Custom Robo is a good game, no doubt about it. I played the hell out of it back in the day. But it had a Super Robot Mecha style of design. UC Gundam and Macross tend to go for… well you can’t call it realism since they are designed to sell model kits but in their own universes the designs make some military sense most of the time.
Especially Universal Century designs in the OVAs. Like the GP01 or the RX-78-NT1 “Alex.” They went a bit overboard with the Zeon suits though, although I generally prefer Zeonic design aesthetics (MSN-06S Sinanju from Unicorn is my favorite Mecha design of all time, followed very closely by the Zaku II Kai from 0080)
So ultimately it’s hard to compare the two.
Also, most Gundam games are trash and aren’t worth playing. But there’s been some hella good Macross and Robotech games.
GameCube, N64, SNES, and NES were state of the art machines when they released. In fact, only the GameCube launched against another console that had superior horsepower, the original Xbox.
Nintendo didn’t exit the power war until the Wii. Probably a result of the GameCube being a console made for developers (it was the easiest console to program on for its generation, the Xbox was in theory easier but many Japanese and console exclusive western devs found it difficult to adjust to building games in a Direct X environment but that got better over time) that ultimately came in last place.
Nintendo used to launch the most powerful consoles. But seeing how AAA budgets were exploding in the latter half of the sixth generation they elected to redefine their views for the Wii. It was a decision made because of software development costs, not hardware development costs.
Not making an excuse. The last 3 to 7 months of game development (depends on the scope and size of the game) tends to consist of bug fixing and improving performance across the game.
I will say that the AUs have been… mostly bad. The only AU series I’ve truly liked was IBO (mainly because it was a pretty inventive set-up and for first time since Zeta a “villainous” force actually won; plus the dub was surprisingly good) and I liked parts of Gundam Seed Season 1. Gundam 00 wasn’t terrible either. The less said about Gundam Seed Destiny the better. It’s at the very bottom for animated Gundam.
And while I’ll always hold a soft spot for Gundam Wing (like every other American, it was the series that got me into Gundam) it’s painful to rewatch. It’s just bad all around. The mecha designs are both overdone and boring at the same time, the characters are literally bland stereotypes (Duo is the only character I feel had good writing and good character development), and it didn’t go anywhere for half the episodes until the “Zechs takes his mask off” arc where they shoehorned what felt like another 50 episodes of story into about 8 episodes.
The UC OVAs have been solid, though. Unicorn, despite its flaws, was fantastic. The Origin was interesting, even if it completely retconned the elements around the One Year War. And Thunderbolt was amazing; it was the strongest Gundam OVA since 8th MS team. I also really enjoyed Hathaway Part 1, since it’s one of the few Gundam works that has successfully managed digital art with CG assets even if it felt a bit rushed.
The only mecha that compares to Universal Century Gundam’s mechanical and weapon designs (won’t include the AUs, since their designs are either pretty decent like Gundam Seed Season 1 or downright disastrous like Gundam Wing’s, although Tallgeese was sweet) is Macross. And that franchise has been getting abused almost as much as Gundam has.
At this point I don’t we will ever see an adaptation of Crossbone. Bandai has all but said screw the late Universal Century.
Best we are going to get is that they’ll finish Hathaway. After that, if we get anymore UC at all, it’ll be another Federation vs Zeon OVA at best.
Which don’t get me wrong is great, since the strongest UC material is always framed around that conflict. But I would love to see at least Crossbone adapted to an entire series or at least an OVA. It’s by far the best of the late UC stories and it holds up to the Feddie vs Zeke material.
Christ Bandai all we Gundam fans ask for is more Universal Century high budget OVAs. We don’t need no metaverse
For example, where is Gundam Sentinel? Or Crossbone? Or Portrait of a Young Comet (we need more Haman Karn) Or most importantly what is the timeline for the other two Hathaway movies?
They waste so much time with the AUs and now they are adding meta aspects? That’s not what we want. We want more Universal Century aka the real Gundam timeline.
As much as I loved Forbidden West, I don’t think it has what it takes to get in. Although I think it may win a best graphics award. Game is stunningly beautiful.
As for Zelda, I’m sad but not surprised. Oh well there’s still plenty of good games coming out for Switch and PS5 to keep me busy until it drops next year.
Double Dash was a wonderful racing game whose potential was cut short by Nintendo’s insane decision not to have some sort of universal online infrastructure with the GameCube.
Many a GameCube game would have benefitted from having broadband only online play. Instead it was just used for Phantasy Star Online.
I’m not saying they needed something like Xbox Live or Sega Net (both of which were way ahead of their time) but they could have at least went the Sony route on the PS2.
