2020 VIDEO GAME CATCH-ALL THREAD

[Casey]

I can only play Fall Guys in short bursts, usually in between games as a palate cleanser. I haven't played with any friends online (yet), but I'm thinking it might be a good game to throw an episode or two of a podcast on in the background and just have some mindless fun.

This morning, I was about running towards the finish line. Another player was just standing in front of the finish line. One of us was going to be the VERY last person to qualify. He did a taunt or whatever you call it, and moved a few inches and crossed the finish line. It was infuriating, but pretty funny as well.

[odessasteps]

While watching the UUDD play it, I definitely  saw people who were not trying to cross the finish line, but stopping other players from finishing. 

[Raziel]

Yeah, there's a lot of greifers that just try to stop people from finishing.

[Death From Above]

Most of them are honestly quite harmless, with the only two big exceptions being Slime Climb because it's a one-life game and whatever that "don't fall off the platform while tetris blocks come at you" game is called. Watch out for the grabbers in that one especially near the end.

[Casey]

The Fate of Tsushima mission quest that ends Act II might be the most fun I've had in a mission so far.

Then the beginning of Act III is a gut punch, too.

[Mario Hobb]

On 8/14/2020 at 3:49 PM, Doc Townsend said:

Got a question.  I was browsing the Nintendo eshop for old-school Nintendo games and I noticed that a lot of classic Nintendo exclusives appear to be available on the Wii U eshop, but not the Switch's.  I'm talking about the Rare Donkey Kong Country trilogy, a lot of the older Metroid games (Metroid, Super, the DS games), Sin an Punishment, Super Mario 64 (?!) as well as the NES and SNES Super Mario titles, and most of the older Legend of Zelda games, including Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.

Have these seriously not been ported to the Switch eShop or am I missing something?  Is there a reason for this?  It seems like making Majora's Mask and Super Mario 64 available on the Wii would be a no-brainer.

There was a rumor back in the Spring that Nintendo was going to remaster 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and the Galaxy games for Switch as part of Mario's 35th anniversary, but so far that hasn't materialized.  It was even rumored that the collection would be announced during last month's Nintendo Direct, but no such luck.  

There are a number of surprising gaps in Nintendo's Switch retro library.  I'm really surprised Nintendo hasn't remastered some of the older Zelda games for Switch, particularly the N64 and GameCube titles.  Twilight Princess and Wind Waker were remastered for the Wii U, and Nintendo's made an effort to get the Wii U titles to a wider audience.

I used the Wii U's hard drive mostly for retro ports.  Nintendo ported some interesting stuff to the Wii U Virtual Console, like the Game Boy Advance remakes/enhanced ports of some of the Mario titles and the Zelda and Metroid handheld ports.   Lol, I wasn't using the hard drive space in the Wii U for anything else, so.... I think I downloaded one VC exclusive (Affordable Space Adventures),  Most of the decent third-party titles got released elsewhere.

Personally, I'd like to see the Majora's Mask and Ocarina of Time 3DS remakes remastered for the Switch.

[Jiji]

I beat Tsushima and the story is one of my favourites from a AAA game, maybe my fave. For me, it has overcome Zelda and RDR2 for game of the generation and probably my goat. The combat fluidity is unmatched and yet they somehow simultaneously maintain weight to the strikes that the Witcher so badly misses makes for the best system I've played. Changing stances, using tools, the three main styles of stealth, archery, and big dick swinging, the timing... Pretty much perfection. The aesthetic is untouchable, it's one of the periods and places in history I've desperately been wanting to see in a game of this nature, and I adored the main story. The mythic tales are just the coolest and even the character side missions are beautifully done for the most part. And it actually does do a pretty fucking tremendous job of critiquing the samurai concept (though it could've done more, they did get Yuna to talk about how its often the peasants who pay the price for the wealthy landed elite's shit). Yuriko is the sweetest. Taka a pure li'l buddy. I adored the characters. Shimura and Khan were not cartoon character villains we get from most games, even those like Red Dead and other Rockstar games. They were people with obvious and understandable motivations dictated by systems they were a part of. Shimura rigidly following bushido dogmatism. Khan following the system his family/leaders put in place but still far more humane than how the Japanese often treated those that surrendered or were subjugated many centuries later. 

