2017 VIDEO GAME CATCH-ALL THREAD

[odessasteps]

Hopefully, there was talk about infogames. Thats mainly what i played on my apple iic. Or ultima v.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

good month for games!

BYE BYE BOXBOY [4] - Absolutely the best game in the series. Maybe not the best starting point, but after Boxboxboy let me down, this one exceeded all my expectations. You can look at a video of any of these games and get the general idea in like ten seconds, but they do enough to vary it that, at least in the first and third games, it's totally enough on its own with those minute variations.

QIX [4] - 3DS Virtual Console of the game boy game. Listen- I love Qix. I love any kind of Qix you want to give me. This counts.

PERSONA 5 [4] - The best compliment I can give is "after 73 hours, I am currently at my favorite part of the game so far." Still, you know if you're gonna play Persona by now. It's Occult Pokemon with High School Kids. Pretty limited audience.

KINGDOM: NEW LANDS [4] - You ever, like, put a game on your Steam wishlist and leave it on there for years cuz you know you're gonna have a blast with it whenever you get it? Well, I'm subscribed to the Humble Monthly Bundle, and this was in it this month after spending like three years on my steam wishlist. Hey- I Love The Shit Out Of This Game. It's a 2D, 1 resource empire building game, and there's only one enemy, and they are greed demons after your one resource. Everything is coin powered, and simple, and the only talking that happens is a spooky ghost telling you how to start doing things.

 

[Robert S]

On 21.4.2017 at 5:12 AM, Michael Sweetser said:

As someone that has built Raspberry Pis multiple times for emulation (one is hooked up to my TV right now, waiting for my next attempt at Paperboy) I totally get the NES Classic and SNES Classic or whatnot.  It's easy and you don't have to fuck with anything, and for Joe Average wanting to play some goddamn Mario, that's just fine.  Plug and play, move on.  Had the NES Classic been expandable I would've gotten one too.

Somehow the whole Raspberry Pi debate here inspired me to do exactly that. After I setup the Retro Pi (the UI takes some time to get used to) I "organized" a bunch of games. The first game I played was Donkey Kong Country. I had a pretty hard time with the game, I ran out of lives a couple of stages in. Somehow I had a lot of problems with the running jumps. As I was never really good at that game and am 20+ years older then I was when I originally played it (reaction IS getting worse as you are getting older) and I am not as used to play platformers as I was back then (hand-eye coordination is also a thing of training) I did not think much of it. The next thing I tried (after a bit of Link to the Past) was Super Mario Land. Somehow I had similar problems there (I got a Game Over in 2-2) which worried me much more as (a) the game is pretty easy and (b) I could beat it almost blindfolded (25 years or so ago, okay).

My first theory was that somehow emulation has a problem if you press three buttons at the same time, which you do during a running jump. As Google did not produce anything on this I realized that this might be an input delay issue of my TV (as I assume running jumps are where you would notice such a problem). Googling for this showed that the TV I use is known for having a huge input delay. Funny thing is that I use this TV for gaming (PS3 and PS4) since I bought it in late 2008 and I never experienced any problems in that direction whatsoever. Even considering that I play lots of RPGs I still play the odd action or action adventure game. This shows you how easy games are nowadays compared to 20-30 years ago.

[Andrew POE!]

For one (or two or maybe just me) that are obsessive about trophy hunting, ModNation Racers: Road Trip's online will shut down on 7/1. Also, WWE 2K16's online is supposed to shut down at the end of the month.

And Project CARS will be ending their community events at the end of the year, since Project CARS 2 is coming out this year. The trophy for community events is very glitchy.

[Michael Sweetser]

When my father in law, who has never owned a video game system in his life, gets through a game before I do, it's time to try that game.  Finally got to Uncharted 4, up to chapter 13.  Loving the varied gameplay - going from cars to Assassin's Creed-style parkour.  

[Raziel]

Any PC Gamers,

 

Anyone else having an issue with some games on Steam using a 360 controller where if you launch from the desktop shortcut, the right stick and d-pad don't work at all?  I assume it's an overlay issue, but so far, only 3 games are affected that I have.  Arkham Asylum works fine if I launch from a new shortcut or the exe itself instead of the Steam created shortcut, but Tomb Raider required a workaround that I figured out.  Bioshock I can't get to recognize right.

[SirSmUgly]

Thanks to Brickseek, which I happened to check before leaving for work today, I found a Walmart near my workplace that had two Switches listed (they actually had four when I got there, though by the time I left, they were down to one). I was able to just walk in, grab a Switch, and walk right back out in ten minutes. Easy peasy. 

For a guy who didn't get a Gamecube until five years after it initially released, who didn't get a Wii until about seven years after it was released, and who never got a 3DS or a WiiU, I cracked on getting a Switch surprisingly quickly. Well, maybe not surprisingly because I went back and beat every Mario 3D platformer that wasn't 3D World over the last year-and-a-half and started to remember what I liked about Nintendo (despite my misgivings about some of their design choices in a number of their games). 

