2020 VIDEO GAME CATCH-ALL THREAD

[Zimbra]

I'd be fine with GTA doing a serious story if they would actually go all the way with it and not keep all their "haha 69" humor.  They tried to have it both ways in 4 and 5 and it didn't work at all.

Which isn't even getting into all their bullshit misogyny.

[AxB]

GTA 5 is basically Gen X'ers making jokes about what twats both Millenials and Boomers are. GTA 4 was pretty depressing, they forgot to put enough nice or fun people in the game. Also, too many phonecalls saying "Cousin, it is your cousin! Let us go bowling!".

[Brian Fowler]

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Fuck every single second of the boat bullshit and it's aggressively unfun gameplay.

[J.T.]

On 6/14/2020 at 3:38 PM, christopher.annino said:

Now I'm wondering what well-received games y'all have played and hated. Beyond: Two Souls immediately came to my mind, such a fucking chore to get through, a fairly easy Platinum that I never wanna touch again.

Probably The Last Of Us.  Decent enough interactive movie if I am being generous.  Mediocre game at best.   It's one long ass and tedious escort mission punctuated by boring stealth mechanics and shitty combat.

18 hours ago, Robert C said:

Ugh, GTA4  Never been more disappointed in a game.  Took themselves too seriously, and decided they were making The Wire instead of, you know, a game. 

The story in GTA IV was somewhat passable but everyone in Niko's inner circle annoyed the shit out of me, especially Brucie and Roman.

Plus Dimitri Rascalov was a shit villain.  Devin Westin in GTA V is also shit.

On the whole, GTA antagonist are pretty horrible, except for Catalina who is fucking awesome.

Edited June 16, 2020 by J.T.

[Neil Koch]

15 hours ago, Robert C said:

Ugh, GTA4  Never been more disappointed in a game.  Took themselves too seriously, and decided they were making The Wire instead of, you know, a game. 

Also, I have to wipe out a decent sized town to get to one guy, then I'm supposed to have a moral conflict over what to do with him.  Sure.

Never played the expansions to 4.  I got them both as a Christmas present, and didn't bother with it for at least a year.  There was never a chance I'd play the Lost expansion.  Trevor game me exactly what I needed Lost wise in his first GTA 5  mission.  Finally fired up the Gay Tony expansion one day and found the disk was flawed and I couldn't start the first mission.  Figured that was just as well and went on to something else.

GTA5 story mode is nothing special, but the basic game mechanics are far more fun than GTA4 and playing online with the DVDVR crew made the story mode just about irrelevant.

The Episodes from Liberty City are way more fun than the main game, especially Ballad of Gay Tony, which has a Vice City vibe to it and it has some of the most likeable and well-rounded characters in the series.  I had a great time with The Lost and Damned also, but that is probably due to the awesome extreme metal radio station hosted by Max from Sepultura and the fact that it's probably as close to a Sons of Anarchy games as we'll ever get.  I also really liked the Road Rash style races.

Both of them are thankfully free of the dating bullshit or cousin Roman calling you 10 times a day to go bowling.

[supremebve]

Metal Gear Solid was my favorite series of all time for well over a decade, but Metal Gear Solid 5 is about as uninteresting of a game as I've ever played.  I honestly couldn't get through more than the first couple open world missions, because I was just plain bored.

[J.T.]

GTA - Ballad of Gay Tony was the only game where the devs made it fun to go to work, but is it really work when your place of employment is a badass nightclub?

Edited June 16, 2020 by J.T.

[Coletti]

I enjoyed the last third of TLOU and decided to immediately restart on Survivor+ since the gameplay/controls are fresh in mind - yeah, already getting sick of it. It's just not fun for the vast majority of the game. 

Here's hoping the sequel is far better. 

[Raziel]

11 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Fuck every single second of the boat bullshit and it's aggressively unfun gameplay.

I found out a secret recently..

 

The entire AC series doesn't age well.

[J.T.]

Ziggurat Interactive has acquired the IP rights for Bloodrayne with the intention of remastering the titles in the franchise for PC and then maybe porting them to console..

Edited June 17, 2020 by J.T.

