2020 VIDEO GAME CATCH-ALL THREAD

[odessasteps]

Anyone get Journey to a Savage Planet?

Watching someone play on youtube, seems like a mix of Borderlands & No Mans Sky. 

[Casey]

Went to the city last night and ended up spending WAY too much money in a used & retro game store.

• Sega Genesis Mini
• Primal Rage (SNES)
• Killer Instinct (SNES)
• Captain America & The Avengers (SNES)
• Spider-Man & the X-Men: Arcade's Revenge (SNES)
• Wolverine: Adamantium Rage (SNES)
• The Order: 1886 (PS4)
• Mad Max (PS4)
• Killzone: Shadow Fall (PS4)
• Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order (PS4)
• Kingdom Hearts: The Story So Far (PS4)
• PSVR/Controllers/Dualshock display charging stand

I almost pulled the trigger on a CIB Mortal Kombat for the SNES that was in PERFECT condition. If it's there when I go back, I'm getting it. I think I've finally decided to just buy the SNES games that I remember loving as a kid or always wanted when I was younger (instead of modded consoles with hundreds of games). I was never a Sega kid so this'll be my first time playing a Genesis. I opened it last night and that thing is WAY smaller than I thought it would be, holy shit.

[BurningBeard]

Downloaded Kentucky Route Zero on PS4. Excited to dive in this weekend but was thinking of pacing the episodes in honour of the folk who played it originally on PC haha

[Andrew POE!]

3 hours ago, BurningBeard said:

Downloaded Kentucky Route Zero on PS4. Excited to dive in this weekend but was thinking of pacing the episodes in honour of the folk who played it originally on PC haha

Knowing my playstyle and how long it takes me to play games, I'm likely to take as long as it took to release all five acts before I finish the game too.

[Andrew POE!]

15 hours ago, odessasteps said:

Anyone get Journey to a Savage Planet?

Watching someone play on youtube, seems like a mix of Borderlands & No Mans Sky. 

I thought about getting it but the lack of physical release threw me off.

[Death From Above]

Couldn't have said it better myself. There's a very real chance there will never be another major sports title that isn't built essentially around legal loopholes related to gambling. Also It's wild how much money Apex Legends makes yet it is still seen as a dwarf compared to Fortnite. Granted, Fortnite probably made a hundred thousand dollars in the time it took me to make this post.

[turk128]

2 hours ago, Death From Above said:

Couldn't have said it better myself. There's a very real chance there will never be another major sports title that isn't built essentially around legal loopholes related to gambling. Also It's wild how much money Apex Legends makes yet it is still seen as a dwarf compared to Fortnite. Granted, Fortnite probably made a hundred thousand dollars in the time it took me to make this post.

And from what I hear, PUBG eats Fortnite's lunch when it comes to worldwide.

[RIPPA]

5 hours ago, Death From Above said:

Couldn't have said it better myself. There's a very real chance there will never be another major sports title that isn't built essentially around legal loopholes related to gambling. 

This is the sad money quote (pun intended)

Quote

A major part of EA's microtransaction revenue comes from the Ultimate Team modes for EA's sports games, including FIFA, Madden, and NHL.

 

[Robert S]

Belgium banned FIFA points and similar stuff two years ago (it took EA another year to take down FIFA point), so at least according to EU law there is does not seem to be a greyzone here, just no willingness for other EU countries (besides the Netherlands, which also has some restrictions w.r.t. loot boxes) to really do something about this.

Edited January 31, 2020 by Robert s

[Death From Above]

As someone that used to fiddle with online poker, regulations vary greatly country to country, or at least they did around a decade ago. From what I hear from people that were actual pro players it was an absolute minefield. There's also a reason a ton of pro Scandinavian players relocated.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

Kentucky Route Zero Spoilers:

today I learned there are three small exchanges in the course of the game where, if you miss them, you do not have access to the epilogue. I learned them because a friend of mine told me about an epilogue in the game and I said "yeah act 5 I know" and he said "no it seems to involve carrington" and I was like "what is a carrington." So, uh, if you don't have access to the epilogue, go back to Act 1 and when you get out of the mines, go back to Equus Oil.

[EVA]

Maaaan, I just finished DEATH STRANDING yesterday, and I don’t know if I’ve ever simultaneously loved and hated a game like this before.

