2024 VIDEO GAMES CATCH ALL THREAD

[A.M.B.]

Heard enough hype and had to buy UFO 50. So far I’ve only gotten in to Night Manor and Grimstone, but they’re both fantastic. 

[twiztor]

On 11/25/2024 at 5:54 PM, DragonZombie said:

I'm gonna turn on Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the PS2. 

a couple years ago, i played through the NES Mega Man games and, despite having the carts, used this PS2 collection (or maybe it was the GameCube version? i don't remember). My rationale was that MM1 doesn't have a save function or passwords, and i didn't necessarily want to play through it in one sitting. Funnily enough, i did in fact play through it in one sitting. Pretty good collection. i think i used the actual games for MM7 and MM8 when i got there, though. 

Also, it turns out that i kind of sucked at video games as a kid. i couldn't beat any of these games when i was younger. But as an adult, i feel like i just pretty much beat them with minimal trouble. Maybe i just spent too much time memorizing the Legend of Zelda instead of spreading my experience across multiple games.

[Contentious C]

I had...well, a similar but less positive experience with Mega Man. I had 2 when it came out and could never get past maybe 3 stages. Part of my issue was that I was terrible at platformers, but I was also horribly stubborn about trying to get the weapons in a specific order. I recall being kind of obsessed with getting the saw blade and then failing every single time to make it even halfway through the level. Part of me wants to retry it, but I think I've watched enough speedruns of MM2 (a GDQ staple) that I'd just remain frustrated. 

LoZ, on the other hand, I stuck out no matter what. You'd think beating that as a kid would have primed me for souls-likes, but, nope.

Edited November 29, 2024 by Contentious C

[odessasteps]

 

[Doragon]

11 hours ago, twiztor said:

a couple years ago, i played through the NES Mega Man games and, despite having the carts, used this PS2 collection (or maybe it was the GameCube version? i don't remember). My rationale was that MM1 doesn't have a save function or passwords, and i didn't necessarily want to play through it in one sitting. Funnily enough, i did in fact play through it in one sitting. Pretty good collection. i think i used the actual games for MM7 and MM8 when i got there, though. 

Also, it turns out that i kind of sucked at video games as a kid. i couldn't beat any of these games when i was younger. But as an adult, i feel like i just pretty much beat them with minimal trouble. Maybe i just spent too much time memorizing the Legend of Zelda instead of spreading my experience across multiple games.

You can save after the bosses in the collection for Mega Man 1. But the save file has to be made first when booting up the collection main screen. And then you can load the auto save later to revisit. Good for taking breaks.

[Cliff Hanger]

I just want to point out that the PS4/Switch/Steam NES Mega Man collection is fantastic and has some really wonderful (if frustrating) mash-up challenges like boss rushes and such. There's even an "all the cycling block sections" challenge that I will never ever do.

[COLETTI]

I haven't bought a single game this Black Friday sale season. I should buy myself a Barry Horowitz self-back-pat vest. 

Edited November 30, 2024 by COLETTI

[twiztor]

On 11/13/2024 at 1:07 PM, twiztor said:

My next game to play is Skylanders 3: SwapForce. what can i say? i'm a sucker for the toys.

And i completed it today! thoughts:

Skylanders 3: Swap-Force (Wii-U)
 It's an interesting situation. There are SO many elements of this game that aren't great. The levels are too long and designed obtusely. There's an overabundance of collectibles. the cutscenes are pretty dumb and borderline unskippable. But for some reason, none of that matters when i'm actually playing these games. They're just the pure embodiment of *FUN*. Maybe it's the toy aspect (whatever figure you place on the portal, that is your character inside the game. Switching characters mid-level, or even mid-enemy fight, is part of the inherent design). Maybe it's the real world collectability. Maybe it's just the gameplay (a simplified take on Diablo/Gauntlet/Marvel Ultimate Alliance).

I love this game (and the previous 2). Each iteration has added some new element to the toys and game. This one introduced "swappable" figures, where you can mix-and-match between the tops and bottoms of figures to unlock new areas and abilities. Super cool idea and executed pretty well too.