It's not perfect but neither were the other two games I've mentioned. The wildlife is pretty half assed, especially after how great Rdr2 nailed that aspect of open world gaming. It isn't groundbreaking or anything super new. But that's okay. Not everything has to be that, especially when it takes what came before and does so many aspects better. I've been pretty vocal about my lack of love for games like Fallout 4 for basically being polished version of a 360 game with more stuff but the mastery of mechanics and aesthetics makes this feel very much not a 360 game and instead the pinnacle of ps4. I am close to the platinum and while I almost never care, I enjoy and love this game so much that I will do it. And quite a few of the side missions were half baked, good ideas not seen through or fully fleshed out. 

I was also pretty disappointed I haven't come across ONIBABA when I saw somebody in the voice cast credits on IMDb back in the late spring credited for that role. Low key one of the cooler movies I've seen and also does a great job of critiquing samurai. Did I somehow miss onibaba? I kept waiting for it in act II. Apparently they referred to the woman defending one of mythical tale pieces as onibaba, which is absolutely not what I was hoping for and nothing like the movie or myth. Hopefully the sequel includes the traditional character, as it was part of a civil war in the movie and the sengoku/rise of Nobunaga makes sense for a sequel imo. 

Regardless, it's a beautiful work of art with a few shortcomings I could easily swallow because of how gorgeous it is, how great the combat is, and how engaging the main story and mythical tales are. The Japanese voice acting was, unsurprisingly, fantastic. Yuna and Jin's voice actors were top notch and Akio Otsuko, Shimura's voice actor, is a legend. 

Edited August 16, 2020 by Jiji

[Tromatagon]

Yeah dude Onibaba was totally referring to that lady that gives you that one move where you zip around.

[Casey]

As an overall package, yeah, Ghost of Tsushima might be my favorite game on the PS4. There are definitely other games that I've become more emotionally invested in the story (Life Is Strange/Before the Storm, Horizon Zero Dawn), but neither of those games were just pure fun to play, or looked as gorgeous as this game does. I'm barely 50% of the way through the trophies, apparently, and just now starting Act III, but I'm not ready for this to end.

Do we know if there's DLC planned, or is this going to be one of the rare big budget titles these days that doesn't do anything like that and makes us wait for an actual sequel instead?

[Jiji]

33 minutes ago, Tromatagon said:

Yeah dude Onibaba was totally referring to that lady that gives you that one move where you zip around.

SHE WAS SO UNDERDEVELOPED. DAMN IT. And they could've done way more cool thematic shit in showing how awful war/samurai class/caste/feudalism is by being truer to the movie and myth. That woman in the game was a vengeful "spirit" which is fucking dope but not what I was looking for. She didn't even get a close-up either. She got generic side mission treatment.  I was so hoping to see a masked peasant woman with a blade sneaking about in the reeds in Act II.

25 minutes ago, Casey said:

Do we know if there's DLC planned, or is this going to be one of the rare big budget titles these days that doesn't do anything like that and makes us wait for an actual sequel instead?

Nothing as of right now. I'm guessing they're optimizing a PS5 version or the upgraded version for PS4->PS5. Was it here someone suggested that because it's at the end of a generation that there will not be DLC? Or did I read that when I searched up DLC/sequel plans. BECAUSE I AM THIRSTY FOR MORE.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Jiji

[Casey]

I mean, honestly, it's kind of refreshing to play a game that has no DLC or anything. You pay money, and it's just a complete story, told how they want it to be told.

That was my only gripe with Horizon Zero Dawn. The DLC felt tacked on, whereas the main game was near perfect (to me) in terms of telling a story. Frozen Wilds didn't feel like a natural story, or something that needed to be told.

[Jiji]

We should've waited a day:

Damn. I'd love for PVP with this combat system (there would have to be zero lag) but this looks cool as hell. 

[Casey]

So is it strictly multiplayer content? Eh.

[Tromatagon]

I'm stoked, a lot of my friends play this or want to get the game.

[Mario Hobb]

17 hours ago, Casey said:

I mean, honestly, it's kind of refreshing to play a game that has no DLC or anything. You pay money, and it's just a complete story, told how they want it to be told.

That was my only gripe with Horizon Zero Dawn. The DLC felt tacked on, whereas the main game was near perfect (to me) in terms of telling a story. Frozen Wilds didn't feel like a natural story, or something that needed to be told.

I'd be kinda interested in Tsushima dlc because the dlc Sucker Punch did for the InFamous games was more substantial than the norm.  IIRC, Festival of Blood for the PS3 was fairly long, and there was enough to First Light that it got released by Sony as a standalone edition (and even got a retail release in Europe).

