2024 VIDEO GAMES CATCH ALL THREAD

[odessasteps]

I hated  the Wii mote somuch I played one game with it and never turned it on again.

[tbarrie]

Don't give in to hate, Odessa. No good can come of it.

[Villanova Grad]

I’m already tired of the Xbox story.  It’s out of hand. As a former PR hack, I’m stunned Microsoft is going to let the story run wild for a week.  Messaging has never been Xbox’s strength, but nothing good is going to come from waiting a week to address the rumors.  Unless, of course, the response is going to be the nuclear option (get out of console business & just publish?) and will make the situation worse. I don’t think they are going that far, but who knows?  Tom Warren says this is out of the hands of the gaming division & even most Xbox employees don’t know what’s coming.  That’s probably not good.

Count me in as a Nintendo controller fanboy,  I like the GameCube controller quite a bit, Don’t love any of the Wii controllers, but they are interesting attempts to do something different.  Same with Wii U. I’ve never thought too hard about it, but I’ll take Wii U & Switch Pro controllers  over most modern Xbox & PlayStation controllers.  ‘Course, I like the Duke an awful lot too, so… ymmv.

Been messing around with an og Xbox, a PS2, and a Wii. Nintendo was ahead of its time with backward compatibility.  Anyway, such an interesting generation. 90% percent of that gen doesn’t hold up for me.  Most of the rest are bangers.  Not a lot of middle ground. If I put together a list of my top 20-50-100 games, most would probably come from that gen.  And it was the beginning of the end for big companies experimenting.  Development costs started getting too high, and it would only be a few years before everyone realized sequels and bare-bones remasters were cheaper and easier. 

Going to spend this year playing through some of my favorite titles from that gen.  Been a long time since I played FF X, Kingdom Hearts, etc. on original hardware.  Next game is going to be Rule of Rose, Clock Tower 3 or Haunting Ground.  All are interesting experiments that never quite caught fire but still hold up reasonably well.

 

 

Edited February 7 by Villanova Grad

[Technico Support]

16 hours ago, Craig H said:

The Switch Pro controller is…alright. At the very least it’s their best normal controller ever simply because it just copies the other two companies. Even still, the d pad stinks and the buttons are too squishy, but I’ll take that any day over using Joycons.

My daughter likes the Joycons if they’re in the little handle for them, but even she is using the Pro controller more and more.

We leave the joycons attached to the system permanently.  My daughter was raised on Xbox so the Pro controller is more what we're all used to. 

The A & B and X & Y being flipped (compared to Xbox) screws us up every time.

[Tabe]

16 hours ago, tbarrie said:

It works fine when held sideways and used as a traditional controller. Doesn't even destroy your thumbs on long play sessions the way all modern gamepads do.

Nah, it's too small and just feels weird. Tolerable is the best I'd say about it. 

[tbarrie]

1 hour ago, Tabe said:

Nah, it's too small and just feels weird. Tolerable is the best I'd say about it. 

But that means we have different opinions! On the internet! Are we now mortal enemies?

[Tabe]

2 hours ago, tbarrie said:

But that means we have different opinions! On the internet! Are we now mortal enemies?

Pretty much. Do not darken my doorway! 

[Andrew POE!]

8 hours ago, Villanova Grad said:

I’m already tired of the Xbox story.  It’s out of hand. As a former PR hack, I’m stunned Microsoft is going to let the story run wild for a week.  Messaging has never been Xbox’s strength, but nothing good is going to come from waiting a week to address the rumors.  Unless, of course, the response is going to be the nuclear option (get out of console business & just publish?) and will make the situation worse. I don’t think they are going that far, but who knows?  Tom Warren says this is out of the hands of the gaming division & even most Xbox employees don’t know what’s coming.  That’s probably not good.

Yeah, I'm not sure how "Microsoft is thinking of having some of their first party games on other platforms" lead to "Microsoft is getting out of the console hardware manufacturing business and becoming third party." Ori series is on Switch and PC. Sea of Thieves is on PC. They're just bringing more to PS5 and probably bringing games that they foresee having a harder time selling on Xbox and PC.

Microsoft is rich enough to buy either Sony or Nintendo directly and have money left over. For whatever reason, they don't want to. I wonder if they are scaling back their console manufacturing rather than eliminating it altogether. I still think we'll see a day where Microsoft buys PlayStation and absorbs Xbox into it.