I don’t mind politics in gaming, but it needs to be of a more philosophical backing rather than actual day to day events.
I’ll compare two different games with political undertones, Bioshock and COD:MW 2019.
Bioshock does it right, MW 2019 does it wrong.
For Bioshock, it’s an exploration of Randian ideology. The entire game’s framework and backstory is a critique of Randian flavored libertarianism, which has numerous faults. At its core, Randian Libertarianism seeks to abolish morality from economic matters. And Bioshock does a good job exploring the pitfalls of that sort of system without being egregious about it.
MW2019, meanwhile, treats its political subject matter with very little nuance or respect. It’s an exploration of the political aspects of the War on Terror, which is ongoing event. That right there creates difficulty because it is an exploration of a political event, rather than an ideology. It forces the gamer who is observing to take its ideological bend at face value, without breaking down the ideologies involved in the conflict.
So for me, I enjoy a political game like Bioshock. While I didn’t care for MW 2019’s “ripped from the headlines” political dissertation. I think games like Bioshock, Final Fantasy Tactics (which is a story of class conflict), and Horizon Forbidden West (the conflict of environmental reorganization versus pure profit motive) do it right because they aim for high minded political discussions about ideology. Games like The Last of Us Part II, MW 2019, and Far Cry (which to be fair, is a parody more so than a serious discussion about politics) do it wrong.
It’s pretty easy. Most of it was stored on external data devices, like CD, DVD, or harddrive. Before the 7th generation, developers were never concerned with rereleasing games on newer hardware. So anything could happen that would cause them to lose them. Just moving offices was a major cause of loss. Or employees taking it home and then losing them.
The game industry was an entirely different animal back before the middle part of the 7th generation. No one cared about preservation; they only cared about making new games. So once the game was done, they would put the source on an external device and then promptly forget about it.
I would say play Trigger first. Technically Cross mostly stands on it own from a philosophical standpoint, but the overall story is tied heavily to the events of Trigger.
I’m not surprised. The casuals are buying it without reading the fine print.
And it really sucks how this turned out for GT7. I was really hyped for it. But I decided to wait and I’m glad I did. Unless they fix the credit progression I won’t be buying it.
I actually feel competitive for once because it forces my opponents to face me at what I’m best at; tactical maneuvers and shooting.
I’ve always sucked at building. I can build a basic defensive structure and climb up other peoples builds by adding to them.
But this feels so much more liberating. It forces everyone to actually play tactically and take notes of good positions and defensive structures. It levels the playing field. I’m a COD player at heart. And this feels a lot like a 3rd person COD game for the moment.
I do wish Nintendo would do more to nurture and assist their “pro” communities but I think this is just incessant whining.
Like others have stated, Smash is designed as a casual game first and a pro game second. It’s always been that way. Hell the first three were never intended to be pro games; Melee happened to become one solely by accident.
Nintendo could build a Smash game for pros, but then it would damage its sales potential among casuals. Smash sells primarily to casual fans who because at its core it’s easy to pick up and play.
I know Europeans have always paid more than us for petrol but that is just insane.
Most Americans would just fall apart. Everyone here drives enormous SUVs and trucks that they don’t even use to their fullest potential. They tend to drive three row SUVs with just one person in the vehicle. It’s a complete waste of personal resources.
I’m a weirdo in the sense that I drive a Honda Civic Si. I’m a frugal American who loves his fuel efficient compact cars. But we are a dying breed.
I get that Ryan is a good businessman, but he’s been by far the worst face of Sony we PlayStation fans have ever had.
Reggie reminds me a lot of an American version of Kaz Hirai. Passionate about gaming, but also a smart businessman.
Ryan is clearly a smart businessman, but he doesn’t have the gaming passion I want out of PlayStation CEOs. I really think Reggie would be a great addition to the PlayStation family.
Yeah they had this hilarious commercial for the Sega CD that had some rapper in it. At the end some techno-punk letters would spell out “Welcome to the Next Level”
I was never able to. I love GX and it’s my favorite racing game of all time, but people are speaking truth about the late game difficulty on the final cup and the story mode. I could never get enough to complete it. It was bone crushingly hard.
I agree, Nintendo theirselves made huge advances on difficulty balancing during that era.
Capcom also did some major heavy lifting. Megaman 2 a good example of difficulty balancing done correctly for a console setting. It’s brutally difficulty in every way imaginable, but it gives you unlimited continues. You don’t have to replay the entire game for dying to one invisible block set piece 5 times in a row as you try to learn the pattern.