I'm in a weird place with modern Nintendo where they do much more that I don't like rather than do (that's simply from an artistic standpoint and doesn't count all the issues with accounts and hardware and such), but if I go back and play SMB3 or Mario 64 or Mario Kart 64 or Super Metroid, I get all hot and bothered for their games again. Really, it was playing a bunch of pre-Gamecube Nintendo games combined with getting an NES Classic in the months before that broke me. 

Anyway, the Switch is, as a piece of hardware, what everyone says it is. I choose to compare it to my Vita and not to my PS4 because comparing it to the former makes me astonished at what Nintendo has done here, and comparing it to the latter makes me think that I paid about a hundred bucks too much for it just from a hardware standpoint. But as a handheld in a post-Vita world, this thing is stunning. Running Breath of the Wild in handheld mode is one of those seminal "I can't believe that I'm doing this on an actual, real-life piece of hardware, especially considering my humble beginnings playing ugly-assed Atari 2600 games" moments. 

As for BotW, it's a puzzle game that incidentally has combat. As far as puzzle games go, it's not bad so far (I'm barely a couple hours in and still on the Great Plateau, shrine hunting). I'm just not proficient with these sticks for some reason - I've died thrice, and each was because I thought that I had edged close enough to the edge without going over to climb down a steep embankment or cliff, but the game decided that no, actually, I was going to fall to my death. The puzzle shrines are pretty fun in their early-game simplicity so far, though. The game hasn't grabbed me immediately like Horizon did, but I expect to fall deeper under its spell the further I go, particularly when I get off the plateau. 

Also, even before I started Zelda and as soon as I linked up my My Nintendo account to the Switch, I went into the eShop and bought Neo Turf Masters because I am a man of impeccable taste. 

[Cliff Hanger]

Neo Turf Masters is one of the most compelling and addictive 'bad' games I ever encountered.  I was obsessed with that on Gametap.

[SirSmUgly]

I am a sucker for arcade games and golf games alike. I used to pour money into this at a Pizza Hut near my high school.

Also, the Japanese woman announcing the changing leaderboard after each hole is incredibly charming.

[Andrew POE!]

Got my 77th Platinum with Saints Row IV on PS3. Yay, I get to do it all over again on Re-Elected for PS4.

[SirSmUgly]

58 minutes ago, Andrew POE! said:

Got my 77th Platinum with Saints Row IV on PS3. Yay, I get to do it all over again on Re-Elected for PS4.

I just couldn't do it for IV. The Professor Genki telekinesis challenges made me hate playing a Saints Row game for the first time ever in my life...and I did every Heli Assault in SR2. Congrats to you. 

[Andrew POE!]

1 hour ago, Smelly McUgly said:

I just couldn't do it for IV. The Professor Genki telekinesis challenges made me hate playing a Saints Row game for the first time ever in my life...and I did every Heli Assault in SR2. Congrats to you. 

Yeah, Genki telekinesis wasn't too bad for me except for the Hard version.

What made me really hate it was the Super Powered Fight Club, especially on Medium. Fighting Julius with super powers was aggravating. Enter The Dominatrix was....something. I know a good portion of the DLC was spent with them saying "We don't have any money for anything" but it seemed half-hearted.

The whole game just lacked that 'pop' that Saints Row The Third had. Nearly everything in SRTT was fun and it's a letdown to go from that to GTA games. Part of me wish that Deep Silver would release a PS4 port of Saints Row The Third + DLC with Saints Row 2 (so that SR2 can have a Platinum trophy list). I would have more fun doing SRTT on PS4.

[Neil Koch]

I would totally get a remastered version of SR2.  Best non GTA open world game of that generation.

And add me to the Neo Turf Masters love.  ON THE GWEEEEEEEN~!

[SirSmUgly]

The thing about SR4 is that I'd argue that it's the best superhero game ever made. It just nailed movement for a game in the superhero genre. 

SR4 and inFamous: SS have the best world traversal of any open-world superhero games that I've ever played. With a few tweaks, Superman would fit right into SR4 in terms of the satisfaction of bounding over buildings and tossing cars. Maybe the trick to a good Superman game is to make him Action Comics-era Supes where he just jumps really high instead of flying. Jumping over shit is way more satisfying than flying. 

Co-sign on Saints Row 2: Re-Mastered. I've been wanting that forever. It would get sixty bucks from me without a thought. 

 

[AxB]

If they're going to remaster Saint's Row 2 &3, why not go the whole hog and remaster Saint's Row 1 as well? Put the whole trilogy out there.

[Andrew POE!]