[assfax]

Needed to go to wal mart and get some Arnold Palmer and knew there was a deal on Gran Turismo 7 for 20 bucks.  'Bout time that thing got cheap! I'm guessing if I ever actually put the disc in it's going to need to download 230 GBs of shit and install for 89 minutes.  This double sawski deal pr'y also indicates that it's coming to PC.

I'm still in the middle of being massively disappointed with Ys X though.  There are like 4 different environments and the ship combat still bores the tits off me after about 16 hours.  Y'ever played Sea Dogs?  Now that was a cool pirate game. Regular combat (bread and butter of the series) is super boring.  There is just running your four specials then switching character and repeat.  I've heard this is really long.  The fluff has fluff.    I've said Ys VII was the greatest Dreamcast game never made.  Well, this is the worst excesses of the PS3 given unctuous flesh.  This is making me want to get back to playing Scarlet Nexus with that UEVR mod.  Or maybe that Rebel Transmute game.  Or finish Animal Well.  Or get serious about finishing Vigil: The Longest Night.  Or that Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid game.  Nine Sols looks cool.  Or I could take a nap in the afternoon.

[Doragon]

Some stuff found only in Rockman Complete Works for the PS1...

Helmet less Rockman in both original and navi modes for 4 to 6, and 8 exclusive powerups for Navi mode verison of 4 to 6, which changed how Rockman jumped and more. And there was PocketStation support and the mini games increased Rock Man's and/or robot masters life bars and attack strengths to ridiculous lengths if you wanted to do that.

And the Boss time attack mode for Rockman 1 to 3 and the Mission Mode for Rockman 4 to 6.

The button configuration and vibration.

Select the speed of the game, normal or slow. 

Flickering on and off options for 1 to 3. In Japan they call it Flash.

Rush and item changes selectable on buttons.

There was also the option to choose hard mode for all 6 NES games, which increased the damage of enemies attacks and removed any and all of the pick ups. Beating hard modes lets players select upward to 9 lives or, from 0, 1, 3, 5, or 9 .

And more save files for each 6 NES games.

[Cliff Hanger]

For my cousin's 40th, we went to one of Austin's Pinballz arcades. I got to play a lot of cool historic shit, and also WWF Royal Rumble. Highlights were finally getting to play Hercules (which is very cool but not any fun), getting to play Pac-Man Battle Royale with friends instead of strangers, and getting other people to be as mortally offended by the stupid "phone game in an arcade cabinet" version of Injustice as I was the first time i saw one.

[Tabe]

17 hours ago, Cliff Hanger said:

For my cousin's 40th, we went to one of Austin's Pinballz arcades. I got to play a lot of cool historic shit, and also WWF Royal Rumble. Highlights were finally getting to play Hercules (which is very cool but not any fun), getting to play Pac-Man Battle Royale with friends instead of strangers, and getting other people to be as mortally offended by the stupid "phone game in an arcade cabinet" version of Injustice as I was the first time i saw one.

Ha! Hercules is definitely... something. The novelty wears off soooooo fast. I feel like it's a concept that could be executed much better today. And find myself baffled it ever got released because surely no one actually enjoyed it during playtesting. 

For those that don't know, Hercules is an oversized pinball table that uses a cue ball instead of a regular steel ball bearing pinball. The ball rolls very slowly and everything feels like it's running at 5% speed. It's impressive as heck to see and then that disappears 5 seconds after you hit Start. 

[Doragon]

Mega Man Powered Up was a 3D Chibi remake of the first game. With added junk like more Robot Masters and you can play as them, and even as Roll and Proto Man and 3 extra versions of Mega Man, one with a slide, another with a charging buster and slide and finally Rock who kicks evildoers to death.
 
Custom stages can be made.

Here's Roll in action
https://youtu.be/4vWb3kQW1PY?si=y1zsHPzwcjFVFSY

 

[Doragon]

Mai in Street Fighter 6

https://youtu.be/bRAl7SwSJ9w?si=grMGlCU0YU66o7IT

Mature and Vice DLC for KOF 15 

https://youtu.be/-rcrRSQvzwU?si=RKe033BsfmqGG8Zf

[jaedmc]

Been playing Crow Country on my Twitch stream. Just finished it today. It's an indie horror throwback to PS1 era blocky graphics(like Final Fantasy 7), but it's very much like playing classic Resident Evil. You play a character investigating an abandoned theme park.