The actual gameplay is fantastic.  The gameplay loop of the delivery system is addictive, and I love playing a AAA game where the primary action isn’t shooting stuff.  Managing loads, plotting routes, all super fun to me.  Even the social aspect of working with other players to create infrastructure feels great (except the people who build zip lines in spots that don’t connect to other zip lines; they suck).

But the writing is god awful.  I generally love Kojima’s gonzo stories.  To me, figuring out what the fuck he’s on is half the fun of his games.  But he badly needed an editor, or at least a few more drafts, on this one.    You could easily shave a few hours off this game just by excising all the repetitious dialogue.  No spoilers, but at one point late in the game, a character will explain at length why they think Sam shouldn’t trust another character (despite the fact that you, the player, already KNOW you can’t trust them based on other scenes you’ve seen).  Literally, the next scene is the suspicious character walking up to Sam and confessing by re-explaining everything the other character just said.  The last two hours of the game is mostly cut scenes filled with this sort of exposition that will just make your brain bleed out of your ears.

And Kojima makes you watch the end credits fucking TWICE!

[Raziel]

10 hours ago, EVA said:

 

And Kojima makes you watch the end credits fucking TWICE!

Obiviously you didn't play MGS5 where you played through the entire opening mission twice.

[EVA]

I did!  And I remember playing through that mission twice.  Which was not great!  But at least you were playing.  Having to sit through the long-ass credits of a AAA game twice is brutal (especially since the first time around, you have to run around aimlessly for a few minutes to trigger the next cut scene/credit sequence).

[Death From Above]

I had very similar thoughts watching it streamed, and it was the opposite of what I expected going in. I expected the gameplay to be dull and the story to have to hold my attention. I actually found the gameplay loop very chill and enjoyable. The sound design in the game was brilliant. The use of sound effects and music was incredibly on point. Most of the story was... honestly, not as weird as people made it out to be, but a lot of it was total fucking nonsense. Fragile's character was well-acted but terribly written. Way too much of the writing was so on the nose that it became just stupid. Mads was great and carried hard, and his scenes near the end of the game are probably the best acting done in a video game. But the story on the whole was kind of whatever, for me. I think it's a towering achievement in sound design, I'm glad Kojima got to make the game he specifically wanted to make, and I'm pretty sure I'll never personally revisit the experience.

[Casey]

I finished Detroit: Become Human this morning, and man, that was a really good game. Granted there's like 40 endings or something, but I'm pretty satisfied with how everything turned out.

Spoiler

Markus' invasion of the extermination camps failed, and he runs away to take shelter inside of Cyberlife HQ. Connor, having not joined the revolution, followed him inside, ready to complete his mission and neutralize Markus. But he spared Markus, who ends up dying anyway from wounds sustained in the failed invasion - but not before triggering a dirty bomb that renders Detroit inhabitable for human life for the next few decades, at the very least.

Kara & Alice made it safely across the Detroit River into Canada.

I'll probably end up going back to this one more time, trying the opposite of the major decisions and whatnot that I did in my first playthrough. 

[Craig H]

On 2/2/2020 at 11:23 PM, EVA said:

Maaaan, I just finished DEATH STRANDING yesterday, and I don’t know if I’ve ever simultaneously loved and hated a game like this before.

The actual gameplay is fantastic.  The gameplay loop of the delivery system is addictive, and I love playing a AAA game where the primary action isn’t shooting stuff.  Managing loads, plotting routes, all super fun to me.  Even the social aspect of working with other players to create infrastructure feels great (except the people who build zip lines in spots that don’t connect to other zip lines; they suck).

But the writing is god awful.  I generally love Kojima’s gonzo stories.  To me, figuring out what the fuck he’s on is half the fun of his games.  But he badly needed an editor, or at least a few more drafts, on this one.    You could easily shave a few hours off this game just by excising all the repetitious dialogue.  No spoilers, but at one point late in the game, a character will explain at length why they think Sam shouldn’t trust another character (despite the fact that you, the player, already KNOW you can’t trust them based on other scenes you’ve seen).  Literally, the next scene is the suspicious character walking up to Sam and confessing by re-explaining everything the other character just said.  The last two hours of the game is mostly cut scenes filled with this sort of exposition that will just make your brain bleed out of your ears.

And Kojima makes you watch the end credits fucking TWICE!

Some of this sounds really brutal.

