2023 VIDEO GAME CATCH ALL THREAD

[Death From Above]

The only one on the list that bugs me is Resident Evil 4 because it feels a lot like if you nominated the 5th version of Skyrim or whatever

[RIPPA]

In the latest gaming industry blood letting - Amazon laying off 200 employees as they apparently are shifting their focus from Amazon Games to Prime Gaming

Quote

The company is closing its Game Growth and Crown Channel initiatives, terminating over 180 employees. The former was a program that helped small developers promote their games, while Crown Channel streamed gaming content on Twitch. However, the company is shutting them down to focus on Prime gaming, which offers free games to Amazon Prime subscribers.

 

[AxB]

Pigfart's Legacy got ZERO nominations, because it is a bad game. Ha ha.

Anyway, I finally started playing Last Of Us Part 2, having managed to avoid almost all spoilers since it came out. So the big early surprise was an actual surprise!

I did know that 

Spoiler

There was a new additional POV character, played by Laura Bailey (the opening credits say Starring Troy Baker, Ashley Johnson and Laura Bailey anyway), who is a big jacked up lady called Abby, and lots of fans hate the character.

But I didn't know

Spoiler

Joel gets killed, by Abby, SUPER early in the game, right after he saved her life

Really annoying how, in a stealth section, if you're hiding from Infected and go into hearing mode, you get the "They're over here" shadow images. But if you're hiding from regular humans, you can't use super hearing to see them through walls.

[Casey]

The important question is, how do you feel about that second spoiler?

[AxB]

It was very unexpected, but it also made perfect sense given everything that happened in the first game. 

Spoiler

I'm not someone who was overly attached to the idea that "I played as Joel, so therefore he's the hero and all of his actions are righteous". Which seems to be the mindset of people who raged about it.

He already turned up in a flashback scene after he died, so it's not like he ceased to exist. His death is what started the actual plot, if he'd lived there would have been no game.

 

[Gonzo]

On 11/11/2023 at 1:23 PM, Ramo2653 said:

Finished off Trek to Yomi the other day not a bad game aside from the timing issues with combos which can cause some issues with the later fights since you'll need to stun enemies so you can finish them off to get health back. Not sure what to start from the massive backlog of the following:

 

Both Horizon games

Ghosts of Tushima

Borderlands 3

FF7 Remake

Nier Automata

Sifu

FFX (would be a replay from when I had it on PS2 back in the day)

RE: Code Veronica (same, except Dreamcast)

Subnatuica

Ghostwire Tokyo

Control

Suggestions are welcome.

 

Ghost of Tsushima is one of my 4-5 favorite games of all time. That would be my recommendation. That or Borderlands 3 just because I love the Borderlands games.

[Ramo2653]

On 11/13/2023 at 8:03 AM, RIPPA said:

What's funny is I clearly must think about things differently than everyone else

Trek to Yomi was just finished. To me the next game I played would so not be similar themed so I would totally avoid

• Ghosts of Tushima
• Sifu
• Ghostwire Tokyo

But the correct answer is Horizon Zero Dawn

And no... they are not being sarcastic

Nah, I kinda think like that too. Yomi was big on timing and counters so I'm not super interested in something like that right now which I assume is Ghosts and Sifu. Horizon might be the move. I have a WWE2k23 MyRise going right now since I finally got a good texture of my face into the game.

[Casey]

I got a Switch OLED last week (been playing a shitload of Ultimate Alliance 3, still love that game) and I have two thoughts:

1) the Pro controller is fantastic. Easily the second best controller I own - DualSense is first, for me. Xbox continues to just lag behind in some aspect or another in every aspect compared to Nintendo or Sony. Doesn’t help I’m currently salty about my brand new Series X dying barely a month after getting it

2) Breath of the Wild is just an easier Dark Souls, isn’t it? Open world, barely any direction on what to do, trial and error, etc. I’m enjoying my time with it, though. First Zelda game I’ve ever actually sat down and played for more than 30 minutes, too.

[Death From Above]

Man, I only use XBOX knockoffs on PC, maybe it's a hand size thing but they are the only controllers I feel are actually comfortable for long sessions.

[Casey]

I don’t hate the Xbox controller or anything, but it’s just… basic. I can easily use either of the three controllers for hours on end, but for comfort+features the DualSense takes the cake IMO. Pro controller feels really good too, especially when you’ve been using the little Joycon brick instead.

The Xbox controller is comfortable, but it also feels really cheap. And maybe I’m anal as all hell or something, but the clicking on the directional pad annoys me like nothing else.

[RIPPA]

 

[Chaos]

I started SpiderMan 2 this week. I'm still in the first act, but I feel like it's not clicking with me as well as the previous two entries did.  Controls just feel a little janky to me, and the predator mode/stealth stuff isn't as intuitive. I've yet to get through a sequence that hasn't ended with me just having to brawl my way through waves of enemies.

It's the first time in 3 years that I've probably played something with the Arkham combat mechanics, but this feels more random. Even the oddities of stuff like webbing people up with Miles is pretty easy with R1, but I think you can only do so much with Peter using triangle and R1 is more gadget focused. 

[Kevin Wilson]

Apologies for this random rant but it still bothers me that somehow the Nemesis System was patented and can't be used by other game developers. It came up in my brain this week as I played two BLATENT rip-off games: WILD HEARTS and Coral Island. One copying Monster Hunter, the other being a basic 1:1 copy of Stardew Valley. I'm not mad at the companies making the copies, as long as they make them fun, but I don't understand how those two games can take so many aspects from another game, and yet WB Games was able to patent the Nemesis System. Which is really cool, but doesn't seem that "outside the box" of an idea that it can prevent everyone else from using it for a decade. 