[Casey]

I re-activated my GameFly account after like 7 years, and grabbed Robocop and Immortals of Aveum.

Haven’t gotten the latter in the mail yet (which is weird, they were shipped the same day) but I got Robocop today and played it for a few hours. It’s significantly better than the Terminator game IMO, and I really liked that game. Shooting punks in the dick will not get old.

[Death From Above]

Hitman 3 World of Assassination is on sale so I grabbed it. One of the strangest, most confusing store pages on Steam in terms of figuring out what the hell you're actually buying. I had to ask on the forums to make sure I was buying what I actually wanted.

Anyway, man, this game is really fucking good. And I'm not good at it. I think I'm too stupid to be a secret agent assassin in real life.

[odessasteps]

I have one final mission to go in Midnight Suns. Will prob level up some folks before finishing it. Undecided about getting the DLC. 12 new missions but I'm not that crazy about any of the new characters. 

[Coletti]

22 hours ago, Death From Above said:

Hitman 3 World of Assassination is on sale so I grabbed it. One of the strangest, most confusing store pages on Steam in terms of figuring out what the hell you're actually buying. I had to ask on the forums to make sure I was buying what I actually wanted.

Anyway, man, this game is really fucking good. And I'm not good at it. I think I'm too stupid to be a secret agent assassin in real life.

The Hitman series is one I've attempted to get into at least 5 times now but never get past the first few missions. I cannot put my finger on it. 

[Villanova Grad]

I enjoyed Hitman: Absolution quite a bit (hardcore fans mostly hated it for being more story-driven and less sandbox-y).  Other than that, I occasionally have fun with the more recent games by trying to be the worst assassin possible. I really only enjoy the game if I can do targets in with ridiculous Rube Goldberg death traps and silly setups.

My favorite Hitman memory is recreating the toilet kill I saw in a YouTube video.  Lured target into a room with a large hole in the floor. In the room below was a commode. Target walked over to the edge of the hole, I set off the plastic explosive I had planted in the room below, explosion sent the commode flying up through the hole. Toilet came whizzing out of the hole and wiped out the target.

i also enjoy hiding on the pier and shooting support cables so that billboards shaped like a marlin fall on the target and impale him.

Really never been able to get into the series when I play it as the developers intended.

 

Edited February 9 by Villanova Grad

[Death From Above]

I hear you but the thing that fascinates me is how I strongly feel that's also an intended playstyle, just a less serious one. I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall during Hitman's team developing a map.

[Raziel]

You mean they intended me to beat someone to death with a fish after feeding them spoiled canned pasta sauce?

[RIPPA]

After 5 years (7 if you include the Early Access time) - Dead Cells will receive no more updates after its 35th update later this year

 

[Death From Above]

Fantastic game.

[Death From Above]

5 hours ago, Raziel said:

You mean they intended me to beat someone to death with a fish after feeding them spoiled canned pasta sauce?

I mean, they gave us said fish. And the Flamingo Suit. The blessed, beautiful Flamingo Suit.

[Craig H]

Helldivers 2 fucking RULES. Played solo yesterday morning and then in the evening, got together with 3 other friends and my god, it was some of the most fun we've had playing a co-op game. Just a lot of frantic yelling, laughing, accidental team kills, someone calling in an orbital strike in the same spot where two of us accidentally were respawning so we were immediately cleared. Making it the full 2 minutes waiting for our dropship to arrive, 3 of us go one side of the dropship, I go on the other side where there's a gigantic fucking bug spewing acid spray that kills me while me 3 buddies take off in their dropship. We were all cackling with laughter. If they can get quickly get cross platform saves figured out so my progress on the PC transfers to my PS5 then this might be my early GOTY.

The wildest thing is that unlike D4, this game has live humans basically messing with folks and their campaigns on the fly like a real life DM. So if the community of Helldivers looks like they're having too easy of as time of retaking a planet or territory, someone on the game devs side can basically change something on the fly. It's wild. Maybe one of the wildest and coolest experiences I've had and this thing only cost $40. 

Plus, as anti-nuke as I am, there was something really almost awe inducing to firing off an ICBM to complete a mission, watching the rocket take off and thinking, well, that's it, and moments later there's a gigantic fucking flash on the screen from the explosion miles off in the distance and there is essentially a second sunrise for minutes afterwards. It's completely bananas. This game rules. Video games rule.

