Random Gaming Talk Thread

[MMaRsu]

The Etrian Odyssey games are all fantastic, although very similar to each other.

Culdcept is a neat concept (Monopoly meets Magic the Gathering), but the DS version is not that fun. Give it a try though, maybe you have a different opinion.

Damn Culdcept Saga is a DS game? They need to make that clearer on the store..

Np tho, thx for the info. Im curious about Etrian Odyssey

I still have ao many 3ds games to play though. Still need to finish SMT IV and then I also have SMT Apocalypse which i have and am curious about

[Beezy]

The Etrian Odyssey games are all 3DS also...

[demi]

Culdcept is a 3DS game you dummy. Did you just buy these with no research? Lmao

[Joe Molotov]

No, he said Culdcept Saga which is an Xbox 360 game. Really weird they put that on the eShop.

[Tuckers Law]

Is revolt worth playing?  Never played a culdcept before and still have mine in shrinkwrap.

[MMaRsu]

Culdcept is a 3DS game you dummy. Did you just buy these with no research? Lmao

(Image removed from quote.)

Oh yeah I did get Culdcept Revolt, not Saga. Ofcourse there is a game called Culdcept Saga too 😅🤷🏼‍♂️

Yeah I basically went into the store, saw the sale date ended today, looked for user reviews on metacritic and bought them 😅 glad to hear its a 3ds game. Cant go wrong for a fiver.

Probably worth a shitload physical, just like SMT apocalypse

[demi]

Is revolt worth playing?  Never played a culdcept before and still have mine in shrinkwrap.

You'd think monopoly + magic the gathering sounds fun as shit but Culdcept is boring as shit and "matches" take ages

Culdcept is a niche weirdo thing just like people who enjoy SaGa games

[Bebpo]

I've seen the list some devs are cheap hoes

Microsoft used to pretend those money hats were big.

Those aren't the exclusive moneyhats though.
That's just for free games which are usually available everywhere and old.

I'd be more interested in how much they paid each dev for the 1-year exclusive moneyhat on new titles like Outer Wilds, Control and Hitman III.

[Nintex]

Mike Wikan's take on the Metroid Prime Trilogy remaster

[Svejk]

https://www.thathashtagshow.com/2021/05/05/exclusive-bloodborne-series-in-early-development-for-hbo/
 

[Don Rumata]

Can't even do a patch.
Wastes time with some HBO bullshit.

 

[Svejk]

https://twitter.com/psnrelease2/status/1390094994803941380

 

[bork]

https://twitter.com/psnrelease2/status/1390094994803941380

 

https://www.gematsu.com/2021/05/baldurs-gate-dark-alliance-coming-to-ps4-xbox-one-and-switch-on-may-7-pc-and-mobile-in-2021

Publisher Interplay Entertainment and developer Black Isle Studios will release Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch on May 7 for $29.99 / £29.99 / €29.99, followed by PC and mobile later in 2021, the companies announced. It features enhanced graphics and up to 4K resolution on supported platforms, as well as local cooperative play.

[Great Rumbler]

Can't even do a patch.
Wastes time with some HBO bullshit.

 

Bloodborne on HBO 

Bloodborne on Steam

[Rufus]

Dark Alliance remaster is nice and all, but no amount of visual touch ups will fix how boring they* actually are (and I've played them multiple times ).

*meaning all Snowblind engine games, with the possible exception of Bard's Tale (if you're into the story and like the silly songs)

[MMaRsu]

Yeah werent those games like the poor man's console RPG? :')

These days you have stuff like Wasteland 2 and that other big RPG game uhh cant remember the name but you know with the prince lizard guy and the skeleton

Divine Divinity or something

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah werent those games like the poor man's console RPG? :')

They were part of the first generation of RPGs from former PC devs who moved to console development when the PC gaming scene was on life-support. Like, there were fine enough games in 2001 if you were a console gamer, but they don't really hold up that well.

[chronovore]

(Image removed from quote.)

(Image removed from quote.)

Mike Wikan's take on the Metroid Prime Trilogy remaster

Is he famous? He was at Accolade at more or less the same time I was. 

[bork]

Yeah werent those games like the poor man's console RPG? :')

They were part of the first generation of RPGs from former PC devs who moved to console development when the PC gaming scene was on life-support. Like, there were fine enough games in 2001 if you were a console gamer, but they don't really hold up that well.