Tell me this - is the "your princess is in another castle" thing true? Did that actually happen? I obviously haven't played a game and there was a moment during Giant Bomb's GOTY podcasts where they mention this really hilariously awful moment in Death Stranding and in the comments someone said something about a Mario reference that made no sense.

[supremebve]

1 hour ago, Craig H said:

Some of this sounds really brutal.

Tell me this - is the "your princess is in another castle" thing true? Did that actually happen? I obviously haven't played a game and there was a moment during Giant Bomb's GOTY podcasts where they mention this really hilariously awful moment in Death Stranding and in the comments someone said something about a Mario reference that made no sense.

I'm happy for everyone who enjoys Death Stranding, but I can't think of a game more specifically not made for me.  Everything I've heard about it makes me think, "why the fuck would I want to do any of that?"  It's funny, because I'm a pretty big Metal Gear Solid fan, despite the fact that I think Kojima is a hack writer who doesn't understand that inexplicable isn't the same thing as interesting.

[Casey]

I played Death Stranding for a few hours last night, and well I like it because it's something different rather than "go here, fight, cutscene, repeat"... even though it's pretty much just replacing "fight" with "deliver a package". But anyway... it feels like I missed some required reading or a 20 minute cutscene explaining the world, or maybe that's just Kojima, but it hardly explains anything about the mythos of the game world.

And it's product placement of Monster Energy is gross and also dumb as it relates to the game. I guess water doesn't exist for your canteen - oh, actually, it does, but drink Monster to replenish your health and stamina (and not give you mild heart palpitations). So far I've seen that, and an ad for Reedus' Ride show on AMC.

Again, I like it, and I'll probably see it through to the end eventually, but it just feels cheesy as fuck, and not in an intentional, good way. Plus Norman Reedus sucks, so.

[odessasteps]

After Terry Jones passed away, I decided I wanted to replay Starship Titanic, which I probably havent played since it came out in 97 or 98. 

I wonder if I still have my discs. 

[SirSmUgly]

I got back into Smash. They added a lot of stuff. I bought Terry Bogard and Banjo & Kazooie, and Terry is dope. This game needs more characters from SNK games.

There are so many new spirits to collect. They added Toy-Con stuff and stuff from that Japanese mech game that came out last year. 

I'm becoming like those Smash diehards who prefer playing very technically without a bunch of items or whatever, but then again, I miss Pokeflats. It needs to be put into this game. 

 

[BurningBeard]

On 2/4/2020 at 8:19 PM, Casey said:

I finished Detroit: Become Human this morning, and man, that was a really good game. Granted there's like 40 endings or something, but I'm pretty satisfied with how everything turned out.

  Hide contents

Markus' invasion of the extermination camps failed, and he runs away to take shelter inside of Cyberlife HQ. Connor, having not joined the revolution, followed him inside, ready to complete his mission and neutralize Markus. But he spared Markus, who ends up dying anyway from wounds sustained in the failed invasion - but not before triggering a dirty bomb that renders Detroit inhabitable for human life for the next few decades, at the very least.

Kara & Alice made it safely across the Detroit River into Canada.

I'll probably end up going back to this one more time, trying the opposite of the major decisions and whatnot that I did in my first playthrough. 

I might have to go back and revisit Detroit. Something about it just left me a bit unengaged when I first played it and so I abandoned ship early on

[Tromatagon]

I still say Detroit's junkyard scene is the most effective and best horror scene in video game history thus far.

But it's not in a horror game so nobody noticed.  

Edited February 6, 2020 by Tromatagon

[Death From Above]

It's such a badly written game that it's honestly hard to tell if it was meant to be taken seriously or not.

[Tabe]

On 2/5/2020 at 9:05 AM, supremebve said:

I'm happy for everyone who enjoys Death Stranding, but I can't think of a game more specifically not made for me.  Everything I've heard about it makes me think, "why the fuck would I want to do any of that?"  It's funny, because I'm a pretty big Metal Gear Solid fan, despite the fact that I think Kojima is a hack writer who doesn't understand that inexplicable isn't the same thing as interesting.

I really wanted to like Metal Gear Solid.  I quickly grew frustrated with it, however.  Then, still early in the game, I needed to stand against a wall and throw a grenade.  My dude had his back against the wall.  I hit the button to throw the grenade without moving.  My guy took a step away from the wall, turned around, and then threw the grenade against the wall so it landed at my feet, exploded, and I died.  That ticked me off so much I quit playing.