2020 VIDEO GAME CATCH-ALL THREAD

[Death From Above]

The thing about Among Us is that at the $5 price point it's almost impossible not to get your money's worth out of it even if you play it for one night and say it's not for you, you know? It's so weird it took off years after release, but good for them I guess. Honestly my biggest complaint with it is the lack of any sort of name control system so you run into a fair number of edgy children with, like, holocaust joke names or whatever. Come on man.

[Jiji]

I am trying to get my homies on side for it. Watched RDCworld1 play it and it looks like a blast.

[AxB]

So I've got three endings for Erica. But one of them didn't really feel like an ending, more like the game just stopped and the credits rolled without actually resolving anything. And then the third one I did makes no sense the way I did it... I should Spoiler Box this but I don't think anyone's actually going to care. If you wanted to play it you would have done so already. And if you haven't played it, don't. It's not very good.

 Basically, the character you play as was groomed from before she was born to be the oracle for a weird pagan medical cult. So you can kill everyone and destroy everything, or you can leave everything in place and submit to being basically enslaved, or you can embrace your destiny and be the cult ruler... but in order to do that, you also have to kill everyone who is in it. Including the Cop who covers up all the murdering they do. How are you supposed to lead a cult when you've already killed all of the members? There's nothing to lead!

[Mr Harms]

What is the board's stance on the retro handheld devices currently coming out of China? For example the Retroid Pocket 2. 

[Raziel]

33 minutes ago, Mr Harms said:

What is the board's stance on the retro handheld devices currently coming out of China? For example the Retroid Pocket 2. 

It's using Retroarch for its stuff, which is fine, except you need standalones for N64 and Dreamcast, and even then they're not emulated 100% because emulating N64 and DC are near impossible.  It seems a little underpowered, particularly in the RAM area, but it'll probably do.

[Mr Harms]

2 minutes ago, Raziel said:

It's using Retroarch for its stuff, which is fine, except you need standalones for N64 and Dreamcast, and even then they're not emulated 100% because emulating N64 and DC are near impossible.  It seems a little underpowered, particularly in the RAM area, but it'll probably do.

My experience so far has been excellent. I’m learning about Android as I go, because I’m a noob there for sure. But the idea, and reality, of taking No Mercy or VPW2 on the go is an absolute dream. 

[Raziel]

Joined the Platinum Club today, getting my 1st with Horizon Zero Dawn.

[SirSmUgly]

So, Hades is one of the few roguelites that I haven't gotten sick of. Further, boy does it throw curveballs at you the more runs that you do. You think the game is just one way, but there are a lot of other things peppered into it that slowly reveal themselves. Plus, rare for a roguelike, it has a great story.

IDK if anyone else is playing this, but if you like those types of games, you should. If you like Supergiant Games in general, you should. If you liked Bastion's combat specifically, you should because this is that, but quicker.

[Ramo2653]

22 hours ago, AxB said:

So I've got three endings for Erica. But one of them didn't really feel like an ending, more like the game just stopped and the credits rolled without actually resolving anything. And then the third one I did makes no sense the way I did it... I should Spoiler Box this but I don't think anyone's actually going to care. If you wanted to play it you would have done so already. And if you haven't played it, don't. It's not very good.

 Basically, the character you play as was groomed from before she was born to be the oracle for a weird pagan medical cult. So you can kill everyone and destroy everything, or you can leave everything in place and submit to being basically enslaved, or you can embrace your destiny and be the cult ruler... but in order to do that, you also have to kill everyone who is in it. Including the Cop who covers up all the murdering they do. How are you supposed to lead a cult when you've already killed all of the members? There's nothing to lead!

The couple times I played it, I got the kill everyone and burn it down ending. Good to know the cop was in on it so I don't feel bad for killing him.

[Eoae]

Considering how many games have been remade or remastered over the past ten or 12 years, it's really surprising that Sony hasn't dusted off God Hand and released it for a next gen system.  It's one of the few games I feel like really deserves a remaster (or a PS5 remake by Bluepoint).   Gameplay is solid, but the graphics are average for an end-of-life PS2 title and the performance issues tend to annoy me.  Was playing it last night and the transparent walls (walls and stair rails tend to become invisible when you wander too close to them) were wearing on my last nerve.

I'm also surprised Viewtiful Joe hasn't been ported somewhere.   Wonder if there's a rights issue with the Clover Studio games?  Seems unlikely, since Okami has been ported to so many consoles, but they seem like obvious candidates otherwise.   