They were fun hack n' slash games and not really like what was on PC at the time, except for Diablo (kinda).  I really liked the first game and the Champions Of Norrath games.  Was fun playing 2-4P multiplayer (online!) and getting loot/leveling up.

[Beezy]

GTA 3, Smash Bros Melee, MGS 2, Tony Hawk 3, Sonic Advance, Mario Kart Super Circuit, Devil May Cry, NBA 2K2,

[benjipwns]

NO IT'S NOT A MOVIE:

[HardcoreRetro]

I remember seeing those Half Life 2 screenshots back in 2003 or something and thinking it was almost photorealistic.



This one.

[Joe Molotov]

NO IT'S NOT A MOVIE:
(Image removed from quote.)

[Nintex]

(Image removed from quote.)

(Image removed from quote.)

Mike Wikan's take on the Metroid Prime Trilogy remaster

Is he famous? He was at Accolade at more or less the same time I was.

He was the lead designer on Metroid Prime 1, 2 and 3.

[benjipwns]

And the SCROLLS, look at how many LINE SCROLLS this game has. Wow! Such programming!

Dave would hand out 95+s to any platformer with at least four line scrolls.

[Great Rumbler]

WHERE ARE THE SCROLLS

[naff]

I remember seeing those Half Life 2 screenshots back in 2003 or something and thinking it was almost photorealistic.

(Image removed from quote.)

This one.

make it blurry and 540p and yeah, prob looks about as good as any scene from 28 Days Later :p

[Nintex]

Resident Evil GameCube all these years later still looks so good with pre rendered backgrounds.

Makes me wonder why those aren't being used anymore

[Don Rumata]

Resident Evil GameCube all these years later still looks so good with pre rendered backgrounds.

Makes me wonder why those aren't being used anymore

Because graphics are good enough that you don't need them? And they present endless downsides, from not being able to change stuff on the fly, to no dynamism whatsoever (aside from canned animations) to poor scalability with time (see how they have to bend over backwards to upscale them now, compared to the character models), general detachment with 3 elements in the scene (be it interactive objects or characters).

There's a couple of indie RE clones doing the fixed camera thing, and they're still going full 3d, because nowadays the jump isn't that obvious anyway.

In the future it'll even make less sense, with stuff like ray tracing becoming real time and DLSS style image reconstructions freeing up processing power.

[Bebpo]

Nah, I'm with Nintex on this one. Pre-rendered CG backgrounds at high quality like the REmake ones could've had a lot more mileage across a lot of genre but it's not what mainstream players want so it didn't happen.

[naff]

i do love a good pre-rendered background, and i still think there's some artistic merit to mine there for indie/niche titles. look at what Obsidian did with PoE 1 and 2. shit looks incredible and the art team could go wild with as much background complexity as they wanted with something that runs on a relatively low spec machine, recreating the look of the infinity engine in a modern game. i love it, and it was a big draw to buying the first PoE for me. i also love the look of those Final Fantasy upscaling projects like FF7 Remako and FF9 Miguri. Never actually played one though. The pre-rendered art aged really well imo

[Bebpo]

Yeah, I forgot about IE type wrpgs that still use it. Pillars does look great thanks to it.

[Don Rumata]

Old prerendered background "aged well" because then, it was the only way to do decent looking graphics, so compared to 50 polygon shitty box rooms they still look more detailed.
Nowadays, the difference wouldn't be substantial enough.
And even then, again, look at the headache you have to go through to upscale those assets (and they still don't look perfect).

I'm not against the technique obviously, for example when used to make stop motion with irl dioramas or paper craft, it still has a space, but for traditional cgi graphics, i think the time's past.

[naff]

that difficulty to upscale is because they lost the original hi def renders.

I think artistically the technique still has some merit, as do other older rendering techniques like parallax scrolling

[naff]

offline rendering techniques can still produce a vastly superior image to what you can do in real time. blending different techniques could still produce a brilliant graphical showcase (and imo, this was achieved with pillars of eternity).

would love a modern final fantasy in the psx style taking advantage of the ease of creation for pre-rendered assets, and creating large worlds full of beautifully detailed environments without taking 6 years to do it.

