Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@ThanosReXXX - Ha, nice one. Santa needs to hire Snoop Dogg for his defense team. Snoop can clear this all up for him if he can confirm that the word he was using all those years had an “e” on the end of it. That would then clear Santa on his harassment charges.

@ThanosReXXX I remember when I first played Rogue Squadron 2, a Christmas gift I got alongside my Gamecube when it was new and I remember thinking "Wow, these graphics are incredible, we'll never get better than this! It looks real! XD The games were a lot of fun, and I loved that they drew on some of the old expanded universe content, like flying V-Wing speeders against the World Devestators on Mon Calamari. I wish we'd gotten to fly E-wings and K-Wings in some missions though. Then there was that mission where Wedge crashes on Genosis, somehow finds the Jedi Starfighter that Obi-Wan left there like 40 years prior, still in perfect condition of course, and escapes - that was in the 3rd game. Silly, but fun!

Also, wow, some things never die!

@NEStalgia Yeah, I didn't have that issue luckily, but I very much can imagine the frustration if you were stuck on older internet while every site was dumping all kinds of flashy trash everywhere. And that was the era where unregulated ads were everywhere with obnoxious flashing gifs, music, even video and crap pop ups, overlays, it was nasty!

Never really had that issue with Nintendo Directs honestly. But I don't often get to catch them live either so, happy coincidence perhaps.

@Tyranexx Even a few years ago I wouldn't have thought an article like that would draw criticism. But in the last year and a half or so, my general opinion of people online has been on a basically endless drop that resembles the stock market in 2008. At this point I just expect the vast majority of people online to be vile.

@Tyranexx "mobile first" rebroke the internet. Now we have two versions of sites... One always missing content or functionality. Or we have most desktop websites with rediculous hamburger menus and fanfold navigation. Pardon me while i mercilessly stab the next person I see. Ohai bimmy!

@Heavyarms55 Oh yeah, you have to watch ND live to get the buffering nightmare. For a doomed company they manage to cripple youtube by posting a number on a screen.

@ThanosReXXX awesome comic!

@bimmy-lee I'm sorry, he will always remain Snoop Doggy Dog to me.

@NEStalgia I'm sure somehow someone will blame Nintendo for YouTube glitching.

Me: I wonder if there's been any relavent news about the coronavirus

checks news

News: Buy this stock before the coronavirus vaccine comes out and you could make millions!

This is why I despise the elite and Wall Street. They don't even try to hide the fact that they profit off of tragedy and suffering at this point.

@bimmy-lee Well... I'm not entirely sure that someone like Snoop would aid his cause...
Then again: stranger things have happened, for sure. As they say over here: only in America.

@Heavyarms55 Try playing them on a big HD screen in 2020, and with the right cables, you'll find that they still look good...

As for things never dying: if you're talking about ICQ, then that's only partially true: it's been gone for a while, then taken over by some kind of Russian or Eastern European company, and now it's back with a fresh coat of paint.
I don't do PC chats anymore, though. I've got my smart phone and WhatsApp for that, so they've come back too late to reel me back in.

On a side note: concerning news about the Corona virus or anything related to it, the latest tidbit is that for no apparent reason, people worldwide are stockpiling toilet paper. By the bucket loads. It was all over the news here today, and I saw footage from Europe, the US and Australia. Total madness and empty shelves in stores.
I still have no idea why or what the connection is, because I missed that part, but maybe people are stockpiling it, because they're all expecting to be quarantined at some point in the near future, and obviously, you'd need your supply of wipy papers, if you can't leave the house...

@NEStalgia Thanks, but you already told me that.
Oh, wait, you were talking about the Santa comic...

@ThanosReXXX Well I didn't mean to imply that they don't look good still, they do - I happen to have that HDMI adapter for my Gamecube. Just that things did get better and I think most of us had a point like that where we thought "wow, things are incredible, they can't get more impressive than that!" and then they did.

Also I can personally confirm that paper goods thing. Even here in rural Shiga, Japan I went to the local store and they were sold out of nearly all paper goods, and hand sanitizer and most soap. Schools are closed but staff is still expected to come to work... for reasons. So most of us are really really bored and just cleaning random things.

