@DarthNocturnal The funny thing is that @NEStalgia is a real train fan, so why the hell he would want to derail any topic is probably even beyond himself...
@rjejr Ah, Escher... Reminds me of my art school classes. Back in the day, we did an entire essay on the man and his works.
'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'
@BlueOcean MS's are more replayable/continuously playable I think. Sony's are more memorable as stories.
I totally agree. The story and voice acting of The Last of Us and the Uncharted games is the only thing I remember about those games. I could play Forza Horizon 3+4 and Sea of Thieves for years, I haven't tried most of the others yet: State of Decay 2, Gears, Halo (except 1), Sunset Overdrive... Big backlog here and I do play...
...Now I'm addicted to Team Sonic Racing (on sale now), it's much better than Mario Kart 8 in my opinion and in some ways it's better than Transformed (visuals and performance at the very least). No, there aren't any transformations but the whole package is really solid. The story mode is like World Tour but more focused, the team mechanics are easy, super fun and add a lot of strategy. You can play Grand Prix and multiplayer without team mechanics if you want. The story makes sense, of course it's childish like a cartoon but I laughed with a few lines. I'm sad that this game has got backlash because it's all about the Sonic franchise and it's a cars game. I don't care, it's an awesome racing game anyway.
@BlueOcean Yeah. In a way I think MS Game Studios represents what Sega, or at least Sega of America used to bring to the table (recall things like Toejam & Earl were rejected by Sega Ltd, it was SoA that pushed a lot of that stuff in the Genesis/Megadrive era. It's a lot of very, very arcade style play in the Sega tradition, and often things that don't neatly fit into categories or genres but sort of "projects" and "experiments." (To be fair, Gears and Halo, despite very solid, well designed arcade gameplay have the common issue of both falling into the same "duedbro macho shooter" trope that became a stereotype of XBox, along with fast cars....despite fast cars being an arcade staple since forever - and synonymous with Sega's brand.) And to be fair to Sony, Sunset Overdrive I don't think of so much as a Microsoft game so much as just an Insomniac game...and Sony has more Insomniac love with Ratchet and Spidey than XBox has, though I maintain Sunset is the prototype of Spidey more or less. Insomniac has never disappointed me yet.) But man if Sunset doesn't feel like a Dreamcast era Sega cabinet.....
I've played halo 1, 3, ODST, but have to get back into 2, Reach, and 4. 5....I've still not heard great things about the story mode. I really have to get into gears. I started playing 1....it's great but primitive....I tried out 4 to see what Coalition's take is and it's quite impressive. Tropey of the macho shooter of course...but gameplay is better paced than the first1. Curious about 5, but I want to play in order. Someday I'll get to that.
Still, Sony does the whole interactive adventure thing well, and I miss that kind of focus on XBox (Obsidian to the rescue?)....But that was always the classic fault with Sega consoles as well, and part of what damaged them against Nintendo & Sony. Sega consoles were so limited on RPGs and almost entirely devoid of adventure games. I've always loved the arcade, but I've also always been a huge RPG and interactive adventure fan starting with Zelda. Sony's games have a lot of diverse themes and worlds, but gameplay, like Ubisoft, tends to follow a rubric too often with them. Give & take I guess. Well, that and Naughty Dog.....I still maintain Naughty Dog is simply not a great studio, and never was, even before Sony owned them. Crash is OK. The UK thinks it's the best thing ever somehow....but it was never a really great game. I think the second trilogy not made by Naughty Dog was actually better. IMO the big thing that makes a Sony console worth owning, yes, I like several of their own games, but is that list of Japanese third parties that only publish on Sony (Atlus, I'm looking at you) and, up until this past year, most of Square-Enix' stuff. That seems to be changing rapidly as Sony pushes everyone away. Granted, OG Xbox had Tales of Vesperia (Sony had it in Japan), but the fact that the coolest part of the XBox show as a Tales game, Phatasy Star, and a new From software game, and Square-Enix's show had only one PS-only game (that may be timed rather than permanent), and an expansion for a PS only MMO, with the rest all on XBox (and often Switch) kind of says everything.
There's still some more "off the path" Japan stuff that's only on Sony, and it will probably stay that way, but more and more of that will be moving toward Switch. Danganronpa etc.
It's somewhat interesting in that Playstation is the dominant hardware by far. But as Switch takes over much of the "Japanese games" content due to Japan not being interested in home consoles, and XBox being the best platform for console ports of Windows games, It makes one wonder what the Playstation's actual (not perceived) niche is, currently. Though I'm glad MS is vested in maintaining that status quo...the 3-way split is probably what's best for gamers. Much of that comes down to Phil though. If XBox ever lost Phil they'd probably become contemptible. He "gets" the industry where the rest of MS tends to blunder their way from money grubbing initiative to the next. Kind of like Sony's new management is doing....
Welp, Microsoft just answered my email. No refund for me. Yay, there go my 250 pesos.
I’ll go ahead and proceed to unjustifiably dislike the game for the rest of my life, even though I won’t actually give it a chance and it’s truly just my fault for being careless.
@BlueOcean What's so special about 2.1 if you're not running 8k, with object based sound, networking, etc. through it.
The TV world has become so completely weird in the last 4 years or so. They're so deep into pushing useless tech for the sake of tech now. It doesn't serve any real goal, it's just to sell new tech. You don't see that level of weirdness in any other industry anymore. Even phones died down on that and are basically minor enhancements now. Only TVs get away with trying to reinvent everything annually.