Returnal is the same way. I’ve heard people badmouth it’s difficulty, but they don’t take time to consider that the game gives you the basic tools needed to survive each run. What it asks of the player is to find ways to use those tools.
I don’t think most NES games are good examples. Most of the difficulty was arbitrary, caused by limited continues and limited lives. The games punished you for having to learn how to progress.
The Genesis and SNES library did a much better job balancing difficulty. They mostly did away with limited continues (with a few exemptions, looking at you Sonic 2) and gave you a lot of lives to work with. So even if some of them were frustrating, they didn’t punish you for trying to learn how to beat a level.
I think people have rose colored glasses in regards to the difficulty of classic games from the 80s and early 90s.
Yes some of them (such as Conta or Battletoads) were truly difficult games, but for most of them it wasn’t a natural difficulty like we have now. It was artificial difficulty caused by limited continues and limited pools of lives. A relic of their arcade roots.
Sonic 2 isn’t the most challenging game in the world by any means. But it’s difficulty balancing was twenty levels of wrong. Limited continues and no save system made that game arbitrarily harder because 90% of your deaths were caused by stuff you could not see or predict. Losing all of your lives and then forcing you to restart the game from the beginning wasn’t good difficulty balancing; it was the game punishing you for not being able to memorize all the bull crap deaths (like off screen crush blocks) on your first time through the level.
Celeste on its “meant to be played” difficulty is a MILLION times harder than Sonic 2. The later half is brutally difficult to maneuver through. Yet it is less frustrating and has far better difficulty management thanks to unlimited lives and continues.
Modern games are still challenging. I just played through Horizon Forbidden West on Hard. It’s a challenging game at that difficulty level (I’ll admit that it’s far too lenient on normal) and on Very Hard (which I’ve fooled around with) it’s old school Nintendo Hard. On Very Hard even with the best equipment in the game (like I have) you get constantly one shotted by the more powerful enemies you face, like Apex Thunderjaws or the Apex Spinosaurus Plasma robots. On hard, almost every enemy has one attack that will one shot you that they use as part of their toolkit.
Returnal is an even better example. That’s a truly difficult game but the key point of my post is that it is a FAIR challenge. When you die and have to restart, it’s your fault. Not the game’s. Returnal gives you every tool you need to survive on every run. It’s up to you, the player, to use those tools.
Yeah when it comes to accessibility Sony’s first parties are the cream of the crop.
I still say that The Last of Us Part II has the most diverse set of accessibility options of any game ever made. I didn’t use any of them but it was impressive going through the list.
93 octane where I live in the US is 4.59 per gallon already.
I was going to get Gran Turismo 7, but I decided to go take a look through my backlog and realized there was a bunch of games I haven’t even touched yet. Going to work on those for now and save money.
If you like ninjas, watch SummoningSalt’s video history of Ninja Gaiden (NES) speedrunning.
It’s insanely entertaining. There was a time when the Japanese and American NG running communities were completely oblivious to each other’s existence. We thought we held the world record but in actuality two Japanese runners were nearly a minute ahead of us and were trading the record back and forth. That went on for several years before an American speed runner finally discovered their videos.
The early days of speedrunning were the Wild West. Things were barely tracked back then.
The market hasn’t had a truly pocketable console since the OG 3DS left the market. The 3DS XL was stretching my definition of pocketable, although it could be done with cargo pants or shorts.
The new generations of handhelds are meant to be carried in a case. I don’t own a single pair of pants with pockets big enough to accommodate my Switch V2. Even my cargo shorts can’t accommodate it’s size.
So I don’t see the Deck’s size as a real impediment. It’s larger than the Switch, but not dramatically so. It’ll fit in a case. Neither one will fit in the average pocket.
That second point makes good sense. The Steam Deck has a contoured body and is significantly “thicker” than the Switch. It’s controls are also full sized, similar to a PS4 or Xbone controller in terms of size with the sticks and buttons.
However, a Switch can be made comfortable. Namely replacing the joycon with third party alternatives that are contoured with handles and feature full size controls.
The joycon are the main reason the Switch is uncomfortable for handheld play. When you replace them with something like the Hori Split Pad pro, it becomes far more comfortable.
I think the Deck is perfect for long term PC gamers who have amassed a huge collection of games.
Unfortunately, I left PC gaming at a time where Steam wasn’t the be all end all store it is today. It was getting big at the time, but I had a large collection of games on PC-DVD and PC-CD. My steam library is pathetically small. I actually downloaded the steam client to my MacBook a few months ago just to see what I had bought all those years ago. I owned five games on Steam.