1 hour ago, AxB said:

If they're going to remaster Saint's Row 2 &3, why not go the whole hog and remaster Saint's Row 1 as well? Put the whole trilogy out there.

Saints Row 1 just doesn't hold up well at all. But THQ Nordic doing Darksiders 1 & 2 Remastered and Deep Silver themselves doing Dead Island Remastered, it makes sense.

The only problem is if Volition would redo Ben King's voice since Michael Clarke Duncan passed away (and all the licensing issues that would entail).

[Neil Koch]

13 hours ago, Smelly McUgly said:

Maybe the trick to a good Superman game is to make him Action Comics-era Supes where he just jumps really high instead of flying. Jumping over shit is way more satisfying than flying.

 

There was a PS2/OG Xbox open world game with the Hulk that was like that.  Pretty fun from what I remember.

[Cliff Hanger]

16 hours ago, Smelly McUgly said:

 

SR4 and inFamous: SS have the best world traversal of any open-world superhero games that I've ever played. With a few tweaks, Superman would fit right into SR4 in terms of the satisfaction of bounding over buildings and tossing cars. Maybe the trick to a good Superman game is to make him Action Comics-era Supes where he just jumps really high instead of flying. Jumping over shit is way more satisfying than flying. 

 

 

For all its faults, starting with "not actually fun to do missions", the one thing DC Universe Online got right was movement. It's super speed, flight and Batman-style roof hopping were all excellent ways to waste an hour looking at all the landmarks in Gotham and Metropolis (and maybe Central City, I never got strong enough to go there)

[SirSmUgly]

4 hours ago, Neil Koch said:

There was a PS2/OG Xbox open world game with the Hulk that was like that.  Pretty fun from what I remember.

Hulk: Ultimate Destruction was great. It actually let you destroy most of the play area. It reminds me of Red Faction: Guerrilla in that much of the fun was simply in destroying the environment (and now we've come full circle to Volition-developed games). 

 

2 hours ago, Cliff Hanger said:

For all its faults, starting with "not actually fun to do missions", the one thing DC Universe Online got right was movement. It's super speed, flight and Batman-style roof hopping were all excellent ways to waste an hour looking at all the landmarks in Gotham and Metropolis (and maybe Central City, I never got strong enough to go there)

I never did play this because it looked like a F2P MMORPG, and I just don't like to pour my time into those. It's on PS4, though, IIRC. Maybe I should give it a shot. 

 

13 hours ago, Andrew POE! said:

Saints Row 1 just doesn't hold up well at all. But THQ Nordic doing Darksiders 1 & 2 Remastered and Deep Silver themselves doing Dead Island Remastered, it makes sense.

The only problem is if Volition would redo Ben King's voice since Michael Clarke Duncan passed away (and all the licensing issues that would entail).

Most of the problem with SR1 for me is that you can't choose the gender of the Boss. Let me make a woman character in a remaster, and I'd be happy. I basically designed the Boss to look as much like my wife as possible in every SR game (as I pretty much do in any game where I design a female character), so I'd like to do that in SR1 too. 

[Death From Above]

I got excited once at a garage sale when I thought I was picking up a cheap copy of Hulk: Ultimate Destruction only to discover I'd bought the *other* Hulk XBox game that sucked. A dark day.

[Cliff Hanger]

9 hours ago, Smelly McUgly said:

 

 

I never did play this because it looked like a F2P MMORPG, and I just don't like to pour my time into those. It's on PS4, though, IIRC. Maybe I should give it a shot. 

 

Honestly, the version currently available really is pay-to-win. I played it back in the subscription days, before most of the monetization was added. It still might be worth fucking around with for a weekend just for the sightseeing, but once you hit level cap at 30 it becomes a horribly monetized grind. I'd suggest people dick around with it a little to see what fun flight and speedster traversal can be, but don't expect actually doing the story and raids and shit to be fulfilling.

[BurningBeard]

Fellas, what's the best racing game on PS4? My taste runs more towards arcade racers (Project Gotham on Xbox 360 remains my all time favourite) so am I better off twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the next Gran Turismo?

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

Trackmania if you want Full Stupid, Dirt Rally if you want something more grounded in reality. Dirt is kind of an acquired taste but the way your car feels like a million fucking pounds in those games is just wonderful to control.

[Neil Koch]

I liked the last Need for Speed, even the cornball FMV cutscenes.  It's on sale on PSN pretty often.

A lot of people seem to like Driveclub, but it kind of left me flat.  I think there is a free version if you have PS+.

GTA V's online racing is still pretty active.

[Andrew POE!]

Project CARS is way too realistic and the developers will be ending community events by the end of the year. It's kinda sorta like Gran Turismo, but trying to use the controls piss me off. You can find a Complete Edition for $20.

You could always get Coffin Dodgers, which is a poor taste Mario Kart clone about the elderly driving coffins. Or Table Top Racing World Tour.