@NEStalgia Variable frame rates, automatic low-latency mode, etc. You don't need 8K to benefit from 2.1 and 2.0 doesn't fully support these new gaming protocols. Any game that doesn't hit its 30 or 60 fps target whether it's 1080p or 4K will output a smoother frame rate and have lower input delay. lt is the most significant improvement for gamers in all HDMI generations. So yeah, it's a big deal. More than 4K and more than HDR. This is the great thing about Xbox One X that supported HDMI 2.1 in 2017 and now in 2019 users can buy the first 2.1 TVs (LG).
@NEStalgia No offense, but that is rather short-sighted, though. You'll never get a monitor as big as a Full HD, 4K or 8K TV, and with zero lag game modes and what not, there's really little to no reason, other than having a small house and sitting only inches away from your screen, to not maximize a console's visual potential by plastering the image all over the big screen that it absolutely deserves.
My current plasma screen is 42 inch, which is already considered small nowadays, especially if you're sitting the required/recommended 10 feet away from it...
'The console wars are like boobs: Sony and Microsoft fight over which ones look the nicest and Nintendo's are the most fun to play with.'
@Zuljaras Completely agreed. I'm already squinting now, with the small texts that a full HD game sometimes displays...
@Morpheel Of course, and I know, but that wasn't really my point. My own PC monitor is also a lot smaller (24"), and when I'm sitting at the desk that it's on, I'm only at an arm's length away from it. But gaming like that, although I still do it sometimes, isn't nearly as comfortable as gaming on the couch and on a big screen. My desk chair can only lean back so far, and it's got wheels, so I must always take care not to incidentally push myself away in the heat of the moment...
@Anti-Matter Well, then you've probably got pretty good eyesight. That would be too small for me. Once you're used to a certain size screen, you simply can't go back to anything smaller. Well, at least I couldn't.
@ThanosReXXX I played the retro consoles on a 19" TV with knobs and dials from like 10 feet away. Then graduated to a 24" TV 10 ft away. When I moved to PC it was a whole new world for decades. The whole "cockpit play" was wonderful. Going back to consoles, frankly trying to play on TV is simply unfun. Regardless of how "big" it is. TVs are weird in that they should have just become giant monitors, but they keep doing all this weird stuff with them instead.
Part of it is, "short sighted"....literally....even on a larger TV playing from across the room I can't read the text without glasses, and that's just unfun
But also, personally I find 22+" sitting right in front if it is actually a lot more immersive than a giant screen on the other side of the room. Especially with some good headphones. I don't think I'd really want to trade that setup for even a 140" screen. Too much neck rotation to see it. (I have a front projector, a low-end one, I can do the big 100+" screen thign...I tried Uncharted 3 and MH 3 that way some years back. It was a cool effect being so big...but not nearly as immersive. A smaller screen right in front of you is like a reduced version of the immersion of VR.
There really shouldn't be the split there is between monitors and TVs though. TVs were going down the route of becoming large monitors, and there was no reason not to. There's basic things monitors have done from the beginning TVs are still not doing, or doing well, and there's all the fancy new stuff they put on TVs but never monitors, or at least not monitors under the "very large/gaming-oriented" class. 4k/8k...I just don't get the appeal as that would matter more on a monitor than a TV - I couldn't tell the difference between 1080p and 500k at a normal sitting distance from a TV. I'd kill to have it on the monitor where, as you know, they I see every blade of grass IF they ever find one that fits the right size and meets the mount's weight max I'd buy it. Still waiting on NEC. They're more industrial display oriented, but the quality of their displays, both in output and build and reliability is far beyond everything else I've seen. But they don't move to new trends fast, they're very stoic in their offerings and most new stuff is is more trade-specific (such as medical specific monitors for X-Ray viewing.) No joke I've seen 4k displays with worse output than my 1080p NECs of the same size. Not all panels are equal.
Though that's a can of worms even if I could upgrade - I'd love HDR too (not available in that format still), but then the complicated nest of HDMI switches/repeaters/EDID fakers neesd to be replaced and THAT is a complicated and expensive mess. And then they'd probably obsolete that in 2 years. And then I'd struggle for weeks getting the random "made in China" switch to work right (note MOST made in China switches you see on Amazon that say 4k are only 4k@30Hz. As in, not useful for gaming. Very very few say they work at 60Hz or faster....and often reviews from owners suggest those don't really do it either. Of course you can buy name brand switches from HT oriented companies meant for installers. So to get the "real" version of the $50 Chinese switch on Amazon, you can buy one for $1200 from a company like Geffen that sells to HT installers. Ugh.
I have forever hated HDMI though. I hated it day 1, I still hate it today. It's a disaster of a system, that was supposed to be a universal forever connector rather than constant format changes and then became a versioned nightmare with compatible versions, incompatible versions, pre-ratification non-compliant draft versions, spurious specs from Chinese manufacturers, power consistency/falloff issues, and the single most fragile connector ever conceived, that buckles under the weight of it's own cable mass. It's simply a poor design from beginning to end , designed by lawyers and politicians, not by EEs. It's a data format designed around DRM and visual appeal, not around the needs of the protocol and physical specs.
Ever get to play with SDI? It's the commercial/studio/production equivalent of HDMI. It's LIGHT YEARS beyond HDMI. But it's not built around DRM so it's off limits to consumers. Most often it uses locking BNC connectors. If it weren't for gaming consoles I'd just use SDI equipment and never look back.
BTW, can you guess the biggest player responsible for the utter mess that is HDMI being the mess it is? Your dear, dear, friend Sony. The company that hasn't produced a consumer device yet that actually outputs spec voltage levels on an HDMI out to date......... Nintendo can do it. Microsoft can do it. But no, PS4 always drops of the HDMI switches due to insufficient voltage even with repeaters....it's a know issue even on Sony's BD & DVD players.
Very clever move by Microsoft, put Banjo in Smash and then put Rare Replay into Game Pass. Banjo in Smash was the biggest Microsoft announcement of E3 after all.
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