RIP Dead Cells. You were in that category with Celeste, Outer Wilds, and maybe Hades for as perfect of a game as you can make. Each 4 basically just a love letter to video games in general with someone's heart and soul completely poured into what they were making. One of these days I will finish both Dead Cells and Hades.

[John E. Dynamite]

The Wii Classic Controller Pro is a pretty cute lil piece of hardware that is consistently ignored by people who immediately dismissed the console because their fragile adolescent masculinity prevented them from playing anything that didn't involve guns or football. Or at least that's how I remember it.

The Wii probably has the most underrated collection of games out of any console in history, and at least half of the good ones don't require any motion controls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wii_games_with_traditional_control_schemes

This is when I'd drop some big list of great Wii games that prove the point (and a TON of great compilations, you wouldn't believe it). But it's easier to mention that Sin & Punishment: Star Successor exists and it's the best fucking thing you'll play in your life.

[GojiColin]

It only took me 155.7 hours, but I've finally beaten Persona 5 Royal on  my PC and 100%ed the achievements.  the P2 Duology will always be my favorites in my heart (despite aging like milk from a mechanics standpoint) but this feels to me like the modern Persona game perfected. 

Now to take a break, play some non-RPG stuff and then dive into Trails to Azure.

[JLSigman]

For those interested in hard to find PS1 classics, Squeenix has finally released the Xenogears soundtrack by Yasunori Mitsuda on streaming platforms.

[Andrew POE!]

Got my 318th Platinum trophy with Far Cry 4 on PS4. The servers started working again last month so I got the two online trophies done. Campaign and DLC was fun.

[Matt D]

Finished Link Between Worlds. Charming ending. Very good game. I spent way too long stumbling around trying to find the Sand Rod not realizing you get it just in the natural course of the game. I think I would have done a deal where you could get all the basic weapons from Ravio but then would get unique items to the game (the rods for instance) from chests in dungeons?

I'm on to Metroid 2 3DS now. I'm early days still but the missiles don't feel weighty enough. The movement feels a little light/floaty altogether. I'm used to Metroid feeling heavier somehow. Zone 1 until you get the magnet ball is feeling a little claustrophobic too. We'll see if that changes. I also can't counter the metroids for the life of me. I'm not sure if you can only counter them when they're not glowing or if i my timing is just off.

[Villanova Grad]

On 2/9/2024 at 9:49 PM, John E. Dynamite said:

The Wii Classic Controller Pro is a pretty cute lil piece of hardware that is consistently ignored by people who immediately dismissed the console because their fragile adolescent masculinity prevented them from playing anything that didn't involve guns or football. Or at least that's how I remember it.

The Wii probably has the most underrated collection of games out of any console in history, and at least half of the good ones don't require any motion controls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wii_games_with_traditional_control_schemes

This is when I'd drop some big list of great Wii games that prove the point (and a TON of great compilations, you wouldn't believe it). But it's easier to mention that Sin & Punishment: Star Successor exists and it's the best fucking thing you'll play in your life.

I have mixed feelings about the Wii, but I kind of like the experimentation of the Wiimote & nunchuk, even if the implementation was kindl of gimmicky. At the end of the day, you have to admire Nintendo for doing their own thing.  And I’m a big fan of Nintendo ips like Mario & Metroid.  Wii library gets overlooked a bit, imo.  Good percentage of third-party titles supported classic controllers & Wii produced a few great titles. Super Mario Galaxy is one of the more interesting twists on the Mario formula.  Sin & Punishment & Metroid Prime 3 are absolute bangers.  The Last Story is a great game constantly ignored.  Motion control remasters of games like Metroid Prime & RE series aren’t necessarily better, but are worth experiencing.  I don’t have a large Wii library, but that’s true of most retro consoles I own.

Wii also has perfect emulation of GameCube titles and even supports all controllers.  Without that, I would probably be harder on Wii.  But GameCube produced at least five titles in my personal top 12 or 20, so it’s hard to dislike it for that reason.  Actually, maybe more than five, Killer7 and Reside Evil Remake might make my persona top 20.  I’m not a ranker.  Never given it much thought.  

I’ve been realizing lately that I slept on early 2000’s Capcom a bit at the time. Their sixth generation catalog is rather large, really varied, and has a lot of very good games that went under the radar for one reason or another.  Would like that Capcom back.  They still make a fair number of good games, but are a lot less experimental and a lot more hit or miss.