excepted EDF2 and 3 previously on Vita, the Switch ports released this year are the "definitive editions" with a bunch of QoL improvements). There is bunch of games that came out this year but that I haven't found the time yet to play them, such as Ghost 'n Goblins Resurrected, Bravely Default 2, Metroid Dread or Fuga: Memories of Steel.

There is also Megaton Musashi that released last month on Switch (and PS4 too), I've played the recent demo last week. It really gives off some Gundam Breaker vibes but with super robots instead. No info for a western version yet but the game is receiving several updates and new content in the upcoming months.

Densha de Go Hashiro-Yamanote -
2020 release, 2021 for English release but technically not a 2021 game. I had no idea what this was and...is this actually fun? It's like EuroTruck Sim but on (literal) rails?

Ender Lillies
1/2021 so it just makes the cutoff. Forgot this came out, is it actually good?

Ender Lilies Quietus of the Knights is a 2D metroidvania game. You play as a little girl, daughter of a renowned priestess, who is trapped inside a desolate kingdom that has fallen under a curse. By herself, she can't attack but she is accompanied by spirits (you start with an unnamed knight first) that you obtain by battling against bosses and purifying them afterwards. Each spirit core gives you a different type of ability and attacks, and you can equip up to six at once thus giving way to different types of combos.

Densha de Go is more of a japanese arcade sim. Each stage in arcade mode consists of a series of stops on a line, and for each stop you are scored on proficiency (matching speed limit, holding the brake smoothly, dimming your lights for oncoming trains, honking only in prescribed times, go to the destination within the allowed time, etc) and sometimes objectives as well. If you fail to meet said objectives or you end up depleting all the mission gauge/time bank, it's game over. Certain secret stages can force you to play certain train models with different types of control inputs. It's a bit tricky to recommend this game to others, due of the language barrier, although there are plenty of online guides on the Internet.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Holy shit look what crawled out of Development Hell

I thought it suspicious that there were suddenly new videos about GBFV and now the main console game finally rears it's head.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Densha de Go is more of a japanese arcade sim. Each stage in arcade mode consists of a series of stops on a line, and for each stop you are scored on proficiency (matching speed limit, holding the brake smoothly, dimming your lights for oncoming trains, honking only in prescribed times, go to the destination within the allowed time, etc) and sometimes objectives as well. If you fail to meet said objectives or you end up depleting all the mission gauge/time bank, it's game over. Certain secret stages can force you to play certain train models with different types of control inputs. It's a bit tricky to recommend this game to others, due of the language barrier, although there are plenty of online guides on the Internet.

Does it have a survival horror expansion pack where you have to pick up survivors before they get eaten by zombies?

 

[BananaSplit]

Does it have a survival horror expansion pack where you have to pick up survivors before they get eaten by zombies?

No, but I dunno if honking at bystanders standing too close on the edge of platforms (it's an objective in some arcade stages) count as preventing disasters
In all seriousness, it's a sort of chill game albeit not exactly forgiving in terms of difficulty unless you play in Easy mode obviously

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

No, but I dunno if honking at bystanders standing too close on the edge of platforms (it's an objective in some arcade stages) count as preventing disasters
In all seriousness, it's a sort of chill game albeit not exactly forgiving in terms of difficulty unless you play in Easy mode obviously

Dangit, I have to stick to train simulator then...

 

[Marissa Moira]

Dangit, I have to stick to train simulator then...

Have you tried Train life?

 

[jje100010001]

If you liked SotC, don't miss its older brother Ico. You play a kid leading a mysterious girl through a huge, desolate castle while shadowy figures try to kidnap her. It looks amazing for a PS2 game, especially considering it came out very early in its lifecycle.

One interesting game announced recently- Planet of Lana, which seems to have similar vibes + a desert setting. Wonder if it'll be what I'm looking for.

Edit: Oh wait it's sidescrolling, dang it. Well I hope the atmosphere will be nice regardless.

So what happened to Avalanche Studios? Just Cause 2 and Renegade Ops were well regarded games but after that they seemed to have shit the bed. I just installed and played Just Cause 4 because i got it free on epic ages ago and it's a full on dumpster fire. The controls for kb/m are insanely bad and the gameplay mechanics are a downgrade in every way from what i recall in 2. Whomever decided it was a good idea to back out menus with backspace instead of escape should be shot.

IMO JC3 and 4 lost the plot; JC2 was the series peak in world-building (SE Asian settings outside 'Nam are really quite rare, and the huge city, the flying strip club, and the WW2 island were really quite unique) + it had a fun, campy supervillain story. The grapple hook was sufficient in terms of creating hours of player-directed fun.

3 and 4 delve too deeply into the sci-fi realm, and I just don't feel like their worlds or stories are as strong.

I honestly think the series needs a reboot, though I've heard the next one may be set in the US.

 

[Shitassdeaddude]

One interesting game announced recently- Planet of Lana, which seems to have similar vibes + a desert setting. Wonder if it'll be what I'm looking for.

Edit: Oh wait it's sidescrolling, dang it. Well I hope the atmosphere will be nice regardless.

