2024 VIDEO GAMES CATCH ALL THREAD

[Casey]

On 10/25/2024 at 4:49 PM, Cliff Hanger said:

I notice that they also took away the ability to buy PSN credit with reward points, now it can only be used to buy the rotating game choices or the dumb digital collectibles

Might want to check on that again. The $5 and $10 options never went away for me personally, but when they updated their ToS this week it caused a big glitch where some users had your experience, some had only the $5 credit taken away, some only had a new $20 option, etc.

[DragonZombie]

I finished Last Duel: Inter Planet War 2012 by Capcom (1988)  You alternate between a Car and a Spaceship in the vertically scrolling shooter. I also finished Hyper Dyne Side Arms (1986). It's close in gameplay to the other left and right horizontally scrolling shooter game Section Z, (1985).

You can adjust the lives and continues and the difficulties and screen size (some games have the extra enhanced visual mode) and sound in Capcom Classics Collection Vol 2. Theres save states but I don't use them at all, if i did use them i would use them for checkpoints only.  Rapid fire is one of the extra options for many games, and kinda overkill yet fun in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo.

[Chaos]

16 hours ago, Casey said:

Might want to check on that again. The $5 and $10 options never went away for me personally, but when they updated their ToS this week it caused a big glitch where some users had your experience, some had only the $5 credit taken away, some only had a new $20 option, etc.

I checked and only got the $10 option. Historically I've done 5000 for $20, so I just bought 2 $10s just in case they pull it for good. 

[RIPPA]

I guess not really surprising but Sony is closing Firewalk Studios

Firewalk was who just did the Concord disaster

[Casey]

As a massive Max & Chloe fan, the fan reviews I’m seeing for LiS: Double Exposure is really sad. At this point I’ll probably get it on a big sale, but, man… they’ve straight up butchered that lore. Don’t know if anyone here cares, but..

Spoiler

You can’t make the Bae ending cannon like this and then just completely trash that relationship and try to force multiple new love interests in the same game. They had to have known that Bae shippers would HATE this, and it’s arguably the biggest part of LiS’s fandom too. They had multiple years of comics specifically about that ending for fucks sake.

I was so hyped about this game, but now I’m not. Plus it’s apparently being memed as Life Is Strange: Avengers Assemble and I don’t like that one bit because I don’t like the other games (but True Colors was okay).

Edited October 30 by Casey

[dogwelder]

 

[JLSigman]

Man, I'd forgotten how much more fun Kingdom Hearts II is compared to the first one. Grinding for those last synthesis materials is fun, because you're doing more and more crazy combo/drive/summon stuff. Now I remember why I was willing to work on a hard mode game once or twice back on the PS2.

[Andrew POE!]

On 10/30/2024 at 11:22 AM, Casey said:

As a massive Max & Chloe fan, the fan reviews I’m seeing for LiS: Double Exposure is really sad. At this point I’ll probably get it on a big sale, but, man… they’ve straight up butchered that lore. Don’t know if anyone here cares, but..

  Hide contents

You can’t make the Bae ending cannon like this and then just completely trash that relationship and try to force multiple new love interests in the same game. They had to have known that Bae shippers would HATE this, and it’s arguably the biggest part of LiS’s fandom too. They had multiple years of comics specifically about that ending for fucks sake.

I was so hyped about this game, but now I’m not. Plus it’s apparently being memed as Life Is Strange: Avengers Assemble and I don’t like that one bit because I don’t like the other games (but True Colors was okay).

I guess they want to appeal to the 'average male video gamer' contingent of fandom.

[DreamBroken]

I'm always feeling the n64 nostalgia mentioned on the previous page, fond memories of first renting one to play WCW/nWo World Tour, great times. Lately I've been feeling more PS1 nostalgia and recently picked one up to play some of the old games and pick up some random ones to add to the collection. Definitely one of my favorite eras and much prefer the days of just putting in a game and playing it rather than worrying about installing/downloading/storage space/etc.

As someone who doesn't play games often these days and usually just older ones with a handful of semi-recent ones, for those who play tons of current games, is it just a constant always having to delete games to make room for new ones or does external hard drive make it better/easier?

[odessasteps]

They just added Shadowman and Turok 2 to the NSO 64 app. 

[Ramo2653]

3 hours ago, DreamBroken said:

I'm always feeling the n64 nostalgia mentioned on the previous page, fond memories of first renting one to play WCW/nWo World Tour, great times. Lately I've been feeling more PS1 nostalgia and recently picked one up to play some of the old games and pick up some random ones to add to the collection. Definitely one of my favorite eras and much prefer the days of just putting in a game and playing it rather than worrying about installing/downloading/storage space/etc.