For me, as much as I like the Deck, I don’t think it would do me much good. I prefer to play on a TV or a monitor. And the Deck just isn’t powerful enough to satisfy me as a PC in that regard. And I have a sizable (by my standards anyway) library on my Switch. It suffices and does it’s job as a complement to my PS5, which is my primary platform.
If I decide to get back into PC gaming, I’ll be building the desktop of my dreams. Something that can run the most demanding games at 60fps or higher. Something that runs multiplayer games at 144 fps to match the monitor I would want to pair with it. Until then, I’m satisfied with my PS5 and my Switch.
Comments 461
Re: Rumour: Could We Be Getting New NES And SNES Games This Week?
@GrailUK
The meta focused Fortnite/Apex generation.
Re: Bandai Namco Is Creating A "Gundam Metaverse"
@Travisemo007
Custom Robo is a good game, no doubt about it. I played the hell out of it back in the day. But it had a Super Robot Mecha style of design. UC Gundam and Macross tend to go for… well you can’t call it realism since they are designed to sell model kits but in their own universes the designs make some military sense most of the time.
Especially Universal Century designs in the OVAs. Like the GP01 or the RX-78-NT1 “Alex.” They went a bit overboard with the Zeon suits though, although I generally prefer Zeonic design aesthetics (MSN-06S Sinanju from Unicorn is my favorite Mecha design of all time, followed very closely by the Zaku II Kai from 0080)
So ultimately it’s hard to compare the two.
Also, most Gundam games are trash and aren’t worth playing. But there’s been some hella good Macross and Robotech games.
Re: The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2 Delayed To Spring 2023
@AtlanteanMan
GameCube, N64, SNES, and NES were state of the art machines when they released. In fact, only the GameCube launched against another console that had superior horsepower, the original Xbox.
Nintendo didn’t exit the power war until the Wii. Probably a result of the GameCube being a console made for developers (it was the easiest console to program on for its generation, the Xbox was in theory easier but many Japanese and console exclusive western devs found it difficult to adjust to building games in a Direct X environment but that got better over time) that ultimately came in last place.
Nintendo used to launch the most powerful consoles. But seeing how AAA budgets were exploding in the latter half of the sixth generation they elected to redefine their views for the Wii. It was a decision made because of software development costs, not hardware development costs.
Re: The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2 Delayed To Spring 2023
@Crono1973
Not making an excuse. The last 3 to 7 months of game development (depends on the scope and size of the game) tends to consist of bug fixing and improving performance across the game.
Re: Bandai Namco Is Creating A "Gundam Metaverse"
@sdelfin
I will say that the AUs have been… mostly bad. The only AU series I’ve truly liked was IBO (mainly because it was a pretty inventive set-up and for first time since Zeta a “villainous” force actually won; plus the dub was surprisingly good) and I liked parts of Gundam Seed Season 1. Gundam 00 wasn’t terrible either. The less said about Gundam Seed Destiny the better. It’s at the very bottom for animated Gundam.
And while I’ll always hold a soft spot for Gundam Wing (like every other American, it was the series that got me into Gundam) it’s painful to rewatch. It’s just bad all around. The mecha designs are both overdone and boring at the same time, the characters are literally bland stereotypes (Duo is the only character I feel had good writing and good character development), and it didn’t go anywhere for half the episodes until the “Zechs takes his mask off” arc where they shoehorned what felt like another 50 episodes of story into about 8 episodes.
The UC OVAs have been solid, though. Unicorn, despite its flaws, was fantastic. The Origin was interesting, even if it completely retconned the elements around the One Year War. And Thunderbolt was amazing; it was the strongest Gundam OVA since 8th MS team. I also really enjoyed Hathaway Part 1, since it’s one of the few Gundam works that has successfully managed digital art with CG assets even if it felt a bit rushed.
Re: Bandai Namco Is Creating A "Gundam Metaverse"
@Travisemo007
Uh… What?
The only mecha that compares to Universal Century Gundam’s mechanical and weapon designs (won’t include the AUs, since their designs are either pretty decent like Gundam Seed Season 1 or downright disastrous like Gundam Wing’s, although Tallgeese was sweet) is Macross. And that franchise has been getting abused almost as much as Gundam has.
Re: Bandai Namco Is Creating A "Gundam Metaverse"
@Raptros
My solution to the problem is an asteroid drop.
You cannot save those whose souls are weighed down by gravity.
Re: The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2 Delayed To Spring 2023
@Seacliff
They’ll use it for bug fixing and probably revamping some locations in world to increase performance.
BOTW launched with some pretty poor framerate issues. They probably want to avoid that again.
Re: The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2 Delayed To Spring 2023
@WhiteUmbrella
I hope Starfield is good, but my hopes aren’t high.