[Don Rumata]

As i said i'm not against the technique if it's meant to convey a particular art style and vision, i love Amanita Design games a lot and those are all 2D backgrounds.
But if it's just a function of "offline render can produce better cgi" then i don't think it's worth the myriad of draw backs, for most games.

Sure i'd be curious to see some game do it, but it's not like you wouldn't have to create all the assets anyway.
After all FFIX already cost a fortune and had a massive team back in 1999 (or 2000 or whenever it was).
And you couldn't have a lot of exploration, since you'd need unique screens, you couldn't use most procedural techniques that even games like GTA or Red Dead use to populate maps, etc etc.
I mean it's not a mystery to me why they stopped using it.

But yeah i'm not arguing there aren't any uses for it, just not main stream, in my opinion.

[bork]

[Fifstar]

The fixed angles of games with prerendered background are also difficult from a gameplay pov. How fun is it to miss shots because the camera angle is weirdly aligned with the char and the enemies? It sorta works with survival horror but for anything more action oriented it's a bit dodo.

[Bebpo]

The fixed angles of games with prerendered background are also difficult from a gameplay pov. How fun is it to miss shots because the camera angle is weirdly aligned with the char and the enemies? It sorta works with survival horror but for anything more action oriented it's a bit dodo.

It's good for adventure games, rpgs, survival horror. Hell DMC (wasn't DMC1 pre-rendered?) & Onimusha even pulled it off as melee action.

I think these days it mainly could work for indie rpgs/adventure games.

[Don Rumata]

No DMC1 is all 3d, but it has fixed cameras (that pan around).

I think it works well for ATB rpgs where you can move around, too, like Parasite Eve (although PE2 was more action oriented).

[Nintex]

Yeah I'm thinking games with mostly fixed camera's, like top down Zelda games, RPG's (I think Baten Kaitos had pre-rendered backgrounds), strategy games etc. .

Wouldn't Fire Emblem look much better with partially pre rendered backgrounds? It wouldn't make much difference for the gameplay. 

[bork]

Dino Crisis 2 used pre-rendered backgrounds and it was fantastic- filled with fast-paced gun action.

Too bad they ruined that series with 3.   :'(

[benjipwns]

I had a roommate who was a huge Dino Crisis fan, so when I got an Xbox he wanted to get 3. I convinced him to get Genma Onimusha (from his second favorite series) first because it was like one-third the price at GameStop.

Close one.

[benjipwns]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/9480/discussions/0/3149682775496734153/

I've been trying to come up with a good way to say this, but there really is not one. I'm stepping down as Volition's Community Developer.

The reason why is a simple one; the cancer that I fought so hard with last year was only a temporary victory. It has come back with a vengeance, and I only have a short time left here on this earth.

You are probably wondering what will happen with the Saints Row 2 patch project. While I will no longer be managing Community, I will continue to work on this for as long as I am able. Please understand that it is 100% my choice to spend my last days contributing to it. Both Volition and Deep Silver have been incredibly supportive and have always given me the opportunity to leave the project with a solemn vow to make sure it gets finished without me. We have also been planning for this eventual moment, and brought on additional programming help some time ago to make sure it happens. While I am hesitant to give any kind of timeline, I can say that there have been huge strides made. I am confident that it will meet everyone's high expectations and standards (including mine.)

Anyone that knows me, understands that I have the deepest love for both the people at Volition and our community. I hope I was able to shine a light on how we make games and who we are as both developers and people, and maybe make everyone's day just a little bit brighter in some small way. Oh, and one last thing... while I probably won't be here to see the launch, our new Saints Row game is absolutely going to blow the roof off. I am beyond proud to have been a part of bringing it to life.

but also

[MMaRsu]

But also exclusive to egs so yea

[MMaRsu]

Emulation 😍

[BIONIC]

Fan translation from his official tweet: https://twitter.com/yokotaro/status/1391415376206995457

As I play MHRise, here is a story I thought up

- After the tutorial there is a rampage and the buff old man acts as a shield to save everyone but dies. In fact, he dies due to a mistake made by the player.
- Either the dango girl or the buddy plaza kid dies. The one who doesn’t falls into darkness and sets fire to Kamura village. The chorus from the buddy plaza BGM no longer plays.
- The last boss arrives but nothing you can do will harm it, but you can sacrifice one of the twins and make a weapon out of her that will damage it. You the player has the choose which of the girls. After creating the weapon, there is no longer singing in the village BGM.
- As main characters die out, they are replaced by the store generic NPCs, and they start to come to the conclusion that the player is a danger to the village. They start restricting items and weapons, making the game more difficult.
- During a super hard quest, the target monster is able to talk. They tell you the “true meaning” behind the monsters and Kamura village, and we learn the reason why our hunter has a voice in this game.
- After clearing all the village quests, the village is left asunder. You can only play online multiplayer. The players, who have lost everything, can only go on killing monsters in this cold and barren world. (Title of the game is shown)

A true artist 

[Joe Molotov]

Who's the real monster? 