Contracts are weird.

@Tyranexx - Hey, I missed your reply earlier, sorry about that. Sounds like a crazy day. Thanks for the compliment. That was my intent, to incorporate a necessary, but unappealing object like the alarm into the wall in some way. If I can’t come up with an arcade DK related way to to it in my son’s room, I saved the stencils, and he can get a Pac Man version. It’s less work actually. No bow, beauty mark, or colored eye to worry about.

@NEStalgia - Sorry about the late reply, some psychotic rando stabbed me on the train. We struck up a conversation, and it seemed normal at first, but then he tried to tell me that the quality of life was actually better during the Great Depression, which seemed odd, but he was convincing. Then he yelled something about how there’s too many versions of sites, and stabbed me. Jeez. Anyway, he’s Snoop Dee-Oh-double-Gee-Why-Dee-Oh-double-Gee to me, ya see?

@Heavyarms55 Ah, okay, guess I didn't quite get you there, then. And I'm kind of a retro nut, and I usually find that I'm not part of a big group when it concerns still enjoying and appreciating older games. I guess I've always had a knack for seeing things in the right perspective, so for example in this case, I would never compare the Rogue Squadron games to anything current gen, because not only would it not be a fair comparison, it's also rather disrespectful in my opinion, so all in all pretty useless if you ask me.

But for their time, they most definitely were the epitomy of what was possible on the tiny purple cube. Some might even say that it actually showed that, when used/programmed in the right way, it could easily hold its own against the original Xbox and the PS2.

But yes, agreed on thinking that things couldn't get much better back then, and then being surprised multiple times over during successive generations, when things actually did. However, what's also pretty clear by now, is that we're in the era of diminishing returns, where it concerns computer graphics, because although image quality in general still improves, increase in details and such are becoming more and more incremental instead of being true generational leaps. And so subtlety comes into play, with things like HDR, raytracing technology and all those kinds of tweaks.

But who knows, maybe I've spoken too soon, and the Xbox Series X and the PS5 are going to completely blow us away after all, so I may be surprised yet...

@ThanosReXXX Plot twist, X and PS5 will be powered by toilet paper.

@ThanosReXXX Unfortunately like a lot of things, some aspects of the internet seem to have elephant memories. I did find some criticism of her Captain Marvel character from some fan perspectives that seemed legit though. That personally isn't a character I'm too familiar with from the comics. I'm fine with constructive criticism that I've found, though funnily enough the "constructive" part of that criticism is often lost on the internet.

@Heavyarms55 I think some of it depends on what corners of the internet we hang out in, but in general I do believe online etiquette has gone downhill. I think social media and only residing in echo chambers that have little variety are part of the problem. And heaven forbid if someone has a slightly different opinion from most of the status quo, has decent reasoning as to why and keeps the discussion civil, and yet is still treated like a heretic....

@NEStalgia "Yeah, I'll take my hamburger with extra images and a side order of spam ads, please!"

@ThanosReXXX It's not that I'm comparing them directly to newer games, not at all. It's just that graphic technology has improved, and the things that impressed me then have indeed been pushed much further now and at this point, I've seen the improvements so many times that I just assume the tech is going to keep improving. Unless of course coronavirus kills us all in which case there will be no one left to improve the tech.

Also, I was biased, I much prefered the Gamecube to the PS2 and Xbox. I got that little cube first and loved it! I got the Game Player for it and I think that's a big part of why I love the Switch so much now, because it reminds me of playing the same games on TV and on the Go back then. Though ultimately I did get each console that gen, and thoroughly enjoyed all 3, Gamecube would be my fave. There's only a few PS2 games I really am nostalgic for and basically only Halo 1 and 2 on Xbox that I remember as fondly as Nintendo titles of the same era. Also not saying there aren't tons of great games on those system, just that for nostalgia, for me, that's how it works.

@bimmy-lee My first thought would be to paint the wall surrounding the alarm to look like a barrel so that the alarm could be the barrel end, but I'm not sure how that would work or look in practice.