That team hasn’t made a great game since Fallout 3.
Re: Bandai Namco Is Creating A "Gundam Metaverse"
@Luigivaldo
At this point I don’t we will ever see an adaptation of Crossbone. Bandai has all but said screw the late Universal Century.
Best we are going to get is that they’ll finish Hathaway. After that, if we get anymore UC at all, it’ll be another Federation vs Zeon OVA at best.
Which don’t get me wrong is great, since the strongest UC material is always framed around that conflict. But I would love to see at least Crossbone adapted to an entire series or at least an OVA. It’s by far the best of the late UC stories and it holds up to the Feddie vs Zeke material.
Re: Bandai Namco Is Creating A "Gundam Metaverse"
@SalvorHardin
Zieg Zeon comrade.
Re: Bandai Namco Is Creating A "Gundam Metaverse"
Christ Bandai all we Gundam fans ask for is more Universal Century high budget OVAs. We don’t need no metaverse
For example, where is Gundam Sentinel? Or Crossbone? Or Portrait of a Young Comet (we need more Haman Karn) Or most importantly what is the timeline for the other two Hathaway movies?
They waste so much time with the AUs and now they are adding meta aspects? That’s not what we want. We want more Universal Century aka the real Gundam timeline.
Re: The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild 2 Delayed To Spring 2023
@JoeSooper
It depends on how good God of War Ragnarok is.
It’ll come down between those two.
As much as I loved Forbidden West, I don’t think it has what it takes to get in. Although I think it may win a best graphics award. Game is stunningly beautiful.
As for Zelda, I’m sad but not surprised. Oh well there’s still plenty of good games coming out for Switch and PS5 to keep me busy until it drops next year.
Re: Feature: Mario Kart: Double Dash!! Is The Best Mario Kart, Right? Let's Find Out
Double Dash was a wonderful racing game whose potential was cut short by Nintendo’s insane decision not to have some sort of universal online infrastructure with the GameCube.
Many a GameCube game would have benefitted from having broadband only online play. Instead it was just used for Phantasy Star Online.
I’m not saying they needed something like Xbox Live or Sega Net (both of which were way ahead of their time) but they could have at least went the Sony route on the PS2.
Re: Soapbox: Kirby Returns To Remind Us That Escapism Isn't A Dirty Word
@Arkay
I don’t mind politics in gaming, but it needs to be of a more philosophical backing rather than actual day to day events.
I’ll compare two different games with political undertones, Bioshock and COD:MW 2019.
Bioshock does it right, MW 2019 does it wrong.
For Bioshock, it’s an exploration of Randian ideology. The entire game’s framework and backstory is a critique of Randian flavored libertarianism, which has numerous faults. At its core, Randian Libertarianism seeks to abolish morality from economic matters. And Bioshock does a good job exploring the pitfalls of that sort of system without being egregious about it.
MW2019, meanwhile, treats its political subject matter with very little nuance or respect. It’s an exploration of the political aspects of the War on Terror, which is ongoing event. That right there creates difficulty because it is an exploration of a political event, rather than an ideology. It forces the gamer who is observing to take its ideological bend at face value, without breaking down the ideologies involved in the conflict.
So for me, I enjoy a political game like Bioshock. While I didn’t care for MW 2019’s “ripped from the headlines” political dissertation. I think games like Bioshock, Final Fantasy Tactics (which is a story of class conflict), and Horizon Forbidden West (the conflict of environmental reorganization versus pure profit motive) do it right because they aim for high minded political discussions about ideology. Games like The Last of Us Part II, MW 2019, and Far Cry (which to be fair, is a parody more so than a serious discussion about politics) do it wrong.
Re: Soapbox: Chrono Cross Really Deserves To Come To Switch Before Chrono Trigger
I’ve played through both Trigger and Cross and it took me a long time to decide what I preferred more. I think I know the answer now.
Trigger is the better game. Cross is the better experience.
Re: Random: Kingdom Hearts Gets A Nod On The Latest Mickey Mouse Cartoon
@OnlyItsMeReid
It’s pretty easy. Most of it was stored on external data devices, like CD, DVD, or harddrive. Before the 7th generation, developers were never concerned with rereleasing games on newer hardware. So anything could happen that would cause them to lose them. Just moving offices was a major cause of loss. Or employees taking it home and then losing them.
The game industry was an entirely different animal back before the middle part of the 7th generation. No one cared about preservation; they only cared about making new games. So once the game was done, they would put the source on an external device and then promptly forget about it.