As someone who doesn't play games often these days and usually just older ones with a handful of semi-recent ones, for those who play tons of current games, is it just a constant always having to delete games to make room for new ones or does external hard drive make it better/easier?

2020 stay at home orders made me bite the bullet and get a 5TB external hard drive and it's made a huge difference regarding games, I don't think about "do I delete this or this game" I just keep em all. I also got extra internal storage for my PS5 a few years ago which was also the same thinking. I also don't play COD anymore so that's a ton of space saved.

[NikoBaltimore]

The last time Gamestop was useful for us was when they had an 8TB external drive for Series X at $70. I was so shocked at the price but man that thing has been a game changer. 

Edited November 1 by NikoBaltimore

[DragonZombie]

Bram Stoker's Dracula, the SNES version 

https://youtu.be/ZpyRW_Winow?si=w8H1f_HKzC9eBM5Y

 

Nosferatu,  it's like Prince of Persia with beat em up strikes.

https://youtu.be/bJEQ-fgqCQ0?si=SdsazAelTlYbzVBU

[Death From Above]

Don't let any recovering card addicts know about TCG Card Shop Simulator.

[SirSmUgly]

Some thoughts:

• The Astro Bot timed mission levels are very fun, and that's a testament to how well they designed the power-ups in this game. I'm looking ahead and seeing that we might just have a lava level, and the metal-spitting duck associated with that level probably will cause the player base to toss a few controllers.

 

• I went ahead and bought the Horizon: Zero Dawn remaster for ten bucks. When I played this game originally in 2017, I loved it and was one of the minority of folks who preferred it to Breath of the Wild. I then played it again maybe three years ago, maybe four. This was also the first time that I got into Frozen Wilds. It went from "game I loved" to "one of my favorite games of all time." I love all the hunting tools, the tools for setting traps, and the story about how the world ended up in the shape that it did. 

 

• But I especially loved Ashly Burch's performance. 

 

• She reminds me of some of the young people who I come across in my job who are lovely, but because they were isolated during the pandemic, they're somewhat awkward. She really nailed that sort of somewhat wary, somewhat shy way of talking, and I like how her performance adjusts slightly with some characters as she opens up to them or becomes more comfortable around them.

 

• I particularly enjoy Burch's performance when Aloy is walking around alone, chatting to herself because she's used to that after her childhood. It comes off as so natural and not as the sort of AS YOU KNOW type of dialogue that games add to make sure the player is headed in the right direction. 

 

• Anyway, that Burch performance is far and away my favorite performance from a VOA in a video game. I'll roll through NG+ on Very Hard over the next few months when I get a hankering to run around and deconstruct a few Seekers and Watchers, maybe a Thunderjaw or two, and spend a little time with Aloy.

 

• I finished Echoes of Wisdom maybe a week or so ago. The final boss isn't hard, but it is very long. I think I had two echoes to gather once the game was over, so I went ahead and did that just to complete the collection. I'm excited to see Grezzo and EAD's next top-down TLoZ game in a few years. 

 

• I'm still getting new bits of dialogue every once in a long while when I pop into Animal Crossing. Raymond actually gave me a recipe I didn't have like three or four weeks ago, which I couldn't believe.

 

• I fell off of Balatro; I've come back to it a bit just because I've still never run up so many levels that I hit the insta-kill NaN score target. 

 

• I had pre-ordered Sonic X Shadow Generations a few months ago, and I picked it up and started working through the first three levels. Adding hidden Chao to each level has given me some extra discovery work to do, which I appreciate, but is there a garden for them or what? 

 

• On the other hand, I was a kid when Sonic was created and a young adult when Shadow was created, so I'm rolling my eyes at playing as Shadow in the new add-on they put in this game. The kids love him, but Sonic Adventure was the point at which Sonic got way too many side characters added to it. Toss everyone but Big the Cat who showed up from the Dreamcast Era forward, then only put Big into games in the role of the character who runs the fishing minigame. 

 

• I have no time to play all these games, so it's slow going. A lot of my PT is going to be on Switch and off-television during this winter due to travel. 

[odessasteps]

9 hours ago, Death From Above said:

Don't let any recovering card addicts know about TCG Card Shop Simulator.

Or ... it could be their methadone. Open all the packs you want for (however much the game costs). 

[FireThunder]

Card Shop Simulator is pretty... uh... engaging. Sell some stuff, crack some packs, chase smelly customers with air freshener. Repeat until you look at the clock and say "how long have I been doing this for?"

The developer's roadmap for the game seems really ambitious (making Tetramon a playable game). I'm curious to see how much they can accomplish.

I started playing in the closed beta for The Bazaar yesterday. Developed by a former Hearthstone pro, it's a rogue-like autobattler where you build your hero with random events then fight other players. PVP is asynchronous, so if you have to take a break in the middle of a run, you can pick it up later. Only three playable heroes at the moment but the gameplay is pretty complex.

