What is the last video game you played?

[Jay 37,336]

 

True story: I somehow missed an entire cave in Dig 1, so never got the Punch powerup until I was already at the end of the game!  When I went back through, it made disposing of enemies SOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo much easier!  I have no idea how I missed the cave

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

13 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Absolutely the single biggest improvement is ditching the procedural generation.  Every single thing about the sequel is meticulously designed.  It makes exploration so much more satisfying.  I also think the upgrade loop is significantly improved.  Really nails my favorite thing about Metroidvanias, which is that by 3/4 of the way through you feel like an overpowered God mowing your way around the world willy nilly, finding secrets you missed the first time through sections.

 

Also the game is much bigger, but still a comfortable 10-15 hours.

The main character of Dig 2 is a girl, therefore it's better.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

Battlefront 2 (EA)

Pretty fun actually.  The heroes are much improved, with more fluid lightsaber combat (in fact, I'd say it's its most satisfying incarnation since the underrated ROTS tie-in.  Attacks flow together and have a real sense of weight)

Not a fan of the Starfighter or gun combat though.  

Highly recommended

[Holko 9,516]

I guess it could be fun for a while if you shield yourself from the dev promises and their sheer incompetence. Last weekend they couldn't even turn on the double XP like it was promised a month ago (and like they already did 3 weeks ago) because there were "complications". And the last patch was such a catastrophy they had to remove a game mode and a hero because they were completely broken. The "hotfix" will come out next week, a breezy 5 weeks after the patch broke major stuff.

All the while it was advertised as a "live service game" where "change will be a constant" and we'll get patches every two weeks and content updates every month. Yeah right.

 

[Bilbo 3,709]

Really enjoying Jurassic World: Evolution 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

SWEDISH erotica!?

https://www.b98.tv/video/chew-chew-baby/

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

As someone who only owns the second game, I think I'd like to revisit this one soon. Maybe the third one I suppose, but I recall finding it too gimmicky in comparison. Ripto's Rage was always my favorite of the three either way.

 

[Jay 37,336]

Speaking of Red Red 2, here's a new gameplay trailer

 

 

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

It's tail time!

[Holko 9,516]

Sev, that avatar, especially its colour scheme... Brings up false hope in a rush of excitement anytime I see it in small on the unread content page.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

What do you think it looks like?

[Holko 9,516]

Bloodboal, when it's a tiny thumbnail in my peripheral vision.

[Quintus 5,399]

Sharing some screens taken from my latest adventures in the No Man's Sky revamp which released a couple of weeks back:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two years after launch, one of the most ambitious video games ever has finally delivered what was shown in those infamous pre-release trailers. It's the ultimate survival game.

[King Mark 3,630]

No Man' s sky seems interesting.

 

I might grab the action RPG Bastion from PSN this week for 5.99 since the reviews are stellar

 

I'm about 100 hours into Fallout 4 and progress is very slow. there's so much to do and a lot of small things bog things down like being constantly overcumbered. Also when you want put a Charisma +2 suit to barter in shops you have to re--equip all your gear afterwards.

 

 

[Bilbo 3,709]

I started playing this last night 😬😬

[Quintus 5,399]

Finding weird alien architecture never gets old to me:

 

 

In a lot of ways No Man's Sky feels like a western. The great frontier.

 

 

Sometimes the terrain even supports the romance.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

 

Another mother fucking pumpkin!

[Quintus 5,399]

Captain's log, stardate 2427... okay now I don't know wherever dafuq I am.

 

 

 

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

How did the Sunsoft 1989 Batman game for Genesis elude my childhood? Did I ever really live not playing a game where you knock Jack Napier into a vat of chemicals and blow up countless cars and helicopters in the Batmobile and Batwing?

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Did you play Batman Returns on SNES?  I loved that one (at the time)

[Quintus 5,399]

 

Hmm, where to find the landing bay on this beast that I happened to come out of warp alongside.

 

 

Not around the back then.

 

 

Ah, I see it now. Just waiting on clearance. Big fleet of 'em. 

 

 

Meeting the captain (just because I can).

 

 

Sometime later...

 

 

... a dramatically different locale. That's the beauty of a limitless universe. Pity about the caustic atmosphere burning into my shield reserves and eroding the integrity of my life support.

 

 

And that planet had a low gravity moon in its orbit, a bit like our own.