Re: Soapbox: Chrono Cross Really Deserves To Come To Switch Before Chrono Trigger
@Dogorilla
I would say play Trigger first. Technically Cross mostly stands on it own from a philosophical standpoint, but the overall story is tied heavily to the events of Trigger.
Re: Mario Party Superstars Updated To Version 1.1.1, Here Are The Full Patch Notes
@SwitchplayerJohn
Most people are connected online. They would most likely advertise the DLC on the main menu when you booted up the game.
Re: Yes, Folders Are Now On Switch, Here Are Some Quick Tips
I only have 37 games but I like this.
Re: UK Charts: Multiple Switch Games Surge Into The Top 10 Behind Gran Turismo
@RubyCarbuncle
I’m not surprised. The casuals are buying it without reading the fine print.
And it really sucks how this turned out for GT7. I was really hyped for it. But I decided to wait and I’m glad I did. Unless they fix the credit progression I won’t be buying it.
Re: Fortnite's Chapter 3 Season 2 Calls For Resistance With Doctor Strange And Prowler
@Paraka
I think the story line is just there for the 12 year old sweats.
Re: Fortnite's Chapter 3 Season 2 Calls For Resistance With Doctor Strange And Prowler
I’m actually really enjoying the No build mode.
I actually feel competitive for once because it forces my opponents to face me at what I’m best at; tactical maneuvers and shooting.
I’ve always sucked at building. I can build a basic defensive structure and climb up other peoples builds by adding to them.
But this feels so much more liberating. It forces everyone to actually play tactically and take notes of good positions and defensive structures. It levels the playing field. I’m a COD player at heart. And this feels a lot like a 3rd person COD game for the moment.
Re: Three Sega Genesis Games Have Been Added To Nintendo Switch Online's Expansion Pack
@GameOtaku
Issue is that the Genesis Collection has god awful input lag.
I use it solely for the Phantasy Star games, since the input lag isn’t a big deal on an old school JRPG.
But sonic 2 is nearly unplayable. And good luck beating ESWAT.
Re: Talking Point: Which Other 'Old' Switch Games Would You Like To See Get New DLC?
@FishyS
I agree. Nintendo could do so much more with Mario Maker 2.
I’d love to see these themes added.
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Land
And give us a ton of new items and stage elements to play with.
And actually fix the online play.
Re: Konami Is Whipping Up A Free Indie Games Convention For June
Why do I get the feeling this convention will be Konami attempting to talk the indie studios into adopting NFTs…
I smell a rat. A big stinking rat.
Re: Nintendo Slammed For Its Stance On Super Smash Bros. At 2022 Streamer Awards
@Arisen
Cloud is owned by Square-Enix, not Sony.
Re: Nintendo Slammed For Its Stance On Super Smash Bros. At 2022 Streamer Awards
I do wish Nintendo would do more to nurture and assist their “pro” communities but I think this is just incessant whining.
Like others have stated, Smash is designed as a casual game first and a pro game second. It’s always been that way. Hell the first three were never intended to be pro games; Melee happened to become one solely by accident.
Nintendo could build a Smash game for pros, but then it would damage its sales potential among casuals. Smash sells primarily to casual fans who because at its core it’s easy to pick up and play.
Re: Nintendo Switch Led UK Console Sales In February, But Numbers Are Down Year-On-Year
@hube
Good God man.
I know Europeans have always paid more than us for petrol but that is just insane.
Most Americans would just fall apart. Everyone here drives enormous SUVs and trucks that they don’t even use to their fullest potential. They tend to drive three row SUVs with just one person in the vehicle. It’s a complete waste of personal resources.
I’m a weirdo in the sense that I drive a Honda Civic Si. I’m a frugal American who loves his fuel efficient compact cars. But we are a dying breed.
Re: Reggie Fils-Aimé Criticises GameStop Management's Lack Of "Articulated" Strategy
@Wexter
I wish Sony would hire him to replace Jim Ryan.
I get that Ryan is a good businessman, but he’s been by far the worst face of Sony we PlayStation fans have ever had.
Reggie reminds me a lot of an American version of Kaz Hirai. Passionate about gaming, but also a smart businessman.
Ryan is clearly a smart businessman, but he doesn’t have the gaming passion I want out of PlayStation CEOs. I really think Reggie would be a great addition to the PlayStation family.
Re: Random: Sonic 2 Movie Poster Gives Fans The Major 'Sonic 2sday' Feels
@NatiaAdamo
Yeah they had this hilarious commercial for the Sega CD that had some rapper in it. At the end some techno-punk letters would spell out “Welcome to the Next Level”
Re: Random: Phil Spencer Did A "Crash Course" In N64 And PlayStation When He Joined Microsoft's Xbox Team
@Wexter
It was odd by that days standards.