[odessasteps]

It definitely it seems better playing with the Pokémon mod. 

[Death From Above]

I never actually got into Pokemon cards so it doesn't matter to me they made up their own. They really nailed the rare art/foil variants looking super cool. Simple game but it really scratches the itch it is aimed for well.

[odessasteps]

I watched someone play Drudge today and may try it out. It’s a Lovecraftian fishing game. 

[tbarrie]

15 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

It’s a Lovecraftian fishing game. 

That may be the best short description for a video game I've ever encountered.

[DragonZombie]

When i buy old PS2 discs, i notice people don't take care of their discs good.

I also might have to buy another slim PS2, these things get weird after time with loading. 

[Ramo2653]

15 hours ago, dragonzombie said:

When i buy old PS2 discs, i notice people don't take care of their discs good.

I also might have to buy another slim PS2, these things get weird after time with loading. 

Mine died over the summer which was a bummer. I'm on the fence about just getting another one for 2 games that I would play. 

[Craig H]

I mentioned in the wrestling games thread about having an Ally X (a Windows based Steam Deck type system). This has practically reinvigorated gaming as a hobby for me. I actually wound up buying a 4 TB SSD for it and swapping out the 1 TB SSD in it. Then I set it up to dual boot with Linux/SteamOS. I mainly use SteamOS, but if there's something not available in SteamOS, I can just boot into Windows.

This thing fucking ROCKS. I've been playing all of the indie games I haven't been playing because on my main gaming PC I just use that for Helldivers 2 and other AAA games or competitive multiplayer games. I've sunk a ton of hours into Balatro and Slay the Spire. I totally get what people were saying about how addictive Balatro is and I honestly think I may uninstall it because it's too addictive. Slay the Spire rules. Hades rules, Dead Cells rules, Windblown is the new game in early access from the Dead Cells team and that game feels like it's going to be really fucking special (one of the best early access games I've played), and it runs games like Helldivers 2 flawlessly.

Even better, emulation on it is so simple. I owned Vagrant Story forever ago and either lost it in a move or my ex-wife threw it away during our move thinking it was just an old cd. Even before that I hadn't played it since maybe after it first came out, but every now and then I get the itch to play it. Wow. It's so fucking awesome. I love that we're getting remasters of the Soul Reaver games. We really need a remaster of Vagrant Story and it's really surprising it never got a sequel or even a spiritual sequel. Despite the obviously dated graphics, the game play fits in perfectly in this era of gaming. Playing the shit out of this game really gives you a sense of how far ahead of its time Vagrant Story was. I get reminders of so many rogue likes and Soulsborn games while playing it. It's like it paved the way for probably two of the biggest genres of games today.

Other games I now have a chance to play again: Front Mission 3, Xenogears (yeah, I know the story is fucked, but I loved the gameplay and I really wish I could recover my game save from my memory card), NBA Street, X-Men Legends 1 and 2, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, WWE All-Stars, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Burning Rangers, Guardian Heroes, Power Stone 1 and 2, Skies of Arcadia, and so much more. Plus there are the arcade games I've been dying to play for about forever now, mainly beat em ups. I have wanted to play the arcade version, not the Genesis version, of DJ Boy, I want to revisit the D&D beat em up games like Tower of Doom and the other one which name escapes me, Crime Fighters, the 6-player X-Men beat em up, the Avengers beat em up, Aliens vs Predator, etc.

The next step is get a dock for this thing and play it on my tv. I'm not going to go crazy and get an external GPU for it, but it should be good enough.

So far, I'm glad I went with the Ally X instead of the Steam Deck. I thought the track pads on the Steam Deck were neat, but I really don't see the need for them. I'd rather have the extra power, larger battery, and ability to dual boot it. And sometimes I think about just reverting back to running everything on Windows because I can just use Steam in Big Picture mode, it's just that for whatever reason, half the time it's a pain in the ass because the buttons on the Ally X don't map correctly or smoothly when playing in Steam. In SteamOS though, it has never been a problem. Plus, if I run everything on Windows then I have access to Discord and I haven't looked into seeing if I can run Discord in Linux at the same time as I'm using SteamOS.

[odessasteps]

Quote

One Metal Gear Solid 3 mystery has persisted for the 20 years since the game's release: who voices the game's femme fatale, Eva? The actor behind the character was credited under the pseudonym Suzetta Miñet, but her true identity had never been revealed. But today, in the leadup to the remake Metal Gear Solid Delta, Konami has finally confirmed what fans have long suspected: Suzetta Miñet is in fact Jodi Benson, the voice of Disney's The Little Mermaid.