 

 

Hang on what are those egg looking things? Methinks I'll give 'em a wide berth.

 

 

I doubt anything like this is hidden beneath the surface of Lunar.

 

 

In a darkened room on a big TV and with the eerie "empty expanse of space" sound design, this was one of the most weirdly unsettling moments I've experienced in No Man's Sky so far. It was pure 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

 

Make sure to have the audio on for the full effect

 

 

[Nick Parker 3,040]

1 hour ago, Disco Stu said:

 

Make sure to have the audio on for the full effect

 

 

 

Bahahaha! One of the great perilous adventures of modern homes.

 

 

@Quintus You're really making a case for No Man's Sky! 

[Quintus 5,399]

Sometimes I just like games with a sandbox that allows the players to make their own adventures. Playing certain games while not really doing anything in particular can be a very relaxing pastime. I guess that's why the default difficulty mode in No Man's Sky is entitled 'Chill'. I can't recommend this chilled out space fantasy enough.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

Suppose I ought to give this number a call..

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Do people actually think character design is good in Sonic games?  I saw some of Sonic Forces and yuck that is a hideous game on every level

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

I never liked the green-eyed Sonic. Ugly design change. 

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

On 8/19/2018 at 10:58 PM, Nick Parker said:

 

I just wanted to know about 2D platformers you liked! I know you like Shantae, I was curious to know which others you preferred to the Donkey Kong Country games.

How about Ristar?

 

[Nick Parker 3,040]

2 hours ago, kaseykockroach said:

How about Ristar?

 

 

Know of it, never played it. I take it you like it?

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

28 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

 

Know of it, never played it. I take it you like it?

Quite so! Quite so!

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I started playing Shenmue on my PS4 last night.  I'm not really interested in "if it holds up."  It's just a great trip down memory lane.

 

I asked for a Dreamcast for Christmas 2000 specifically and only because I wanted to play Shenmue, which I had been obsessively reading coverage about for a year.

 

I remember buying this issue of Official Dreamcast Magazine two months before getting the Dreamcast.  I read it over and over and over (I was 13).

 

I never owned Jet Grind Radio, but I played the demo on the disc included with the magazine ad nauseum.

 

 

(fun fact: when I hooked up my PS4 last night it was the first time it had been plugged in in 18 months)

[Koray Savas 2,251]

Never played those games but am aware of their legacy. Is it something worth picking up?

[Disco Stu 15,495]

If it's not something you played when it first came out, probably not.  It was pretty revolutionary for the time, very much a precursor to later open world games, but it's pretty archaic now.  I love the life sim aspects of it.  How you can sort of just exist in this Japanese city.   Soooo much of the world is interactive.  It's great.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

43 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

started playing Shenmue on my PS4 last night.  I'm not really interested in "if it holds up."  It's just a great trip down memory lane.

 

8 minutes ago, Koray Savas said:

Never played those games but am aware of their legacy. Is it something worth picking up?

 

Some of my absolute favorite games! The second one is way better than the first, though. Yeah, the voice acting sucks and is completely laughable, but...I pretty much never use the word "immersive" when describing media, but the Shenmue games are some of the most apt to deserve the term. I can go into a lot of esoteric details about both to describe how they create a wonderful balance between conventional storytelling narrative and narrative created by the sheer virtue of gameplay, but suffice it to say that it's a balance I wish certain modern game developers were aware of.

 

The music is dope, too, giving the tale of a young man's descent from an innocent high school existence into a gritty underworld of crime and corruption an almost mythical quality. So many of the scenes and setpieces give me goosebumps.

 

Also, you have this:

 

 

 

- Nick, who's played these for the first time a few years ago

 

6 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Soooo much of the world is interactive

 

But not excessively so! 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

3 minutes ago, Nick Parker said:

Nick, who's played these for the first time a few years ago

 

I erred on the safe side of saying probably not because I never know how to answer someone asking "is this worth picking up?" but especially for old games that have personal meaning to me.

 

And yes, the immersive open world of Shenmue is pretty unique.  No checklists or sidequest lists, no opening map sections with towers, none of the garbage clutter of most modern ones.  Really I wish more of them were like this, just letting you exist in and explore the world.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

1 minute ago, Disco Stu said:

I erred on the safe side of saying probably not because I never know how to answer someone asking "is this worth picking up?" but especially for old games that have personal meaning to me.