The SNES layout should have been the layout that everyone after followed. Thankfully, Sony did and expanded on it.
Which is just one reason the PS1 was the true successor to the SNES, not the N64.
Re: Random: Phil Spencer Did A "Crash Course" In N64 And PlayStation When He Joined Microsoft's Xbox Team
@BulkSlash
That’s true, but it was a still an absolutely terrible design that went against the rules of building a good controller.
Re: Review: F-Zero X - The Best The Series Has To Offer
@nukatha
It is, but good luck unlocking it.
I was never able to. I love GX and it’s my favorite racing game of all time, but people are speaking truth about the late game difficulty on the final cup and the story mode. I could never get enough to complete it. It was bone crushingly hard.
Re: Feature: 5 Accessibility Features That Every Game Should Have
@Beaucine
I agree, Nintendo theirselves made huge advances on difficulty balancing during that era.
Capcom also did some major heavy lifting. Megaman 2 a good example of difficulty balancing done correctly for a console setting. It’s brutally difficulty in every way imaginable, but it gives you unlimited continues. You don’t have to replay the entire game for dying to one invisible block set piece 5 times in a row as you try to learn the pattern.
Re: Feature: 5 Accessibility Features That Every Game Should Have
@Snatcher
Returnal is the same way. I’ve heard people badmouth it’s difficulty, but they don’t take time to consider that the game gives you the basic tools needed to survive each run. What it asks of the player is to find ways to use those tools.
Re: Feature: 5 Accessibility Features That Every Game Should Have
@rushiosan
I don’t think most NES games are good examples. Most of the difficulty was arbitrary, caused by limited continues and limited lives. The games punished you for having to learn how to progress.
The Genesis and SNES library did a much better job balancing difficulty. They mostly did away with limited continues (with a few exemptions, looking at you Sonic 2) and gave you a lot of lives to work with. So even if some of them were frustrating, they didn’t punish you for trying to learn how to beat a level.
Re: Feature: 5 Accessibility Features That Every Game Should Have
@Would_you_kindly
I think difficulty should be separated from accessibility. They are two very separate things.
Just because a game is difficult doesn’t mean it isn’t accessible.
Re: Feature: 5 Accessibility Features That Every Game Should Have
@Greatluigi
I don’t think they are.
I think people have rose colored glasses in regards to the difficulty of classic games from the 80s and early 90s.
Yes some of them (such as Conta or Battletoads) were truly difficult games, but for most of them it wasn’t a natural difficulty like we have now. It was artificial difficulty caused by limited continues and limited pools of lives. A relic of their arcade roots.
Sonic 2 isn’t the most challenging game in the world by any means. But it’s difficulty balancing was twenty levels of wrong. Limited continues and no save system made that game arbitrarily harder because 90% of your deaths were caused by stuff you could not see or predict. Losing all of your lives and then forcing you to restart the game from the beginning wasn’t good difficulty balancing; it was the game punishing you for not being able to memorize all the bull crap deaths (like off screen crush blocks) on your first time through the level.
Celeste on its “meant to be played” difficulty is a MILLION times harder than Sonic 2. The later half is brutally difficult to maneuver through. Yet it is less frustrating and has far better difficulty management thanks to unlimited lives and continues.
Modern games are still challenging. I just played through Horizon Forbidden West on Hard. It’s a challenging game at that difficulty level (I’ll admit that it’s far too lenient on normal) and on Very Hard (which I’ve fooled around with) it’s old school Nintendo Hard. On Very Hard even with the best equipment in the game (like I have) you get constantly one shotted by the more powerful enemies you face, like Apex Thunderjaws or the Apex Spinosaurus Plasma robots. On hard, almost every enemy has one attack that will one shot you that they use as part of their toolkit.
Returnal is an even better example. That’s a truly difficult game but the key point of my post is that it is a FAIR challenge. When you die and have to restart, it’s your fault. Not the game’s. Returnal gives you every tool you need to survive on every run. It’s up to you, the player, to use those tools.
Re: Feature: 5 Accessibility Features That Every Game Should Have
@Deady
Yeah when it comes to accessibility Sony’s first parties are the cream of the crop.
I still say that The Last of Us Part II has the most diverse set of accessibility options of any game ever made. I didn’t use any of them but it was impressive going through the list.
Re: Chrono Trigger Gets Ultrawide 21:9 PC Release Before It Gets A Nintendo Switch Release
@Joeynator3000
It was originally. But a combination of official patches and more importantly fan mods have really improved them.
