2019 VIDEO GAME CATCH-ALL THREAD

[John E. Dynamite]

I got one of those Gameboy Players that hook up to your Gamecube and now I can actually see what I'm doing in Warlocked and it's friggin' dope.

That is all.

Edited September 4, 2019 by John E. Dynamite

[Death From Above]

6 hours ago, Craig H said:

 

Morrowind I only remember being blown away by because it was like playing an MMO, but without the hassle of finding people to do instances. That was so long ago though and that shine has worn off by now.

I don't disagree with this at all and I think it's fine for both "I loved this game" and "it's a fossil" to be true at once. Hell, WOW is doing that right now. That game is trash compared to modern MMO's. It's a fossil. Doesn't mean people can't have fun with it though.

I put over 2000 hours into Diablo II, it's an all-time favourite, and I can't name a single legitimate reason to play it over Path of Exile or Grim Dawn.

[Death From Above]

Double post.

[Guest The Magnificent 7]

I am sure I have mentioned it before but I went into a dungeon once in Skyrim and was underpowered for some enemies in it and all I did to survive and kill the baddest dude in there was run around this table like a Three Stooges episode shooting an arrow off and on running around the table for 10 minutes. It amuses me still thinking about it and how dumb the enemy was, but compared to the thought you have to put into fighting the monsters and enemies of Witcher and the narrative rewards you get for doing so summarizes the gulf in class between the games.  

Skyrim is big / vast. Everything else, especially combat, characters, story, polish etc. pales in comparison to Witcher. And I say that as someone who put hours upon hours into Skyrim and liked the game. 

[assfax]

I've been slowly replaying Skyrim on VR and it is awesome.  Y'know that first dungeon, Bleak Falls Barrow?  There is this bit with an area containing a staircase, and a skeleton is coming down the stairs and I shot him with the motion controllers and it was absolutely amazing with bones falling across the stairs while he was running down.  Like, it's all the same old shit you played in 2011 but that big statue in front of Whiterun castle looks like you are in Chicago or some bullshit.  I can't reiterate enough how shit actually looks like a full size person.  Menus feel a little obtuse though.  Ye can't do that thing where you carry shit over into a corner and steal them.  I do start getting vr sickness after about 90 minutes so it ain't perfect.  I thought it would be a flat ass thing where I just feel like puking but it actually feels like your entire body is warming up.  You'll know it when you feel it.  That Adrift game also got my ass queasy after a while even though that has nowhere near the same freedom of movement. 

 

Pinball FX2 and Zaccaria pinball are still my favorite VR games. I get totally sucked in every once in a while. I wanna beat Rez, Overload and Thumper though.  Zaccaria Pinball is the most convincing though.   I'll just be leaning over and completely immersed.  I hate the sounds.  Flippers sound like the glass is off.  Ball travel noise is canned even though I can clearly see the great ball spin physics at play.  Stern Pinball VR could be amazing but it doesn't have anywhere near the customization options of ZP.   Even though all those tables are bizarre. SPA VR also has a byzantine way of buying tables.  I get free credits just for booting and am only going to play for maybe 120 minutes.  How do they expect to make money?  FX2 just makes me pissed that it isn't FX3 with the complete array of tables.  Oh, did this turn into another virtual pinball post? Eat my ass.  Love pinball.

[Cliff Hanger]

Anyone checked out River City Girls yet? As the local Wayforward stan and a Kunio fan, I feel like I should be the one reporting to y'all but I honestly missed that it was out this week and won't be getting it til payday next week. So if my life is gonna be pain I would like to know in advance.

[dogwelder]

Finished Control this weekend.  That was a really fun 30+ hour experience.

[Contentious C]

A couple of thoughts:

1. Tetris 99 is ass-flavored fentanyl. 

2. Recently, a few of us talked about Kingdom of Loathing, and how it's still around. It's questionable how much longer that will be, because allegedly the game creator did some awful stuff to his ex-wife. I'll leave it to you to find the Reddit links, since it's some screwed-up shit. But, a lot of people, myself included, canceled subscriptions.

3. And Jebus, I've been out of touch.  Fucking Jeremy Soule was accused of things, too.  Motherfuck.  The music to Morrowind is so tied up in the atmosphere of the game that it's...ugh.  I mean, really?  Ugh.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Contentious C

[Andrew POE!]

Got my 149th Platinum trophy with LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars. Actually not a bad game, very underrated. The ship aiming is a little bad though. VERY lengthy game (my complete playthrough took me over 40 hours).

Trying to think what I want to have as my 150th Platinum trophy -- I'm 2 away from a Platinum in Medal Of Honor Warfighter but I'm almost wanting one of the PS4 games I have to be the milestone (either Horizon: ZD, God of War 2018, or Spider-Man). I may do God of War III PS3 as the milestone and I also have Sly 3 as well (I seem to have Sly games be the milestone games for me).