[J.T.]

2 hours ago, supremebve said:

Metal Gear Solid was my favorite series of all time for well over a decade, but Metal Gear Solid 5 is about as uninteresting of a game as I've ever played.  I honestly couldn't get through more than the first couple open world missions, because I was just plain bored.

Kojima is definitely a developer that needs reeling in, but we all secretly wish we were as cool as Hideo.

 

[Zimbra]

While we're airing out our video game grievances: Volition completely screwed up Shaundi's character in SR3 and it's total bullshit.

[J.T.]

25 minutes ago, Zimbra said:

While we're airing out our video game grievances: Volition completely screwed up Shaundi's character in SR3 and it's total bullshit.

Eh, Volition made up for it a little in SR4. It was very self aware of them to bring back "Fun Shaundi" to mess with "Old Shaundi" for a couple of missions.

Edited June 16, 2020 by J.T.

[Zimbra]

7 minutes ago, J.T. said:

Eh, Volition made up for it a little in SR4. It was very self aware of them to bring back "Fun Shaundi" to mess with "Old Shaundi" for a couple of missions.

Yeah, that was a really good bit.  But if they really want to make it up to me I'm gonna need a Saints Row 2 Remastered.

[J.T.]

I'd be down for SR2 Remastered as long as Heli Assault wasn't complete bullshit.  

I would also like some confirmation on how to get rid of my offensive body odor.  I changed outfits like every mission and my subordinates were still, "Boss, why do you smell so bad?"  FUCK~! 

SR2 didn't have bathrooms with working showers like GTA Online does, otherwise I'd have engaged in regular hygiene like any micromanaging completionist gamer would.

Anyway, the Ronin storyline was the best.  The Boss and Johnny Gat burying Shogo Akuji alive and then leaving Kazuo to burn to death on board an exploding ship may have been the most satisfying end mission cutscenes I have ever watched.

That probably makes me a horrible person.

Edited June 16, 2020 by J.T.

[Zimbra]

Shogo and Kazuo both had it coming so I got no problem with that.  Having the Brotherhood guy crush his girlfriend with a monster truck was way more fucked up to me, even after what he did to Carlos.

The clothing system in that game was so damn good and I hate that they dumbed it down for the sequels.

My understanding is that the SR2 engine was pretty much held together with gum and tape so I think my dream of a remaster will stay just that.

[J.T.]

32 minutes ago, Zimbra said:

The clothing system in that game was so damn good and I hate that they dumbed it down for the sequels.

I am a customization horse so the first Saints Row game will always be the best as far as the clothing system goes.   I had my outfits planned down to my fucking boxer shorts and socks.

I normally flew my flag with jeans and sneakers, but SR2 Johnny Gat and his fucking dress pants and short sleeved button downs forced me to up my game.  

SR3 was worse. You can't dress like a hood bum with Pierce running around with a suit and shit.

Edited June 16, 2020 by J.T.

[Craig H]

21 hours ago, Tromatagon said:

I love 5 but GTA IV can eat shit.

This is the realest opinion and the first game I thought of. I fucking hated GTA IV. Niko sucks. Everyone around him sucks. The main villain sucks. Rockstar doing their version of a foreigner trying to make it in America sucks. Niko really sucks. Everything is fucking boring and lame. And the soundtrack is shit. Everything I loved about 3 wasn't present in 4.

5 is pretty great, but I think 3 may still be my favorite in the series. I know everyone loves Vice City and it's not bad, but all of the glaring sun effects can go fuck themselves. So many times I just couldn't see shit because the sun would be in my eyes trying to drive. I either had to turn the brightness way down or just wait until nighttime. 

Skyrim I've tried playing multiple times now and every time I do I think that Witcher 3 is the far superior game in literally every way. It's also not entirely in the spirit of the question, but I thought Fallout 4 both fucking sucked and also had 2 or 3 of the funniest gaming moments I've ever seen. The very long mission where you help the robots with their flying ship (if that's the route you go) ends in the most spectacularly hilarious way. I'm having a hard time thinking of a moment where I laughed harder. It looked like something out of Monty Python. Also, having a super mutant as a friend and equipping both of us with rocket hammers and proceeding to tear up a camp of bad super mutants was pretty hilarious. The rest of that game can go fuck itself. It's broken as all hell, base building is annoying, all of the townsfolk need you to do everything for them, you can't go on a mission anywhere without having to worry about trade routes, turrets not working, and villages being raided.