I buy/download most dlc, but I'm not too excited by the idea of dlc for story-driven games.  Most of the time, it comes off as unnecessary.  Sometimes, I feel like it weakens the story (Castlevania: Lords of Shadows, I'm looking at you).

I'm guessing we won't get story dlc since the generation jump is about to happen.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Mario Hobb

[NikoBaltimore]

I am very curious about this DLC for as long as it's done right I can see getting some good use out of this.  That reminds me that I still need to work my way through Act II though I took more time than intended on some of the side quests.  Not sure how far into it I am but I'm hoping to get to Act III by maybe middle of next month.

[jaedmc]

I. HATE. FALL. MOUNTAIN.

I feel like that's been exclusively my Final Round for days.

Fall Guys is a terrible stupid horrible game and I hope it is set on fire, thrown into a pit of AIDS needles, and told that their parents never loved them.

[Andrew POE!]

I refuse to play Fall Guys because one of the trophies is physically impossible and the developers really need to patch it.

Just Platinum'ed Aliens Vs. Predator recently and working on GoldenEye 007 Reloaded for a Platinum. Aliens Vs Predator is ridiculously hard and I can't believe I finished it.

[Raziel]

Don't know how many others care about watching retro runners/run retro stuff yourself, but the 12th has the somewhat annual Big 20 race coming up, and this year's is kinda fucking brutal. 

https://bestofnes.com/races/big-20-13

 

[Setsuna]

I fired up Slay The Spire again a few weeks ago and got hooooked this time. It was fun climbing through Ascension, but I'm stuck at 20 with Ironclad and 18 with The Silent and lost the will to keep going.

Played through Mario Odyssey the last week and enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. Like yeah, it shouldn't have surprised me, but that was a really fun experience. I got to the darkest side of the moon today, died on a stupid mistimed jump and shut it off, but I think I will 'finish' it tomorrow. 500 moons is all I'm collecting, just wanted to unlock this last world. Not sure where to go next. Possibly Fire Emblem Three Kingdoms? Feels like I've had enough time off between long rpgs.

[odessasteps]

Origami King was fun. 

[Cliff Hanger]

Ok, I am all in on Fall Guys.  Played 5 games in under a half hour, lost 3 in round 1 and then made it to round 3 then 4.  See Saw appears to be my best event.

[AxB]

See Saw is really annoying if you don't spawn in the front line. So many people see one tipped at maximum, no way you could ever land on it and not slide off, and rather than wait for it to level out, they... jump on anyway!

I did manage to get the trophies for completing 100 rounds and for finishing a race in first though. Still have zero wins. My best finish is a second place, on the floor disappearing one.

[Craig H]

Aww fuck. Diablo 3 got dropped from $60 to $30 on the Switch like a week after I bought it. Oh well.

My daughter and I have been playing it a lot and I still really love it. I wound up going back and playing the PC version more too and bumped up the difficulty to hard because I was just mowing through everything. Even on hard mode it's kinda easy. So I did the same on the Switch and we're steamrolling that too. I'm playing a Necromancer on the Switch and it's fun as hell. It almost makes me just want to pay $40 to get the expansion on the PC to play a Necromancer on there as well.

[Craig H]

Oh yeah, I've been playing a lot of the trial on Final Fantasy 14. It's fantastic, but it's just lacking the polish that something like WoW probably has.

Annnnnd that brings me to getting the itch to maybe try out WoW again...Whenever I think that I then think, what the fuck am I doing with my life? The one thing that sounds interesting are all of the changes that will come with the next expansion. Apparently there will be an entirely revamped onboarding experience for new players, something with changing how leveling up works, and more. The only problem is that you have to pay $90!!! to buy in. That pays for the current expansion and the upcoming expansion. $90 and $15/month on top of that seems ridiculous so that may just prevent me from jumping in.

Speaking of $15/month, I signed up for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Whatever. I just got my Note20 Ultra and used some of the $150 credit from Samsung to get an Xbox controller and a phone mount for it. I plan on using that to do the cloud gaming stuff when that launches in September. In the meanwhile, I wound up downloading a couple PC games like Forza Horizon 4, Gears 4, and one other Xbox game. Depending on how much I like how Games Pass and xCloud or whatever they're calling it will determine if I wind up going with an Xbox this fall.