Video Game Chat Thread - Pre-Alpha Experimental Version

[Marissa Moira]

So we're having playstation 5 games wind up in top 5 most played and sold rankings for PSN. Since Ratchet and Clank released many regions have been getting bi-weekly restocks of PS5s and the game is now right behind COD, Fortnite, and Fifa. Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade also is up there.

But the 5 minute sellouts are still happening.

 

[ZMOT]

Welp. Guess that means I'll be picking up an Xbox Series X or S soon.

and pc has sales due to competing storefronts and bundles out the ass. you can even trade most keys, so you almost get all the perks of a secondary market combined with the convenience of digital (and I don't mean some shady russian steam gifts, splitting a bundle between mates is easy enough).

the question is "why", and I don't mean that in the MUH MUSTARD RACE sense (there are valid reasons to pick a console).
you have to ask yourself if you really need one. specific games? ms ports most of those these days. convenience? doubleclicking an installer isn't much different than putting in a disc, even less now that most games have to be installed anyway. couch gaming? most games offer controller support out of the box ported straight from the console version. form factor so the missus doesn't angry over a black cube in the living room (better hope you find a white xbox then)?

the dealbreaker for me is while gamepass (and other streaming services etc) have use for some people, I don't want to feel forced to play it NOW while the sub is still running and before the game/show/whatever is rotated out. by the time I want to get back to it and play a certain game it has dropped so much in price on pc the price has become moot, and that's before you even consider the high seas or timmy paying for your copy. helps that in my case I don't really give a crap about AAA anymore given the state of the industry (just look at this year's e3 to know what I mean), and the few times I do I can and sometimes want to wait.

 

[Autistic AT-ST]

So we're having playstation 5 games wind up in top 5 most played and sold rankings for PSN. Since Ratchet and Clank released many regions have been getting bi-weekly restocks of PS5s and the game is now right behind COD, Fortnite, and Fifa. Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade also is up there.

But the 5 minute sellouts are still happening.

looks like I was right about the artificial scarcity marketing ploy.

 

[Marissa Moira]

looks like I was right about the artificial scarcity marketing ploy.

No because the supply chain still has not been stabilized.

Take for example meat, we went through 3 bacon shortages throughout the last few years you probably didn't realize this and it wasn't widely reported because the market had a stockpile that took longer to deplete before any real effects of the shortage were felt.

Here we're still experiencing the shortage of everything from computer components to shipping crates to ship them in. and there wasn't enough to really go around since at the beginning of the Pandemic companies like Apple hoarded stuff. Now Apple never really felt the brunt of this shortage due to that and they've been able to meet their quotas for the most part. But other companies were not so fortunate. Microsoft's business model doesn't really rely on hardware all that much and the Xbox Series X isn't widely available still either. What's happening is that this is showing is that we're at the tail end of this shortage and most major markets will have enough supply in the near future.

So the 2022 shortage articles are a a bit overblown in the sense that while we will still have areas affected by the shortage, it's more than likely going to be remote places and not be as widespread.

 

[Massively Strong Greed]

Just want to say that Power Stone for the Sega Dreamcast is a very well-done game.

View attachment 2273841

I even recently saw on eBay that the PSP version for the official collection has gone for about $70. Some prices are higher, but I’d love to add it as a collectors’ item.

Have you heard of Shrek SuperSlam? lt’s a surprisingly good Power Stone clone and it’s pretty cheap if you want an actual disc.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yijK_lzSpBQ

 

[trent]

The D&D game that came out today is utterly fucking terrible.

It looks like shit despite being a "next gen" game.

The net code is terrible, most attempts to play with other people will result in some of the worst lag I've seen recently and that's if you don't just simply get dumped back to the title screen after connecting to someones session.

There are 4 playable characters and if you join a multiplayer session where someone else is playing the same character as you you get booted back to the title screen.

The enemy AI won't react if you sit outside of their aggro radius and use ranged attacks to kill them which means that the archer character is clearly the best one.

The animations look like something out of a PS2 shovelware game and your character glides over the terrain rather than walking.

Thank fuck for gamepass.

 

[ZMOT]

The D&D game that came out today is utterly fucking terrible.

hm, their previous game (livelock) was actually pretty good, albeit short.

wait a minute, let's check wikipedia...

In 2019, Tuque Games was developing a Dungeons & Dragons game in partnership with Wizards of the Coast. Wizards of the Coast then acquired Tuque Games in October 2019.

guess that explains it...

 

[Fastest Hand In The East]

Man, that's really cool. I love that they kept the old art style and in my mind that is exactly how sharp and smooth games like Flanker, Falcon and others always looked and felt.

25 year old flight sim.
View attachment 2274939View attachment 2274940

The one they're about to release.
View attachment 2274944View attachment 2274945

One benefit of using that style is that the system requirements are "Pentium 4 or better".