@Tyranexx I really think that years of the ability to hide behind a screen and say worse and worse things to and about one another has taught segments of the population that "it's okay, you can get away with it". Like with everything, there are better and worse places but in general, I've come to expect, by default, the worst of people online. At least that way I can be pleasantly surprised with the minority of decent people I run into occasionally.

Two remarkably pleasant experiences recently have been here, on NintendoLife, having recovered mostly from the cesspool of Pokemon hatred that it descended into a few months ago, and last weekend on Discord, I teamed up with a few random people from a Discord server I'm in and we hunted Mewtwo raids in Pokemon. It was a lot of fun and shockingly pleasant, polite and friendly.

But then, any time I look at the comments on YouTube or any news site that allows them, I'm reminded how nasty things get. Or if I am forced to check twitter for something like a release date... yuck.

@ThanosReXXX It’s usually the software that entices me. Right now there is a lot of stories speculating which machine will have more flops, “true” ray tracing...

All I’ve seen is that Hellblade game and something on the PS5 being marketed as a “looter slasher” (that name 😂).

So it’s hard to feel too impressed yet. With all those flops though, I’m sure something will impress.

@Heavyarms55 I just avoid most comment sections much of anywhere on principle except when the topic seems (key word) innocent enough. I've been bitten by this more than once - it's amazing to what lengths some will go to drag politics or some form of trolling into a barely related (or fully unrelated) discussion - but I've also found some decent behavior too. I'm getting better at bailing out of comment sections and threads that become toxic. I didn't read the Brie Larson article here merely because it didn't interest me, but now I'm happy to avoid it after reading some of the feedback about the comment section here. I can only withstand so much facepalming....

If only there were more effective ways to punish people for behaving like morons. Unfortunately, unless they do something VERY illegal (and sometimes not even then), the repercussions are negligible to non-existent.

@HobbitGamer Well, at least their respective critics will be able to wipe their behinds with them, then...

@Heavyarms55 Well, regardless of any kind of preference, you still didn't close your eyes to the other platforms, so that tells me that at the very least, you aren't one of those close-minded fanboys who only thinks that the platform he supports is the best and that the other two should die.

I've always been multi-platform, even when I didn't have a console yet. Back then, I had several home computers and a PC, and then I added an N64, and then a Dreamcast, and then after the GameCube generation, I bought my first Xbox, the 360, and I've basically stuck with Nintendo and Microsoft ever since. I personally don't buy anything Sony, but that has nothing to do with the console itself, but more with the company, and my personal issues and experiences with them over the years, which have been less than stellar, so to speak.

But like you, I'll never just support one platform, because they all have their merits and good games, and a healthy industry NEEDS multiple parties, so wanting the others to die off would actually be the exact opposite of what any sane gaming fan should be wanting to happen. But try and explain that to those kinds of individuals...
I think I'd rather stab myself with a serrated steak knife. Multiple times... And that would STILL be a more useful and enjoyable experience than trying to talk sense into tunnel-visioned idiots...

@Tyranexx Far as I'm concerned, that criticism is only valid/warranted in the eyes of the beholder. Much like with other books to movies features, everybody always is the expert on how a character should be portrayed or look like. I also do that to some extent, since I'm also only human, after all, but thanks to my job, I've also been trained to look past these subjective things whenever necessary or applicable.

Captain Marvel is supposed to be a member of the Kree, a warrior-like race that also suffers from a superiority complex, that has always been the case in the comics, at least, so her acting all aloof and haughty and stuff in the movie, is not so much Brie channeling her inner self, but actually correctly portraying the character as it was in the comics.

For all intent and purposes, she's basically the sane version of Jean Grey's Dark Phoenix persona, so she might come across as all those things I said, and perhaps even as an empty character, but the character is all those things to some extent, except for empty, but in all fairness, the MCU, although having done a reasonably decent job at bringing all these characters to life, does have this empty character problem with nearly all of its characters, simply because of there being too much source material, and too little time to cram that all into a trilogy or quartet, or even if you add cameos in other Marvel series or movies.

So, they have to pick and choose, and as such, a pretty big part of the die hard comics fans will always see these movie versions of their beloved characters, some of which they grew up with, as empty, inferior or at the very least watered down versions of them.