 

[odessasteps]

 

[Ramo2653]

1 hour ago, Eoae said:

Considering how many games have been remade or remastered over the past ten or 12 years, it's really surprising that Sony hasn't dusted off God Hand and released it for a next gen system.  It's one of the few games I feel like really deserves a remaster (or a PS5 remake by Bluepoint).   Gameplay is solid, but the graphics are average for an end-of-life PS2 title and the performance issues tend to annoy me.  Was playing it last night and the transparent walls (walls and stair rails tend to become invisible when you wander too close to them) were wearing on my last nerve.

I'm also surprised Viewtiful Joe hasn't been ported somewhere.   Wonder if there's a rights issue with the Clover Studio games?  Seems unlikely, since Okami has been ported to so many consoles, but they seem like obvious candidates otherwise.   

 

Wasn't God Hand a Capcom game? I wonder if Capcom doesn't think it'll sell well. I've seen people randomly play it on Twitch via emulator, but I don't remember the game at all from when it originally released.

[Eoae]

36 minutes ago, Ramo2653 said:

Wasn't God Hand a Capcom game? I wonder if Capcom doesn't think it'll sell well. I've seen people randomly play it on Twitch via emulator, but I don't remember the game at all from when it originally released.

Yeah, Clover Studio was one of Capcom's internal divisions.  Basically, it was Shinji Mikami (RE creator), Hideki Kamiya (Devil May Cry, Bayonetta) and a number of other people.  After working together for a bit, the studio was disbanded and many of the employees left Capcom and formed PlatinumGames.

God Hand didn't sell well, but it didn't help that it was released at the tail end of the ps2's life cycle (game was released in Japan two months before PS3 launched.  Several regions didn't get God Hand until a few months after PS3).  It seems like it's more popular now than it was then, so I think there'd be an audience.  It's the sort of thing that would probably do well now with updated graphics - a 3D beat-em-up with cool bosses, and a wacky sense of humor.   Maybe Capcom disagrees.

I wonder if the content is a problem.  There's a lot of obnoxious humor and some risque stuff.  I'm guessing you can't (in game) bend barely clothed women over your knee and spank them enthusiastically in 2020.

 

[AxB]

Plugged my PS3 back in and went back to Dragon Age Inquisition (which I had just started when I bought my PS4, and never got back into). Tried loading my old save, found I had no clue what I was doing, who anyone was or what the buttons were, so I started over. Having spent half an hour trying (and indeed failing) to tell EA what my choices in the previous two games had been. Well, I did, but it was then completely impossible to link my EA account to my PSN account, so I gave up.

[Raziel]

Well, we got re-somethigs of MGS1 and 2, just straight up PC port rereleases of MGS, MGS2, and original Metal Gear, exclusive through GOG.  $10 a piece for the MGS'. $5 for MG1.  

I might think about MGS since I'm sure someone'll do some texture upgrade mods sooner rather than later.

[Contentious C]

For whatever reason, I started getting into learning about speedrunning - not because I'm capable of it myself, I'm the worst gamer ever unless you sit me down in front of Arkham City - but largely due to the SNES Drunk and Summoning Salt YT channels, which are pretty great about describing why a game works and why people get obsessed about them.   Summoning Salt was described as "30 for 30 about speedrunners" and it seriously is that.  It led me to tackle one of the games I had only sparingly played and was a little afraid of trying: Super Metroid.

Purchasing the original NES cartridge was one of those strange moments in life: "THIS LOOKS AMAZING!" (Get home and try it) "OH MY FUCK THIS IS THE HARDEST THING EVER."  And it's probably one of the "easy" NES-Hard games.  I played Super Metroid once through on an emulator 6+ years ago, with infinite health and missiles, just to see the ending.  I'd never really tried to improve at the game.

Turns out I'm...not completely terrible at it?  Kraid killed me; Crocomire killed me because I didn't pay attention.  Otherwise, it's been a pretty smooth sail.  Botwoon just ate a dick and Draygon's next on the "here's your bag of dicks, sir or madam or ungendered scientific abomination" list.  It's not going to be a given at this stage to come in under 10 hours for the second-best ending, but I can definitely swing it for future runs.

But if it weren't for doing this on Switch Online, I doubt I'd bother.  The save state & rewind functions get me through all the dumbass jumping puzzle bullshit that makes me *utterly despise* anything remotely like platforming. 