My hope is that the next Elder Scrolls and Fallout games use a new engine.

[Andrew POE!]

For whatever reason, I think the next GTA will have a female protagonist. I imagine it will be something where the previous story elements of GTA will be turned on its head.

The main character finds out her husband is part of organized crime and just one day leaves her without an explanation. He also takes all the money saved up from her and she's on a mission. She traces her husband's last known whereabouts to Vice City. Her husband is serving as a negotiator between rival crimes and the main character sees her husband get shot and killed. The assassins see her and she gets out of there, being chased by them. She runs into Tommy Vercetti, now 35 years older. He warns her about 'the life you are about to get into.' Tommy helps her kill the assassins and starts training and has her meet Ken Rosenberg; they start assembling a crew to track down her husband's murderers, which goes into the heart of GTA's crime syndicates. The story would have elements of Widows and The Heist and I bet the trailer would have "Hit 'Em Up Style" as the trailer music. Since the game would be in Vice City, it would have a real retro '80s snythwave vibe to the soundtrack.

She plans heists and goes through some real dramatic changes through the game; a meek and mild housewife to a psychopath that hooks a guy's balls to a car battery that makes even Tommy Vercetti squirm.

Probably none of this will happen and it'll just be like GTAV but slightly different.

 

Edited June 16, 2020 by Andrew POE!

[J.T.]

20 minutes ago, Craig H said:

And the soundtrack is shit. 

There we will have to disagree.  Soviet Connection is about as good of a GTA opening theme as you will get that isn't the intro to The Lost & The Damned, and the Soul station had Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) by Marvin Gaye on the playlist.

It was on the radio when I had Niko take Marnie to the bus station on a rainy afternoon for her last Strangers & Freaks encounter mission.  I drove extra slow to hear all of the dialogue.

It was sad and awesome.  I wept.

But yeah, I hated nearly all of the characters in GTA IV and some of the side shit they had you doing made absolutely no sense.  Niko stealing police cars and going on Death Wish vigilante missions was completely fucking stupid and out of character, especially when you add the context of Three Leaf Clover in there.

13 minutes ago, Andrew POE! said:

For whatever reason, I think the next GTA will have a female protagonist. I imagine it will be something where the previous story elements of GTA will be turned on its head.

I am not sure if I trust Rockstar to do a solo female protagonist well, but I think it would work if she is one of three protagonists in the style of GTA 5.

Another female antagonist would also be welcomed.  As I said earlier, Catalina is the best main villain any GTA game has ever had.

Edited June 16, 2020 by J.T.

[Death From Above]

Witcher 3 absolutely bores me to tears on stream. They also couldn't write a female character if you put a gun to their heads.

Can't wait for the Cyberpunk jerk off.

[AxB]

Played Skyrim years ago, playing Witcher 3 now, and I'd say Skyrim is the better of the two.

[CSC]

1 minute ago, AxB said:

Played Skyrim years ago, playing Witcher 3 now, and I'd say Skyrim is the better of the two.

Skrim is 50% off on the Nintendo eshop right now and I know myself that I am totally gonna end up buying this game for like the 4th time because of it. 

[Death From Above]

If I'm honest I still honestly think Morrowind is the best Elder Scrolls game, while I also accept it's a complete fossil that I wouldn't really try and sell DA KIDZ on.

[Jiji]

Skyrim at its best was a random encounter generator. The side missions and cool stuff you could come across exploring was so, so much better than any of the big plot points which Bethesda rarely does well. 

Witcher 3's story was significantly better. I would strongly disagree on the women bit. Just look at the multitudes of Yennifer female fans out there. She's pretty beloved. Only thing I didn't enjoy about that game was the combat having little weight to it. Too much floaty, spin stuff. Dark souls combat + Witcher world and storytelling would be something.