Me, I just see them as entertainment, and even though I know most of the original stories AND the multiple re-imaginings done over the years, I won't put the movies and the comics side by side to point at every little thing that the movies "forgot" to mention or did wrong. And don't get me wrong: I simply LOVE the original stories in the comics, but I also understand how translations to the big screen work and that choices needed to be made, and I think they've done a pretty decent job with most of the movie series so far, and personally, I'm quite looking forward to the upcoming phase of movies.

@NotTelevision The whole Teraflops thing is just a data channeling/pushing feature which, in and of itself, has nothing whatsoever to do with better graphics. It only allows a chip that has more of them, to push more data and more data faster than a chip that has less, but it doesn't mean that it can process better graphics. Just that it can process MORE graphics in the broadest sense of the word.

Actually, if you increase the resolution of these graphics, which I'm sure they will, then the number of data packages that you can push through a chip will decrease again, so it's also a balancing thing. You'll both want the new system to be faster and producing better visible results, but you don't want it to stutter, obviously, so they'll more than likely achieve the best results with the backwards compatible titles, even if they add some kind of texture pack upgrades, because these graphics (and as such the data) will be much smaller in size, so on a newer, faster system, they will be able to push/stream these must faster than the native graphics.

But as I said, unless both new consoles pull some kind of magical rabbit out of the hat, I'm not expecting there to be a true generational leap over the current premium models of the Xbox and PlayStation. It's definitely going to look better, but not by much, and that's also a cost thing. People aren't going to want to pay premium PC gaming rig prices for a plug and play console after all, so a gaming PC at its highest setting/configuration will still trump any of the new consoles arriving shortly.

@ThanosReXXX There's always people who latch onto something and just refuse to consider anything else. I wont lie and claim I don't favor Nintendo, but I favor Nintendo because what they offer happens to be what I like best. They have the games I love on the platform I prefer. But that could change. Although I have a Wii U and enjoyed it some, it didn't draw me in at all like Switch did, or other consoles in the past. I've owned most major consoles over the last 20 years in some form or another so I like to think I've given most things a chance at least.

I think we see, in smaller scale, with video game companies, what we see with politics. People get so invested in one group that they start refusing to consider anything else.

The Switch has been for me, while still imperfect, the absolute best gaming experience I've ever had. It's 3 years in and I can say it delivers the experience still, that I always never even knew I wanted. I say it like that because if you'd told me that something like the Switch was coming, back in the GBA or Game Boy Color era, I'd have laughed in your face and asked how many tens of thousands of dollars would it cost to have a handheld that's also a console? Back then I didn't consider such a thing remotely feasible. And yet, I have always loved having the ability to play my portable games on the big TV at home. The Switch is saying I don't need to sacrifice much of anything to play the same games portable or on TV? It was love almost at first sight!

It's also important to note that Nintendo has many of the game series that I have loved all my life and has continued to deliver the experiences I most enjoy in terms of software as well as hardware. It's not that other companies haven't given me games and systems that I've enjoyed, they have, but they've never managed to really take that top spot. Though Xbox 360 did really come close.

But all that said, Sony or MS or someone else could drop something tomorrow that I never new I always wanted and steal that spot from Nintendo, and while I don't see myself ever abandoning Nintendo games, I could be won over for that number one spot. It's not impossible.

@ThanosReXXX - Man, I’ve been missing replies all day. Only in America is right. Not only could Snoop be a celebrity lawyer, he probably has a shot at being president. I don’t know how many Twitter followers he has, but I assume a lot. That’s the number one prerequisite these days. I need a beer now.

@Tyranexx - That’s a great idea with the barrel. I could do a couple levels of platforms and ladders as if it’s tumbled all the way down. I know I can’t tape off a DK and paint him though. I initially tried taping off Ms Pac Man in an eight bit aesthetic, but it was madness. I can’t do stuff free hand. I can only tape and stencil.

@HobbitGamer - They’ll still be 800 times more powerful than Switch though. Then what are you gonna doooo brother, when the 27” pythons run wild on youuuuu and there ain’t no more Switch games?!? Bet you didn’t think about THAT!