You must observe those graphics in motion.
If I remember correctly the old ones were shimmering, twisting and distorting all the time. Up to the point that sometimes it was hard to tell the distance to the object.
Meanwhile the new game looks like it will be crisp view with a long drawing distance. I think its comparable to the Stormworks. But I do wonder why they've picked this particular style, which relies on lower resources usage. If they did it to compensate for, for example, huge areas or huge dogfights or procedual world then it might actually be good.

 

[Least Concern]

But I do wonder why they've picked this particular style, which relies on lower resources usage. If they did it to compensate for, for example, huge areas or huge dogfights or procedual world then it might actually be good.

Does there have to be another reason besides nostalgia-bait? It's the equivalent of a modern 2D game using pixels way larger than any device it will ever be played on will support.

The "lo-fi 3D" approach has been done quite a bit recently in new FPS games, like Ion Fury, which was built using the same engine as the original Duke Nukem 3D, and Dusk, which basically looks like a Quake total conversion. I personally really like the flat polygon aesthetic and I hope more new games get made in this style.

 

[ZMOT]

Does there have to be another reason besides nostalgia-bait? It's the equivalent of a modern 2D game using pixels way larger than any device it will ever be played on will support.

dev time is a thing.

 

[Marissa Moira]

So they have the new reworked chipset versions for PS5 on the boat it seems, according to the shareholders meeting.

The numbers make for fascinating reading and Sony is predicting its strongest generation yet, with a 45 million install base in 2.5 years. The translation says that at the stakeholders' meeting, CEO of Sony Mr. Kenichiro Yoshida, "stressed that the company would accelerate the supply of PlayStation (PS) 5 in the next fiscal year to achieve sales of more than 22.6 million units per year." That would make it the largest year on record. They label the pent-up want for the system a "nest egg" style of demand, essentially saved customers ready for the console to be back on the market.

 

[Hermann the German]

i wonder why BW got such awful reception lately especially from one of the critics i like. did it really just boil down to playing like shit or was there more to it that i can't remember?

BW is literally just a shittier, more dumbed-down and less-flexible version of Super Mario Odyssey, right down to costume changes (costumes in BW, hat possession in SMO; SMO does it better by not restricting the player in hat usage) as the primary mechanic; that, and it's a bug-riddled mess.

The game was guaranteed to be dead on arrival for anyone but small children, and even they would get tired of the game's tedious bullshit. Yuji Naka isn't a Miyamoto-level designer; the Sonic games are mediocre, memorable mostly for the advertising and mixed media surrounding them.

 

[AmpleApricots]

Man, that's really cool. I love that they kept the old art style and in my mind that is exactly how sharp and smooth games like Flanker, Falcon and others always looked and felt.

25 year old flight sim.
View attachment 2274939View attachment 2274940

The one they're about to release.
View attachment 2274944View attachment 2274945

One benefit of using that style is that the system requirements are "Pentium 4 or better".

I love that early 3D artstyle too. Not only will it usually get rendered without a hitch and be therefore really smooth, I always found it also less exhausting to the eyes. It's weird to me and maybe it's because I'm an old fart but graphically very busy games that look great I just kinda find exhausting with time. It's sort of an uncanny valley-esque effect where my brain picks up on things that are less than real or pefect and it sort of just accumulates. As long as the graphics are a bit more simplistic and don't go for realism I don't seem to have that problem.

 

[Fougaro]

I've recently taken a trip to nostalgia lane and watched a longplay of KKnD or Krush Kill 'n Destroy. Is there anyone who is just as much of an old fuck as I am who played it back in the day? That game just oozed pure concentrated 90s.

And the soundtrack was pretty kickass.

 

[EmpGulcasa]

Judgment was my 13th game beaten in 2021. I started out liking it a lot, then it was beginning to lose me towards the 2nd quarter, then I started liking it again. I enjoyed the darker tone and hope the sequel keeps that, and ended up liking the characters a lot more than I expected. Some of the side content sucked, especially the Keihin Gang, and I wasn't a fan of Friends being just an extra step to unlock the side cases.

Took me around 40 hours, though I started focusing on the main story pretty hard starting from chapter 9 onward since there weren't many breaks in the story where it felt natural to go from grisly murder mystery to racing drones and doing goofy side cases. I may keep chipping away at the side stuff over time, but we'll see

 

[Cubanodun]

Konami corpse twitched again with something that looks like a more advanced Among us

Already asked for a beta code

 

[Massively Strong Greed]

I'm downloading Balan Wonderworld right now lads, please send me thoughts and prayers in this dark time of my life

EDIT: Wow it actually is as bad as I heard. Thank god for Steam refunds

See, this is why I refuse to touch Balan until I can find a copy for $10 or less.

 

[Least Concern]

Konami corpse twitched again with something that looks like a more advanced Among us

Already asked for a beta code

This looks like an early PS2 game, down to the fonts the UI uses, but I guess beggars can't be choosers.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

For all you cheapskates, the Steam summer sale is here.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Hey look it's a scene from The Stupids shortly before all the computers short out and get destroyed in the office.

It's either coincidence or time travel.