2023 VIDEO GAME CATCH ALL THREAD

[Casey]

Unrelated to anything anyone is talking about but I’m having such a good time collecting games for the PS2 and 360. Lots of stuff that I find interesting that I never touched when I owned those consoles when I was younger. Just bought Stranglehold, Brink, Alpha Protocol and X-Men Legends (PS2) today at a local game store.

Somewhat related: I’m stupid and I need suggestions on good options for an AV to HDMI converter or whatever so I can stop using this small TV on my desk and hook up my PS2 to my 4K TV. Yes I realize they’ll look like shit probably but PS2 games look like shit anyway.

[Contentious C]

Maybe not a helpful comment, but I have a GC (and X-Men Legends on it!) and it looked like total garbage on my 4K.  I actually considered buying a smaller, 1080-only TV last week just to have something for that and my PS3.  It would probably still look bad on that, but not as bad as it did stretched out on a 65" that it was never intended to work with. So maybe you already have your best option...unless your desk TV is kind of shit as well (and if it has the old-school composite connections, maybe it is).  I'll edit this later if I can find the name of whatever gizmo I have.

[odessasteps]

I had to order some cable from the UK in order to stream my Dreamcast. 

Edited August 2, 2023 by odessasteps

[Travis Sheldon]

1 hour ago, Casey said:

Unrelated to anything anyone is talking about but I’m having such a good time collecting games for the PS2 and 360. Lots of stuff that I find interesting that I never touched when I owned those consoles when I was younger. Just bought Stranglehold, Brink, Alpha Protocol and X-Men Legends (PS2) today at a local game store.

Somewhat related: I’m stupid and I need suggestions on good options for an AV to HDMI converter or whatever so I can stop using this small TV on my desk and hook up my PS2 to my 4K TV. Yes I realize they’ll look like shit probably but PS2 games look like shit anyway.

I have had a HDMI converter on an Amazon wishlist forever, I just haven't gone to my storage to retrieve my PS2. They typically run under $20.

If your TV has RGB inputs, Sony used to make a cable that worked on PS2 & PS3. That might be a solution for you.

[Death From Above]

On 8/1/2023 at 11:55 AM, Zimbra said:

I liked how every patch, no matter how small, took at least an hour to install.  And there were a shitload of patches.

Also the game is pretty boring.

I think POE was a very good game, once. But this calls back to a theory I've talked about before how online season/MMO style games all have a point where continuing to add content peaks at a point, then past that the game just starts to bloat and continuously gets worse. The popularity of WOW Classic is the most simple example explaining this.

I honestly haven't enjoyed a POE season since Delve which has to have been at least 3 years ago now and nothing they've done in a while has even tempted me to play. It's a game with just far too fucking much of everything and far too much tuning towards an extremely niche audience of endgame chasers, and it has core quality of life issues that will simply never be fixed until POE 2 maybe. Character building is literally impossible without a third guide. And don't even get me started on needing like 700 different in game currencies, it's a complete mess.

[A.M.B.]

Saw a little 60 second short on how to mod a Vita and since I’ve had one sitting around collecting dust for a few years I gave it a shot. Ended up taking me like 4 hours to get every program installed and everything up and running smoothly but it’s a pretty cool feeling to have every Vita and PSP game freely available to me. Unfortunately the main draw for me, GBA emulation, doesn’t seem to run to well. Tried an alternative method in setting up RetroArch and running GBA emulators through it which was also many hours of troubleshooting. Finally got a smooth GBA emulator running but now of course a few hours into my game it’s always crashing after a few minutes of play time. Pretty hard to get excited about taking on a GBA game like FFVI knowing the game could crap out on me 30 hours in. Luckily all the native emulation plays smooth which seems to be the case with every jailbreak I’ve done. Starting to think I should just get a Miyoo Mini Plus or something for all my GBA needs.