[LoneWolf&Subs]

So with the announcement that the original Xenoblade Chronicles is coming to Switch, I decided to pick back up XC2. Which I left stranding at near the end of chapter 3. The reason for that was that more interesting games took it’s place, and the English character voiceover was absolutely distracting. I wish I knew this had a DLC patch that reinstated the Japanese dub, or else I might have finished this chapter. I might’ve also realized that chapter 3 introduced other gameplay elements that hadn’t been introduced in the other chapters. So this game has essentially(depending how you played the game up to this point) a 30+ hour tutorial. I wouldn’t be surprised if people who bought this as their first J-RPG  felt like not bothering to play another one.

Despite all that, I think this is the time I might be finally committed to the game enough to finish it. I still am bothered by some other stuff outside of the VO work. -

- Like the weightlessness of the traversal. -

- The way cutscene action looks smooth, and cinematic, but the actual gameplay action looks like a bunch of LARPers dicking around during school recess. 

- The character designs being random, and  nonsensical.

- The games soundtrack while good, can be annoying. Especially during exploration, where it’s non-stop whimsical, and uplifting. Yeah, I know that can be a weird take, but then you play the fucking Switch Zelda, and that can sound like what I described the XC2 soundtrack as. Zelda still feels like it connects perfectly to what’s going on during gameplay while never distracting like it is in XC2. 

I swear I’ll finish this damn thing... Or this will be another broken XC2 promise, and I’ll be finishing this on my death bed.

Edited September 9, 2019 by LoneWolf&Subs

[Matt D]

The 7 year old and I are almost through the King's Quest II remake. She remains a little daunted. It's funny. I distinctly remember my older cousin (maybe 7-8 years older) playing King's Quest III when I was a kid, this being probably when I was 5 or 6 myself, and me being terrified of the wizard and the time-based elements. The remake ups the story and has a lot of witch, vampire, werewolf action. She remained apprehensive despite understanding that we saved often and could just go back to a save point, and even that sometimes the deaths are funny or have little rhyming quips. It's been a pretty fun experience so far though. If I can foster a love of point-and-click adventure games here, then I'll be happy. There's no remake of KQ4 so we'll have to see how that's aged. 

[AxB]

14 hours ago, Andrew POE! said:

 

Trying to think what I want to have as my 150th Platinum trophy -- I'm 2 away from a Platinum in Medal Of Honor Warfighter but I'm almost wanting one of the PS4 games I have to be the milestone (either Horizon: ZD, God of War 2018, or Spider-Man). I may do God of War III PS3 as the milestone and I also have Sly 3 as well (I seem to have Sly games be the milestone games for me).

God of War 4 is a really good game up until you complete the story. If you go for the Plat after that, it's either repetitive grind city on easy, or frustration city on normal or hard. It's on my 'maybe go back and trophy chase' list. As opposed to the 'go back and play for fun (Just Cause 3)' list, and the 'I'd really enjoy this if it wasn't a bloody fps (Bioshock)' list.

 If you want a real challenge, GTA 5 has a pretty rare Plat. Well, two rare Plats. PS3 & PS4. GTA 4's is probably very hard to get now though. Hard to reach level 10 online when there's nobody on the servers any more.

[NikoBaltimore]

Don't mind me, just wanted to show some appreciation for the Dreamcast which came out 20 years ago today.  While Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 don't hold up as well at the time it was mindblowing.  And I was all about the NFL 2K and Ready to Rumble game, those were really fun (EDIT:  How the fuck can I forget Crazy Taxi?  That shit ruled).  But my favorite game to play was Fire Pro D and I feel almost guilty with how much paper I printed out for the translation guide. That's the first time hearing about the series and it changed everything I knew about wrestling games.  Still wish they did more with the VMU but I remember it being pretty neat to use.  What's cool is we still have this and I think it's time to get back into it.

 

Edited September 9, 2019 by NikoBaltimore

[supremebve]

14 minutes ago, NikoBaltimore said:

Don't mind me, just wanted to show some appreciation for the Dreamcast which came out 20 years ago today.  While Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 don't hold up as well at the time it was mindblowing.  And I was all about the NFL 2K and Ready to Rumble game, those were really fun.  But my favorite game to play was Fire Pro D and I feel almost guilty with how much paper I printed out for the translation guide. That's the first time hearing about the series and it changed everything I knew about wrestling games.  Still wish they did more with the VMU but I remember it being pretty neat to use.  What's cool is we still have this and I think it's time to get back into it.

 

I bought the Dreamcast on 9/9/99 and absolutely loved that system.  NFL/NBA 2K were great, World Series Baseball,  Powerstone, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Sega Bass Fishing, Soul Caliber, The UFC game, Virtua Tennis...the best part about the system was the variety of great games.  It was also the first online console so you could play Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament.  I honestly don't understand how there isn't a new Power Stone and Virtua Tennis every year like Madden and Call of Duty.  

[John E. Dynamite]

The Virtua Tennis series petered out during the PS3360 years, but I can't think of many series that would equate to money just sitting on the fuckin' table the way a hypothetical Power Stone 3 on Switch does.

Edited September 9, 2019 by John E. Dynamite

[Jiji]

Powerstone, yeah, I was just posing that same question to my friends last month. How is there not a new Powerstone?! 