[Nintex]

Ubi just announced they're going to change their focus from AAA games to 'high end' F2P releases to the horror of their shareholders 

[Don Rumata]

Ubi just announced they're going to change their focus from AAA games to 'high end' F2P releases to the horror of their shareholders 

I enjoyed many of their AAA shit.

also source, pls, i wanna read about it.

[Nintex]

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/ubisoft-says-its-changing-strategy-to-focus-on-more-high-end-free-to-play-games/

First new 'high end' F2P game is the newly announced The Division Heartland
It's Far Cry and Rainbow Six before September and then Skull and Bones late 2022.

They're going to drag out Valhalla with a "post-launch programme" so no AC in the near future either. I guess that confirms the Uncharted-like Assassins Creed game in development at Ubi Sofia was cancelled.

[Don Rumata]

Look forward to see that new Splinter Cell now. 

[Nintex]

They know it's a disaster because they want to do this very carefully but this explains the exodus I was told about apart from all the #MeToo scandals with senior management a while back.

https://twitter.com/Luceobrien/status/1392241262086946818

Unlike F2P games which are risk free 

Seems to me like the biggest hits are still the games that have both a strong single-player and multiplayer component or a focus on either of those things.

[chronovore]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/n9z82o/a_holy_relic/

[Rahxephon91]

It seems to me the biggest failures have been Anthem and the Avengers. GAS games. Then you've had things like Battlefield's Firestorm probably a waste of resources. Did Ubisoft's BR that you've already forgotten even make a splash? Yeah, they probably won't sell 20+ million copies and can be expensive(though somehow Japanese developers budget games accordingly and somehow are happy with 2+million sales).

[Svejk]

I think I agree with Cory...

https://twitter.com/corybarlog/status/1392234608570224640

Then again, personally, I could care less about Watchdogs or Far Cry...  maybe even AC, if they don't get their ducks in a row with that series... And streamline those teams onto a AAAA Splinter Cell already.  I want to hear the 3D audio and see the ray traced sweat off of Sam Fisher's ass cheeks voiced by Michael Ironside.  With Metal Gear practically shelved atm, this is the time for them to strike.

[Nintex]

At this time all that is in Ubisoft future is the one thing they fought so hard to prevent. A buy out.

[paprikastaude]

EA and Ubisoft have been uninteresting casual game companies for decades now. Singleplayer games are more popular than ever. Even Activision last gen had a short epiphany with Sekiro and all those remakes that had no MXT whatsoever (before Bobby bailed out again after Crash Bandicoot 4 didn't outsell those remakes )

[Don Rumata]

I think AC Origins was the high point of the series tbh, even though Odyssey went too far with that fantasy RPG shit, the new direction made sense to me, and produced cool open world games.
A lot of people bitching about the series losing its identity, but before the reboot, every AC was the same was of bitching that the series never innovated, so you just can't win with that shit.
Ghost Recon Wildlands was one of my favorite games of the last few years (and Breakpoint was shit, ok).
I also think Watch Dogs Legion was a good direction to try and make WD stand out from just another GTA clone, and i dumped 100+ hours in Division 2, so obviously i liked that a bunch.
I even had fun with FC5, as far as the shooting goes (even though the gameplay loop was fucked in that game).

In short, i was happy, for the most part, with their AAA titles.
I'm assuming they want to double down on titles like R6 Siege, which already killed the franchise for me (always saw R6 as a singleplayer/coop game).

[Pissy F Benny]

ubi make decent junk food games, and if they want to let me eat shit free of charge so be it

tbf something like the division probably makes more sense to go free to play and make their off battle passes and shid, rather than be a full priced game. and didn't rainbow 6 siege start picking up steam when it went almost free to play?