Has a developer ever in the past patented a game mechanic? It just feels so weird considering how many copycat games there are.

[RIPPA]

4 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

Has a developer ever in the past patented a game mechanic? It just feels so weird considering how many copycat games there are.

Yes - just some examples (which includes the Nemesis system)

 

[tbarrie]

6 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

Has a developer ever in the past patented a game mechanic? It just feels so weird considering how many copycat games there are.

Wizards of the Coast famously patented tapping cards. No idea whether the patent stuck.

[Travis Sheldon]

16 hours ago, tbarrie said:

Wizards of the Coast famously patented tapping cards. No idea whether the patent stuck.

I think it was around the time I patented not giving WotC any more of my money.

[AxB]

I finished Last Of Us Part Two. It's similar to the first Red Dead Redemption, in that it reaches a logical conclusion for where the story could satisfactorily end, but then keeps going. It is a bit frustrating in that, all of the way through, you're having to carefully conserve ammunition and not waste shots, and then all of a sudden it goes into a narrative combat scenario where you briefly have infinite ammo. 

[Chaos]

44 minutes ago, AxB said:

I finished Last Of Us Part Two. It's similar to the first Red Dead Redemption, in that it reaches a logical conclusion for where the story could satisfactorily end, but then keeps going. It is a bit frustrating in that, all of the way through, you're having to carefully conserve ammunition and not waste shots, and then all of a sudden it goes into a narrative combat scenario where you briefly have infinite ammo. 

Granted, it released at the worst possible time for people mentally with the pandemic starting; however, that was kind of the narrative around release and why I've never been in a hurry to play it (I also am just awful at stealth). I've heard it's a blend of being super long, a bit of a slog, and a bit overwrought in misery from a narrative perspective. 

[AxB]

Yeah, it's very much a thing where, all of the narrative sections are cutscenes where you don't get to decide how your character behaves. Which is... I don't want to say immersion breaking, but you do start to think that possibly a TV show is a better medium for telling this story than a videogame.

[John E. Dynamite]

2 hours ago, AxB said:

Yeah, it's very much a thing where, all of the narrative sections are cutscenes where you don't get to decide how your character behaves. Which is... I don't want to say immersion breaking, but you do start to think that possibly a TV show is a better medium for telling this story than a videogame.

There's a just-about-industry-wide problem, particularly with Western devs, that has to do with the medium's deep inferiority complex to film. The idea that movies and TV are always going to be viewed as more valid than games will, and that the best games then have to play like an "interactive movie".

I think the most validating thing you can say about a game re:"Is is Art?" is that successful games have to be games. Their story can't be as successfully told through any other means. I think the fact that TLOU works so well as a television show proves the opposite point.

[Death From Above]

I know I have a rep as a Fromsoftware Apologist, but that touches on one of the many reasons I love their games. They rely more on environmental storytelling and "the lore is in random item descriptions" than any other modern games I know. It's pure.

[John E. Dynamite]

3 hours ago, Death From Above said:

I know I have a rep as a Fromsoftware Apologist, but that touches on one of the many reasons I love their games. They rely more on environmental storytelling and "the lore is in random item descriptions" than any other modern games I know. It's pure.

I don't think there's anything to apologize for, I think the fact that they aren't interested in the veneration of the blockbuster blueprint is a huge factor in their success. They get deserved credit for not pandering to the broadest possible fanbase, and I think it starts with the fact that they have no shame in making video games that *play like video games*.

[Zimbra]

While I lean towards the Fromsoft method I find both "We interrupt this Sy Fy Original series for some mediocre shooting" and "If you piece together 250 of these one-sentence item descriptions you start to get an idea of what this boss' deal is" ultimately unsatisfying.

[Technico Support]

On 11/16/2023 at 12:21 PM, Chaos said:

I started SpiderMan 2 this week. I'm still in the first act, but I feel like it's not clicking with me as well as the previous two entries did.  Controls just feel a little janky to me, and the predator mode/stealth stuff isn't as intuitive. I've yet to get through a sequence that hasn't ended with me just having to brawl my way through waves of enemies.

It's the first time in 3 years that I've probably played something with the Arkham combat mechanics, but this feels more random. Even the oddities of stuff like webbing people up with Miles is pretty easy with R1, but I think you can only do so much with Peter using triangle and R1 is more gadget focused. 

I just started it and am really enjoying it, but I just bought a PS5 after being an Xbox guy forever, so I never played the originals and have no point of comparison.  But I absolutely get what you're saying about the controls.  I can't remember half this shit and some of it doesn't work for some weird reason.  For example, I'm prompted to hit a combination to fire a web line but it doesn't work and I have no idea why not, aside from maybe I'm not aiming in the right spot?  And just like you, I go from "let's try stealth" (in the initial hunter base, for example) to "fuck it, let's just kick all their asses."  Arkham Asylum & City's stealth mechanics felt much more natural and reliable.  I really do like the hand to hand combat, though, which feels like a mix of Arkham and God of War 1. 

The big setpiece missions are really fun, too.  I don't know how far you've gotten so I won't spoil much, but I'm like maybe 30% into the game and some of the stuff is wild.

[tbarrie]

14 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

And just like you, I go from "let's try stealth" (in the initial hunter base, for example) to "fuck it, let's just kick all their asses."

That sounds okay to me - my favourite issues of the Lee/Ditko era were Spidey fighting a small army of ordinary mooks, so I'm down with a game that encourages you to recreate those scenes.