Don't knock side-scrolling. This looks very Another World, and that was some good shit back in the day.

 

[thegooddoctor]

I don't recall any game I've purchased in 2021 to be a particular disappointment unlike last year with RE3make and Serious Sam 4 (especially the latter), both on PC. My personal game highlights I've completed this year were:

• Astral Chain
• Densha de Go Hashiro-Yamanote (even got the official usb controller for extra autism)
• Earth Defense Force 2 & 3 for NSW + World Brothers
• Ender Lillies
• Famicom Detective Club remake 1+2
• Hades
• Luigi's Mansion 3
• Mad Rat Dead
• Metallic Child
• Monster Hunter Rise
• No More Heroes 1+2
• Part-Time UFO
• Pikmin 3 Deluxe
• The Talos Principle
• Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition
• Xmorph Defense

I still have to finish SMT5 and Super Robot Wars 30 yet.
Main games I'm looking forward in the upcoming year are Metal Slug Tactics, Turtle Ninjas Shredder's Revenge, the DLC expansion of Cuphead, Triangle Strategy and the Switch ports of EDF 4.1 & 13 Sentinels. There is also the recently announced PC port of Granblue Fantasy Link which might be a decent game (I will never touch the gacha mobile game but I liked GBFVS quite a lot last year).

I stick mainly to japanese games because they remain the kind of fun I remember from playing old videogames in the 90s/00s, with the occasional western indie (most often from eastern europeans and frenchies). Western AAA has been pretty bad for an entire decade so I learned to just ignore it.

Damn that do be a lot of games son, on another note one franchise I’ve never played but heard crammed around ear so much is the Fallout series, It’s raved about so often as being a genre defining masterpiece that helped shape Open game worlds and the post apocalyptic genre of shooters forever, with its brilliant art direction, characters and combat. Yet with the absolute trashfire that was 76, my interest in the series has become skeptical, do the earlier games like 3, Vegas and 4 still hold up. Everyone I’ve ever known says Vegas is like the one of the fucking best Shooters they’re played and it features prominently in nerd and game culture and game personality community as an all time classic? Is it worth it now?

 

[ZMOT]

I'll start by acknowledging i'm just screaming into the void but my one wish for game developers this gen would be to learn a dense world is so much better then a giant sprawling map full of nothing. I'll take an Asylum over a city or something like Kamurocho from Yakuza over Los Santos anyday.

it needs to make sense tho and fit the theme, a city or single location can be dense. a map where shit happens every 5m looks and feels stupid.
I get your point, but more often than not that complaint feels like playing a scifi game and then going. "there's so much empty fucking space in space, why is nothing ever happening?!"

I used something like that for a while for FPSes and such on my normal machine. While it's nice to have more than one button for your thumb, in the end I decided it's not really any better than a normal keyboard, especially if the game has chat and you need to use the full keyboard for that anyway. I donno, maybe for a phone like that it's useful, or if you're traveling and don't want to game using a laptop keyboard, but outside of those cases I'd say stick to just a normal keyboard.

the worst part about this shit is still playing with WASD so your pinky has like 3 buttons available.
TKL keyboard + ESDF is the real master race way.

 

[Kulee Baba]

Damn that do be a lot of games son, on another note one franchise I’ve never played but heard crammed around ear so much is the Fallout series, It’s raved about so often as being a genre defining masterpiece that helped shape Open game worlds and the post apocalyptic genre of shooters forever, with its brilliant art direction, characters and combat. Yet with the absolute trashfire that was 76, my interest in the series has become skeptical, do the earlier games like 3, Vegas and 4 still hold up. Everyone I’ve ever known says Vegas is like the one of the fucking best Shooters they’re played and it features prominently in nerd and game culture and game personality community as an all time classic? Is it worth it now?

What are you expecting from New Vegas?

Is it combat? Mechanically it's not anything to write home about. Mods can alleviate that but if your experience is like mine you'll spend an afternoon downloading mods imagining the game turning into some brilliant shooter. If that can be achieved it's damn well never happened to me. It'll always be wonky game.

If it's graphics well the good news is mods help a lot. If you have PC horsepower the community keeps making stuff that visually really looks solid. At Vanilla it's ugly but we all know that it's a Xbox 360 game built by Bethesda.

The story is what makes Fallout New Vegas. Obsidian made a great story. The world is bleak filled with dark humor. The major NPCs that inhabit it are interesting. Boone & Cassidy are my favorite companions. They tell interesting stories and they're just well written. Most quests have several options to choose and there's no one clear right (good choice) to make. People will continue debating the main quest choice for a long time to come because it amounts to several different mixed options and only one obviously evil choice.

Calling it the best shooter makes me assume you're seeking a really well made action adventure game. I would never call New Vegas a great action game. But it is one of the best realized role playing game worlds I can think of. If you're looking for a role playing game with choices that matter New Vegas delivers that.

With that said I hope I don't overhype it. I played NV at release when I was still young adult. And I'm certain nostalgia plays a factor in my acclaim. But honestly no other game makes me think of just the small story details like NV does.