 

 

I just wanted to share that lest someone think I'm speaking from nostalgia, because both sides of the nostalgia coin have really weird connotations, especially when it comes to video games it seems.

 

 

1 minute ago, Disco Stu said:

 

And yes, the immersive open world of Shenmue is pretty unique.  No checklists or sidequest lists, no opening map sections with towers, none of the garbage clutter of most modern ones.  Really I wish more of them were like this, just letting you exist in and explore the world.

 

And there are genius limits on it, too, at certain points broken for extremely dramatic and effective impact. 

 

Also, you don't have to play a goddamned minigame anytime you want to open a door. That's not immersion!

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Also the game invented modern QTEs.  Which get an unfairly bad reputation IMO.  Yeah it can be an crutch, but in a game like this I think they fit perfectly.  A game that isn't about mastering complex gameplay systems or leveling up your skills, but about experiencing the story and the world.

[Jay 37,336]

How do the graphics of Shenmue on the PS4 compare to the Dreamcast originals?

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Very faithful.  These are ports really, not remasters.  They only did small tweaks to make them look not horrible on HD displays since the originals would've been developed with CRTs in mind.

 

But I also turned off things like bloom effects and switched the aspect ratio to 4:3.  It's just how the game should look to me.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

HE'S GOT NO STYLE

 

HE'S GOT NO GRACE

 

THIS KONG'S GOT A FUNNY FACE

[Disco Stu 15,495]

"DK64 Is Good, Actually" is my most controversial gaming take

[Nick Parker 3,040]

26 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Also the game invented modern QTEs.  Which get an unfairly bad reputation IMO.  Yeah it can be an crutch, but in a game like this I think they fit perfectly.  A game that isn't about mastering complex gameplay systems or leveling up your skills, but about experiencing the story and the world.

 

The QTEs in Shenmue just make you feel like a badass, such as in the bar scene.

5 minutes ago, kaseykockroach said:

HE'S GOT NO STYLE

 

HE'S GOT NO GRACE

 

THIS KONG'S GOT A FUNNY FACE

 

I had a friend who made a parody of one of those Facebook inspirational posters, the ones with inspiring words and a backdrop of a sunny sky with clouds. He used these words, with a transparent image of Lanky Kong staring from the heavens.

2 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

"DK64 Is Good, Actually" is my most controversial gaming take

 

Controversial in a Fox News 98:2 ratio kind of way, I guess.

[Kasey Kockroach 2,344]

Sex is probably great, but have you ever tried to memorize the lyrics to the DK Rap?

[Quintus 5,399]

In 2018 just play the recent Yakuza games instead. Better to leave the archaic 3D gameplay of Shenmue as a fond memory.

[Jay 37,336]

Do you recomment starting with Yazuka 0 or Yakuza 1 (Yakuza Kiwami)?

[Nick Parker 3,040]

18 minutes ago, kaseykockroach said:

Sex is probably great, but have you ever tried to memorize the lyrics to the DK Rap?

 

I actually performed it (the DK rap) in a band several times as a gag song! The final time we played it was broadcast, but alas, I could never find the radio station and its archive.

16 minutes ago, Quintus said:

In 2018 just play the recent Yakuza games instead. Better to leave the archaic 3D gameplay of Shenmue as a fond memory.

 

I think Shenmue holds up very well, but I am concerned to see how Shenmue 3 will turn out. As games from the turn of the century, I can completely embrace them, but I don't know how much I would want to play a 2019 game with that same kind of formula (need to find somebody, ask twenty three random yahoos until you find someone who knows what you're talking about, do that thing, repeat). I'm hoping Suzuki isn't too barred to the past.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Yakuza games have a very particular tone of utter ludicrousness.  I enjoy the earnestness of Shenmue.

[Nick Parker 3,040]

5 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Yakuza games have a very particular tone of utter ludicrousness.  I enjoy the earnestness of Shenmue.

 

Plus it's the classic martial arts revenge tale of honor and its place in a world that can be fraught with immoral people. The goofy-ass voice acting can hide how eloquently this point is made throughout both games (particularly the first).

 

 

[Koray Savas 2,251]

51 minutes ago, Jay said:

Do you recomment starting with Yazuka 0 or Yakuza 1 (Yakuza Kiwami)?

I’d say 0 purely on the age factor alone. Kiwami is fine enough but it’s also archaic.