I’ve been wanting to jailbreak my 3DS since I really want to get back into a bunch of DS games and they just feel wrong playing on a CPU or non Nintendo devise, but Nintendo systems always seem the most challenging and risky to mod. My Wii was never the same after modding and we’d get crashes all the time.

[dragonzombie]

Super Boy 3

I like how the Mario ripoff just casually strolls.

[Craig H]

19 hours ago, Casey said:

Unrelated to anything anyone is talking about but I’m having such a good time collecting games for the PS2 and 360. Lots of stuff that I find interesting that I never touched when I owned those consoles when I was younger. Just bought Stranglehold, Brink, Alpha Protocol and X-Men Legends (PS2) today at a local game store.

Somewhat related: I’m stupid and I need suggestions on good options for an AV to HDMI converter or whatever so I can stop using this small TV on my desk and hook up my PS2 to my 4K TV. Yes I realize they’ll look like shit probably but PS2 games look like shit anyway.

I have a converter for my PS2 and N64 that I bought a couple Christmases ago. I thought I bought it off of Amazon, but it was nowhere in my order history so I'll check my basement today and let you know what I bought. I just know it works and stuff like No Mercy, Ocarina of Time, Def Jam 1 and 2, and some other PS2 and N64 stuff looked better with the converter than without it.

[Chaos]

20 hours ago, Casey said:

Somewhat related: I’m stupid and I need suggestions on good options for an AV to HDMI converter or whatever so I can stop using this small TV on my desk and hook up my PS2 to my 4K TV. Yes I realize they’ll look like shit probably but PS2 games look like shit anyway.

There's some device I'm seeing get tested on Twitter that looks like it's upressing games by hooking up the console to it. It seems like it's getting promising results. 

I think it's called Retroink (sounds like it could be pricey). Has anyone else heard anything about it? 

[dragonzombie]

Super Boy 4, the final game in the Super Boy series. For the Master System.

Crappy title screen.

The Mascot in game looks less like Mario this time around. Lot more SMW stuff borrowed. No more choppy scrolling like the previous 3 games.

 

[twiztor]

21 hours ago, Chaos said:

There's some device I'm seeing get tested on Twitter that looks like it's upressing games by hooking up the console to it. It seems like it's getting promising results. 

I think it's called Retroink (sounds like it could be pricey). Has anyone else heard anything about it? 

i'm a part of a video game forum (with a focus on collecting, although there's lots of playing going on too) and the RetroTink is very popular. i know there's different models, but haven't paid any attention to details about it.

[Ramo2653]

On 8/2/2023 at 12:40 PM, Craig H said:

I'm trying to even imagine how you were finishing on the wrong foot. Maybe it's been so embedded in my brain since I was a little kid (my mom's side of the family owned a bar with a four lane bowling alley in it) to finish on my left foot and slide with that foot. My new bowling shoes don't even have a slide on the sole on the right shoe. It's still weird getting used to that style, but I haven't gone ass over tea kettle yet in them.

Getting more revs on my ball is a goal of mine too. I think I'm going to focus on throwing slower, like around 13 to 14 mph, and try to get more revs on the back end. Or I'll at least learn if that's possible once I get to use my new ball tomorrow. That's my thought though, throw slower, focus on delivery by staying under the ball and keeping my elbow bent, and trying to pick up my revs. I'm never going to be like Belmo, who's a 2 hander anyway, rifling the ball down the lane with a million revs on it.

I did spend one day trying to learn to bowl 2 handed and it's very weird. However, in trying to teach my daughter, I had her switch to 2 handed because she's nearly running up to the foul line and she didn't do too bad throwing it that way. She at least had a 10 pin improvement in one game just by having her throw 2 handed. That's the smallest sample size, but I'm going to keep having her do that. The cool thing watch her is that even though she basically totally new to bowling at 13 years old, when she throws the ball, either 1 handed or 2 handed, she's doing a really good job of getting the ball onto the lane over the foul line and having it hit the lane like a plane landing. It's really smooth. If she could learn consistency with just bringing her arm straight up like she was going to shake someone's hand instead of pulling to the left or right then I think she could be really good at this.