[NikoBaltimore]

1 minute ago, supremebve said:

I honestly don't understand how there isn't a new Power Stone and Virtua Tennis every year like Madden and Call of Duty.  

If they announced a new Power Stone I would lose my mind.  I loved that game even though I suck at it now somehow.  And Virtua Tennis might have petered out years ago but it's been long enough where a new one would be absolutely tremendous.  I'm not even big into the sport but I'd be all over that in a heartbeat.

[LoneWolf&Subs]

Speaking of Tennis, been playing Super Tennis on the Switch SNES Library. I have to admit this has hit the sweet spot for me as somebody who needed a quick no nonsense tennis fix, and didn’t care for Mario Tennis on Switch.

Edited September 9, 2019 by LoneWolf&Subs

[Guest The Magnificent 7]

Super Tennis is awesome. I played against my friend back in the day all the time who used the Agassi clone all the time. Very hard to beat someone who uses him well. 

[Coletti]

Speaking of Dreamcast, there's a fairly new podcast called How Did This Get Played? You can guess by the title what it's about. This week's episode is none other than Seaman! 

[LoneWolf&Subs]

1 hour ago, The Magnificent 7 said:

Super Tennis is awesome. I played against my friend back in the day all the time who used the Agassi clone all the time. Very hard to beat someone who uses him well. 

Wait, which one is the Agassi clone? I ask because I played one dude last night that I thought might’ve been him due to the neon color racket, and shoes.

Edited September 9, 2019 by LoneWolf&Subs

[Guest The Magnificent 7]

27 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

Wait, which one is the Agassi clone? I ask because I played one dude last night that I thought might’ve been him due to the neon color racket, and shoes.

Yeah I think his name was John. He had a neon yellow racket and black shirt I think. That is Agassi.  He has the best return and groundstrokes.  I didn’t like Agassi back then so it was like a quest to beat my friend who was a big Agassi fan using the Becker or Ivanisivec clone (powerful serve guys).  The Edberg clone is money at the net, but against Agassi and the Chang clone they can chase that shit down and pass you all day long.

You can play this online? Get the fuck out of here. I am likely going to get a Switch now just for Super Tennis. I will just need to persuade my friend (we've been buds since grade school).   

[LoneWolf&Subs]

7 minutes ago, The Magnificent 7 said:

Yeah I think his name was John. He had a neon yellow racket and black shirt I think. That is Agassi.  He has the best return and groundstrokes.  I didn’t like Agassi back then so it was like a quest to beat my friend who was a big Agassi fan using the Becker or Ivanisivec clone (powerful serve guys).  The Edberg clone is money at the net, but against Agassi and the Chang clone they can chase that shit down and pass you all day long.

You can play this online? Get the fuck out of here. I am likely going to get a Switch now just for Super Tennis. I will just need to persuade my friend (we've been buds since grade school).   

I just played the CPU. I believe you can play online though, but I don’t believe you can set up a match randomly with strangers. So that means you need a buddy to play two players. AKA Nintendo is still backwards.

[NikoBaltimore]

13 hours ago, christopher.annino said:

Speaking of Dreamcast, there's a fairly new podcast called How Did This Get Played? You can guess by the title what it's about. This week's episode is none other than Seaman! 

I saw that one time at a friend's house and while it was a neat concept you couldn't pay me to actually get that game.  But knowing years later that Leonard Nimoy  was the voice has me kind of curious now.

11 hours ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

I just played the CPU. I believe you can play online though, but I don’t believe you can set up a match randomly with strangers. So that means you need a buddy to play two players. AKA Nintendo is still backwards.

I think the online part is mostly for leaderboards but I'll need to look into this.  After playing some more of Pro Wrestling I'm feeling the urge to play online so we'll see how that goes.

As for SNES it's cool to have a chance to play Stunt Racer but man is that an interesting game to play.  But after playing that for a bit I went into Mario Kart and F Zero and both are still sublime to play.  Now I'm working on finally beating Mario World which is something that I should have done years ago.  It stinks there's not going to be monthly releases for NES and SNES Online but I feel for both apps you can't beat this for the yearly price.

[LoneWolf&Subs]

1 hour ago, NikoBaltimore said:

As for SNES it's cool to have a chance to play Stunt Racer but man is that an interesting game to play.  But after playing that for a bit I went into Mario Kart and F Zero and both are still sublime to play.  Now I'm working on finally beating Mario World which is something that I should have done years ago.  It stinks there's not going to be monthly releases for NES and SNES Online but I feel for both apps you can't beat this for the yearly price.

LMAO... Really?!? I know we don’t all have shared experiences, but this surprises me when I read/hear people say that. The only SNES games I ever owned was this(It came with the console), and three other games. The rest of the time I rented. So sometimes it was either play the games I had, or don’t play. So there was no way I was ever not beating Mario World. I think I beat that game in total, 40 times. Most times I just started it up, right in front of Koopa’s castle just so I can go through the epic ending over, and over again. I would sometimes restart the game just so I can beat the first few bosses. Only because I loved that after animation of Mario destroying the castles. Mario World, and Mario Paint were my go too games for the SNES.

Edited September 10, 2019 by LoneWolf&Subs