Edited September 27, 2020 by Contentious C

[Contentious C]

Bah, double post, stupid brain!

Edited September 27, 2020 by Contentious C

[Raziel]

Watching some of the high end speedrunners, on any game, pull off the stuff they do is amazing and sometimes makes me feel inadaquate as a gamer.

 

On the other hand, I watch some of these guys practice runs and can't possibly do that myself.  I just don't have the patience.

[Contentious C]

Yeah.  Arcus was the guy I started watching first, and without his attitude towards it, I doubt I'd have the patience for sitting through it.  Some of the Twitch streamers have heart-rate monitors and you see them verging on a coronary.  But he's just so relaxed and good-natured, to the point of making it fun and inspiring for a casual viewer.  Watching him nuke the NES TMNT game, which was another self-inflicted torture cartridge from my childhood, is fairly neat.

[Ramo2653]

On 9/26/2020 at 2:17 PM, Eoae said:

Yeah, Clover Studio was one of Capcom's internal divisions.  Basically, it was Shinji Mikami (RE creator), Hideki Kamiya (Devil May Cry, Bayonetta) and a number of other people.  After working together for a bit, the studio was disbanded and many of the employees left Capcom and formed PlatinumGames.

God Hand didn't sell well, but it didn't help that it was released at the tail end of the ps2's life cycle (game was released in Japan two months before PS3 launched.  Several regions didn't get God Hand until a few months after PS3).  It seems like it's more popular now than it was then, so I think there'd be an audience.  It's the sort of thing that would probably do well now with updated graphics - a 3D beat-em-up with cool bosses, and a wacky sense of humor.   Maybe Capcom disagrees.

I wonder if the content is a problem.  There's a lot of obnoxious humor and some risque stuff.  I'm guessing you can't (in game) bend barely clothed women over your knee and spank them enthusiastically in 2020.

 

Maybe!

I do see that it's a downloadable game for the PS3 so they must have thought something of it during the last console cycle.

As an aside, I know there's some programming factors, but it's really annoying that your downloaded PS3 games don't work on the PS4. I have a decent amount of games that I don't play because of it.

[Tromatagon]

Man, I loved Godhand even though I sucked pretty bad at it.

[Eoae]

6 hours ago, Ramo2653 said:

Maybe!

I do see that it's a downloadable game for the PS3 so they must have thought something of it during the last console cycle.

As an aside, I know there's some programming factors, but it's really annoying that your downloaded PS3 games don't work on the PS4. I have a decent amount of games that I don't play because of it.

It doesn't really bother me, but it is why I have a PS3 sitting on the shelf next to the PS4 (I just switch the HDMI cable back and forth).

Honestly, I probably play PS3/Xbox 360/Wii games at least as much as current gen.

[Neil Koch]

On 9/25/2020 at 10:55 AM, Raziel said:

It's using Retroarch for its stuff, which is fine, except you need standalones for N64 and Dreamcast, and even then they're not emulated 100% because emulating N64 and DC are near impossible.  It seems a little underpowered, particularly in the RAM area, but it'll probably do.

For N64, ParaLLel64 has gotten a couple of updates and runs a lot of N64 games very well now, at least on my laptop.  Some games aren't as good on the PS/NES Classics, though.

Also the quality of Chinese stuff you get from sites like AliExpress can be all over the map, also the shipping can either be a couple of weeks or couple of months, and that was pre-COVID.

[Raziel]

I'll have to look.  I know the current version of Retroarch is odd though.  It runs PSX shit awesome now with the Duckstation core (even though Mednafin used to be better, now it kinda doesn't work), I went and tried to run SNES stuff using the 9x core, and it was just stutteringly awful, yet when I ran it on 9x standalone, no issues. 

[Raziel]

For a Halloween theme for myself this year, I've decided to take a crack at playing through the entire Resident Evil series mainline games, original plus remakes.  So, that's 0, 1 Directors Cut (Chris game), REmake (Jill game), 2 (Claire A, Leon B), 2 REmake (Leon A, Claire B), 3, 3 REmake, Code: Veronica X, 4 + Separate Ways, Revelations, 5 + DLC, Revelations 2, 6 (Leon, Chris, Jake, Ada), and 7 + DLC's.  I'll probably drop "Years Later" reviews on them, as it's been awhile since I've played most of them.