I'm a lefty who's always surrounded by right handed people so when watching them I just subconsciously started finishing with my left foot which caused me to swing the ball around my leg and have a wildly inconsistent shot. Fixing that caused a big jump in my average and made the little old lady that used to own a alley I used to go to pre pandemic to give me a hug.

Hey you can always try to get revs like EJ Tackett since he's a one hander with a ton of revs.

On 8/2/2023 at 2:20 PM, Casey said:

Unrelated to anything anyone is talking about but I’m having such a good time collecting games for the PS2 and 360. Lots of stuff that I find interesting that I never touched when I owned those consoles when I was younger. Just bought Stranglehold, Brink, Alpha Protocol and X-Men Legends (PS2) today at a local game store.

Somewhat related: I’m stupid and I need suggestions on good options for an AV to HDMI converter or whatever so I can stop using this small TV on my desk and hook up my PS2 to my 4K TV. Yes I realize they’ll look like shit probably but PS2 games look like shit anyway.

Before I got my current 4k TV, I had a 1080 TV that had the RGB hook ups so I got a PS2 cord for that was perfect (it kept the games in 4:3). I ended up getting a HDMI converter from Amazon that works ok and the upscaling isn't too horrific. 

[Contentious C]

So during one of the more recent discounts on Steam, I picked Old Man's Journey for less than $2.  It's point-and-click with a little bit of environment interaction, kind of in the vein of Moncage or Gorogoa.  It isn't as groundbreaking or as well-done as either of those, but if that kind of thing scratches an itch for you, this might be worth $1.59 to you the next time it goes on sale.  I don't mind stuff like this as a bit of a palate cleanser; granted, probably my favorite game from the last 10-15 years is Her Story, so for as much time as I waste on the usual big AAA RPGs, I like my non-traditional shit.

Edited August 6, 2023 by Contentious C

[RIPPA]

Yes - go ahead and play A Short Hike

You totally won't cry at the end. Nope not at all

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

2 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Yes - go ahead and play A Short Hike

You totally won't cry at the end. Nope not at all

But I cry at everything! I am not a good litmus test!

[odessasteps]

2 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Yes - go ahead and play A Short Hike

You totally won't cry at the end. Nope not at all

I saw someone on your system was playing that, but didn't know if it was you or your son. 

[RIPPA]

18 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

I saw someone on your system was playing that, but didn't know if it was you or your son. 

It is always me - my son is exclusively a Nintendo and PC person

[odessasteps]

Duty noted. Not that I was going to message you, but it did make look to see what that game was about. 

I now will grab games just to try them and get Xbox points. 

[J.T.]

20 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Yes - go ahead and play A Short Hike

You totally won't cry at the end. Nope not at all

Goddammit.

[Casey]

If anyone likes Quake: the remaster of 2 + new expansion came out today (and comes with Quake 2 64 for “free”). Anyone who already owns it gets the upgrade at no cost, but if you don’t - it’s $10. But on sites like GreenManGaming (for PC obviously), it’s… $3, I think? I picked up Quake 1, 2 and 4 + Fallout 1, 2, Tactics and 3 GOTY for $15 total.

[AxB]

Mortal Kombat have partnered with AAA and will be releasing Lucha skins soon.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

Hi! I haven't posted any reviews all year because December to July was pretty much All Horror, but during that period I was writing reviews and publishing them somewhere no one could find them. Well, I've decided to make that public, and will point you to my account on Backloggd, where I've written over 450 reviews this year. So, if you've ever looked at a review of mine and gone "heh," you can see many, many more over there.