Certainly worth one's time if you want a quick 7-10 hour spooky game. Fun puzzles. More than a couple of jump scares. But not so overbearing that you feel anxiety the whole time.

Recommend.

Also about to finally beat Baldur's Gate 3. I've reached the point where I just want it to end. It's cool that there's sooooo much more in the game, and that I could probably play it again and have a very different experience, but I'm more than ready to beat this final boss and move on.

Next game on my play list is Robocop. Kinda excited.

[Death From Above]

Early POE 2 thoughts: The skill gem system is very different from the first game. I haven't totally come to grips with it yet, but it feels easier to understand overall while also giving you better control over your build? Like you just find random uncrafted gems that you can turn into the skill you want as opposed to finding, like, 4 fireball gems when all you want is a summon skeleton gem in the first game or whatever. So that's neat. I feel like this approach should make experimenting with new builds significantly easier. I also dig the slower pace; the "everything melts instantly" pace of POE 1 that developed over time was a turn off to me where as I loved Grim Dawn which had a more Diablo 2-esque pace to it. This is definitely closer to the latter.

I'm barely into it and can't really say more than that so far, but they definitely haven't fucked it up.

[Craig H]

I’ll just post what I put on Discord.

I have already played PoE 2 longer than I played PoE.

And last night I had a genuine reaction while talking to friends on Discord while we were playing PoE. Our one friend has played PoE for thousands of hours (I’m glad he put those hours into that instead of something like EVE Online). So he’s basically teaching like 4 of us how to play and he’s like press P to get to the skills screen. So we do that. Then he goes, ok, if you want to see what your possibilities are or what direction you may want to go with your skills points then scroll out.

So I scroll out and my reaction was basically that one scene from the end of Event Horizon, “we won’t need eyes to see.”

And I go, “Ohhhhhh my goooood! What the fuuuuuuck?!?!” seeing the insanity of the skills menu in full.

If anyone else is playing, my character name is Raylan_Givens and the account name is Aldo_the_Apache. I’m playing a merc. This is already way better than D4.

[Contentious C]

You know you're serious about PoE when you think about starting a new character and the absolute first thing you do is theorycraft in Path of Building.  I...don't want to go back to that.  But since I had free access to PoE2 anyway from spending money on the original game, maybe I'll download it.

[Death From Above]

DO IT

[Craig H]

Yes. Do it. Absolutely. It’s fucking awesome. Even with it in early access I’m tempted to say it’s damn close to being a game of the year candidate.

[Death From Above]

No spoilers here from me but that POE 2 act 1 boss was absolutely mindblowing. I admit I pooh-pooh'd this game a lot during development and all the talk of "the future of ARPG" and whatever but holy shit, that was amazing.

I'm in big, big trouble, no one try and distract me for the next couple years.

[Craig H]

I have only read about it. Lots of people saying it’s a Soulsborn quality of boss and that it took them at least an hour to finally beat it and it took re-spec’ing to do it.

My body is ready.

[odessasteps]

Enjoying the Indiana Jones Game so far. 
 

am I the only one imagining Tiny Lister as one of the bad guys? 

[Raziel]

The Giant definitely looks like Tony Todd.  

I dug that the tutorial was the opening of Raiders, and that the game takes place between Raiders and Last Crusade, and the actual "Indy" game play (going through ruins, puzzles) is great, but...

Yeah, the rest of the game is a Bethesda Game with an Indiana Jones skin.  The presentation is REAL good.  But also REALLY dark, like brighness dark, and I turned up the brightness and still have issues seeing on a 4K Laptop monitor.  And whilst I'm not opposed to running around beating up facists, there's way too much "stealth sections".

[Craig H]

Oh my fucking goodness. 5 of us played the Act 1 boss in PoE 2 last night. We started at 9:30. At 10:30 we gave up because me and a couple others had to go to bed. 

Holy shit. I've never played a boss that hard in an ARPG before. His phase 2 is the shit of nightmares. This is the best game ever.

Time to re-gear and re-spec. Two of us were putting poison DOTs on him and it felt like it didn't matter. My grenades also cause ignite and even that DOT didn't matter. We could barely put a dent in him in phase 2.