The fan mods did WONDERS for the iOS to Steam ports of FFV and FFVI. Not the Pixel Remasters but the ones with the funny sprite work.
Re: Nintendo Switch Led UK Console Sales In February, But Numbers Are Down Year-On-Year
@hube
Already is for me.
93 octane where I live in the US is 4.59 per gallon already.
I was going to get Gran Turismo 7, but I decided to go take a look through my backlog and realized there was a bunch of games I haven’t even touched yet. Going to work on those for now and save money.
Re: F-Zero X Joins Nintendo Switch Online's Expansion Pack Later This Week
@MegaRock
You’re thinking about GX. GX Story on max difficulty and the final cup races are some of the hardest races on any racing game.
X is challenging, but it won’t make you want to slit your wrists like GX will on its hardest tracks.
That said, I vastly prefer GX. X is a great game but GX improved on it in every single way.
It’s really weird that the best F-Zero game was made by Sega.
Re: Random: Blindfolded Speedrunner Sets New Record On Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
@nessisonett
Matt Turk. The man, the myth, the legend. The American Hotarubi.
Held records in like 20 NES and SNES games at the same time back in the mid 2000s.
He basically invented the art of running Contra NES. Every strategy is based on his original series of runs with modifications.
Re: Random: Blindfolded Speedrunner Sets New Record On Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
@BloodNinja
If you like ninjas, watch SummoningSalt’s video history of Ninja Gaiden (NES) speedrunning.
It’s insanely entertaining. There was a time when the Japanese and American NG running communities were completely oblivious to each other’s existence. We thought we held the world record but in actuality two Japanese runners were nearly a minute ahead of us and were trading the record back and forth. That went on for several years before an American speed runner finally discovered their videos.
The early days of speedrunning were the Wild West. Things were barely tracked back then.
Re: Obsidian's RPG Pillars Of Eternity II: Deadfire Appears To Have Been Cancelled For Switch
@UglyCasanova
There are certain genres I refuse to play at anything less than 60fps. First person shooters and fighting games being the two big ones.
But he’s got an important point. The Switch hardware is starting to hold back games significantly.
Re: Retro-Bit's GameCube Component Cable Will Save You Some Pennies
@Specter_of-the_OLED
I think there’s a home brew mod out there that forces all games to render at 480p. But I think it causes visual glitches in some titles.
Been a while since I was researching the classic mod scene.
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Of Valve's Steam Deck Are In - What's It Like Compared To Switch?
@Rykdrew
The market hasn’t had a truly pocketable console since the OG 3DS left the market. The 3DS XL was stretching my definition of pocketable, although it could be done with cargo pants or shorts.
The new generations of handhelds are meant to be carried in a case. I don’t own a single pair of pants with pockets big enough to accommodate my Switch V2. Even my cargo shorts can’t accommodate it’s size.
So I don’t see the Deck’s size as a real impediment. It’s larger than the Switch, but not dramatically so. It’ll fit in a case. Neither one will fit in the average pocket.
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Of Valve's Steam Deck Are In - What's It Like Compared To Switch?
@Banjo-
That second point makes good sense. The Steam Deck has a contoured body and is significantly “thicker” than the Switch. It’s controls are also full sized, similar to a PS4 or Xbone controller in terms of size with the sticks and buttons.
However, a Switch can be made comfortable. Namely replacing the joycon with third party alternatives that are contoured with handles and feature full size controls.
The joycon are the main reason the Switch is uncomfortable for handheld play. When you replace them with something like the Hori Split Pad pro, it becomes far more comfortable.
Re: Round Up: The Reviews Of Valve's Steam Deck Are In - What's It Like Compared To Switch?
I think the Deck is perfect for long term PC gamers who have amassed a huge collection of games.
Unfortunately, I left PC gaming at a time where Steam wasn’t the be all end all store it is today. It was getting big at the time, but I had a large collection of games on PC-DVD and PC-CD. My steam library is pathetically small. I actually downloaded the steam client to my MacBook a few months ago just to see what I had bought all those years ago. I owned five games on Steam.
For me, as much as I like the Deck, I don’t think it would do me much good. I prefer to play on a TV or a monitor. And the Deck just isn’t powerful enough to satisfy me as a PC in that regard. And I have a sizable (by my standards anyway) library on my Switch. It suffices and does it’s job as a complement to my PS5, which is my primary platform.
If I decide to get back into PC gaming, I’ll be building the desktop of my dreams. Something that can run the most demanding games at 60fps or higher. Something that runs multiplayer games at 144 fps to match the monitor I would want to pair with it. Until then, I’m satisfied with my PS5 and my Switch.