EDIT: I should explain my methodology for writing those reviews. I have a random year generator give me eight years from 1990 to 2023 (I've exhausted everything I have to say about games from the 80s) and pick games I have something to say about. So it's not that this week I literally played those eight games, just that when perusing the years I got handed and seeing the games I found, there was a memory or experience with those games close enough to the surface that I felt like sharing it. Also, on that site, I do use a 5 score that I don't use on here, but I only use that to mark what I think the best game of that year is.

As for this year, I think this has been a really phenomenal year so far. I'll go ahead and post my reviews of the 2023 games I've played, starting with what I think is the absolute, impossible, unstoppable front runner for Game of the Year, and if you have a PC and haven't played it, you have no excuse. You play video games. It's an expensive hobby. You have $20. I know you do. Go and get...

PIZZA TOWER [4]
When imagining what games would be like in the future when I was a child, I saw this and not 20,000 more pixelated platformers. It is as explosive and hellish as the best games of this era, the Mario Bros to Cruelty Squad's Duke Nukem.

METROID PRIME REMASTERED [3]
This might be unfair since (at time of writing I had) a sore throat, a recently broken fever, an ominous rash on both of my hands, a pulled muscle in my foot, and a union of blisters on my feet, but playing this is making me like Hollow Knight even more than I thought I did.

MY HOUSE [4]
This is a Doom WAD. If you play Doom WADs, go find this thing, DO NOT READ UP ABOUT IT FIRST, and play it. You'll want the pk3. If you have played it, here's my review.

Spoiler

Good luck to all the Cacowards people who are going to have to find WADs to post alongside this fucking thing at the end of the year. Also, this is the better 2023 game with Literal Backrooms in it. Suck it, Trepang2.

REDFALL [3]
Or, "Squirrels Sell... but Who's Buying?"

This is an important reminder that my 3 means that I do not regret playing this. It does not mean I recommend playing it. I think here I actively kind of don't, unless you really enjoy the idea of a ghost town and can tune out gear comparison. I'm in the first party, I am not in the second party, and upon learning that if a computer crashes a player cannot rejoin your session, I called it a day.

STREET FIGHTER 6 [4]
It's neat to see Capcom release a Street Fighter that is good, immediately, and with no major pitfalls other than "I'm not sure the battle pass is worth $5." Also, the Evo Top 6 was the best fighting game tournament I've ever seen.

BATTLEBIT REMASTERED [4]
There's that meme image with Sonic in it, that says "I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I'm not kidding," and this game feels like we are all trying to make that a reality.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Lamp, broken circa 1988

[Salads]

Sometimes I feel like I could or should share my big database of games owned / played / rated but no i can't because good golly gosh do I play a lot of shite. I play one freebie / bundle game that turns out to be an all-timer and then I feel I have to give them all a go.

[Contentious C]

I finally got around to something other than dicking around with old consoles, and I beat Deathloop tonight.  To those who only got halfway and then thought it was "too convoluted", I don't really get that.  It's anything but if you're mainlining the story; a few people in the loop you only have 1 legitimate shot at, and so it makes it pretty clear what you'll have to do for the others who are left.  I'm not sure how I feel about the endings - any of them - but you can't fault Arkane for making some thought-provoking stuff. 

One of these days, I'll have to throw myself back into Prey if just to see if Mooncrash really is better like people say it is, but I've said I'd revisit about 40 or so games and then ended up with a Fallout 4 character named "Captain Dickbutt" instead, so...we'll see.

[Death From Above]

On 8/11/2023 at 6:29 PM, Lamp, broken circa 1988 said:

Hi! I haven't posted any reviews all year because December to July was pretty much All Horror, but during that period I was writing reviews and publishing them somewhere no one could find them. Well, I've decided to make that public, and will point you to my account on Backloggd, where I've written over 450 reviews this year. So, if you've ever looked at a review of mine and gone "heh," you can see many, many more over there.

Your Outer Wilds review being "The best game that is terrible for my existential dread" is so bang on. It's a great game that I dropped very quickly because I honestly find the entire thing incredibly sad and menacing. It's a hell of an achievement as a piece of gaming, though.