I Had a Random Thought (About Video Games)

[Dewar]

Robocraft's FTP purchasing system is extremely reasonable as well. It ends up being around $5 for a month of premium and with premium I've pretty much never needed to buy another part with real money.

[Griddlelol]

Who's tried this month's PS4 PS+ offering of Apotheon? I turned it on and instantly decided I liked it because the aesthetic is totally original (in terms of games at least) and right up my alley. 

 

Turns out it's pretty fun too. The combat is a little awkward, but surprisingly satisfying. When you kill someone the enemies do a Dark Souls ragdoll and fly around. 

 

Here's a picture!

[osmosisch]

Revolution 60 makes me sad because while I like almost everything about its creation, the product itself has aesthetics that really, really put me off. The weird waifish physiques, the anime-ness (animicity?), the stilted animation...

 

It didn't matter much until now but the Greenlight upvote button says 'yes I would buy this' and I don't like lying (voted yes anyway for the greater good).

[SuperBiasedMan]

Seeing those aesthetics and then hearing Wu on Isometric makes a really weird combo because she talks a lot about caring about graphics but clearly not the actual aesthetics. At least in the way where a lot of people are just blind to that, even if they might read something as unappealing they just don't get why it is.

I feel a bit of a butt for criticising her like that because I wonder if I'm more willing to criticise her as a woman. Then I remember that I'm a butt to everyone with poor aesthetics.

[Bjorn]

I downloaded the demo on the iPad, but only messed with it for a few minutes.  I'd give it another shot on PC, though I agree it's not a game that inherently appeals to me, in part because of the aesthetic design. 

[Twig]

Revolution 60 looks repulsive, and I don't feel bad about saying so. I do not want to play it. It is really ugly. I cannot stand how it looks at all.

 

I voted yes, anyway, to counteract the bunches of no's she otherwise wouldn't get if she wasn't a GG target. I don't even know if no's matter, I don't think they do, but whatever. Fuck those guys.

[Griddlelol]

I don't get Tactics Ogre. It plays weird and isn't at all fun. It's a strategy RPG, I should be all over that thing. 

[Gormongous]

Revolution 60 makes me sad because while I like almost everything about its creation, the product itself has aesthetics that really, really put me off. The weird waifish physiques, the anime-ness (animicity?), the stilted animation...

 

It didn't matter much until now but the Greenlight upvote button says 'yes I would buy this' and I don't like lying (voted yes anyway for the greater good).

 

I'm glad I'm not alone. I'm even fairly amenable to a heavy anime aesthetic, but there are a variety of extremely off-putting things in Revolution 60's artistic design that make it impossible for me to bear as a whole. When Wu talks on Isometric about the graphical ugliness of a game, which often boils down to something esoteric like the improper use of the alpha channel, I feel like I'm hearing the learn'd astronomer.

 

And yeah, still voted for it on Greenlight. It'll be someone's game, just not mine.

[Trip Hazard]

Grow Home looks really lovely. Like, mother-flippin' gorgeous. Can't wait to murder that Dodo from the launch trailer and turn it into a bandolier

[eot]

I keep coming back to Q3 trickjumping year after year. I don't think there has ever been a game with as many interesting mechanics that are bugs. This is a fairly hard strafe jump lane that I finished last night, the hardest one I've done in a couple of years. It's super satisfying when you finally get it.

[N1njaSquirrel]

In 10 years, when they re-make Deus Ex 3, will it be shortened to Deus EX: HR DC HD?

[Bjorn]

In 10 years, when they re-make Deus Ex 3, will it be shortened to Deus EX: HR DC HD 4K?

 

That's going to be the next trend in remakes.

[Professor Video Games]

4k is also referred to as Ultra HD (UHD). Maybe we can start getting Ultra Editions!

[N1njaSquirrel]

USFII UHD Edition coming to PS5, Xbox 1 and PC 2018.

 

If you record Pasturised milk in 4K does that then make it UHT in UHD? 

[Justin Leego]

Xbox One-Two

[Atlantic]

Yo! Game Critic Heather Alexandra (@transgamerthink on the Tweeters, follow her!) has started doing critical LPs for games. Check out her first interlude and first part of her Shadow of Colossus critical LP.

 

 

 

 

Also check out her writing! It's real good!

 

(If there's another thread where one shares game critics' works, be sure to tell me!)

 

Thanks for posting these videos. They're good! 

[rohlfinator]

Thanks for posting these videos. They're good! 

 

I'll second this! I actually picked up the Ico/SOTC HD disc so I could replay them after watching this series. It's still kind of wild how many cool things SOTC does that haven't really been matched after almost a decade.

 

I'm really enjoying her Skies of Arcadia vids too.

[marblize]

So like 4 years ago I got stuck on a single puzzle piece in Braid's shadow stage. I beat it today, after randomly deciding to give it a shot. I don't know what was wrong with me before. But yeah I dunno. That game's story kind of grosses me out. The ending is pretty great but the tone of the rest of it is kind of bizarre.

[Zeusthecat]

I actually had a friend over last weekend for the first time in a long time. We loaded up the Mega Man Collection on GameCube and decided to give Mega Man 2 a whirl since it is such a revered classic. Neither of us had played it before but we were able to at least get to the boss on each of the stages we played relatively easily. In that regard, the game was a blast and we enjoyed going through the levels and getting a bit further each time until we finally got to the end. And then the bosses murdered us repeatedly and we kept getting game overs and eventually just booted up Smash Bros Melee. I know there is a certain order you can complete them in to make it easier but the game reminded me how much I prefer every other part of a video game much more than any boss battles it might have. There are definitely exceptions to this but generally, the only boss battles I really like are ones that are easier than the rest of the game.

[tegan]

I usually do Metal > Wood > Bubble > Air > Flash > Crash > Quick > Heat.

 

If nothing else, do Metal Man first, just because his weapon is absurdly overpowered an he's not at all difficult to fight.

 

 

In other news, Japanese Club Nintendo is going out with a bang, it seems.

[Merus]

I'm hearing a lot of people say they don't like boss battles recently. I fuckin' love boss battles. That might just be because I haven't played enough games with bad ones - Nintendo often gets it right, although I think my favourite boss battle was actually in Darksiders 1, which had a boss in an arena with something that would clearly hurt the boss in the wrong hands, but it took steps to keep you away from it and it had attacks that were nastier if you were in position to hurt the boss. Boss fights don't usually feel like the boss is noticing your tactics and responding to them, but that one did.

[Sno]

I'm a huge fan of Megaman, and boss fights in general, but i definitely understand where Zeus is coming from. Yes, there's technically a "right" order to do them in, but you'll notice, especially with 2, nobody really ever agrees on what that order actually is. That's because, despite the system of weapon weaknesses, you still have to fight that first one with nothing but your mega buster. Everybody has their own fight that they think is easiest to do in that state, but it doesn't change that the first boss you fight in any Megaman game is always going to be one of the hardest ones, and it's kind of a really fucked up thing about the series that never got addressed. Those levels and fights don't scale with you as you power-up, they start out being as hard as they can possibly be and only get easier.

[Merus]

It's the thing that bothers me the most about Mega Man and I'm glad that Shovel Knight's take on the concept put them in tiers - an acceptable compromise over having each level ratchet up the difficulty for each boss defeated.

[Valorian Endymion]

While first two games and their expansions (expect Soulstorm) where really good games (and some of best warhammer 40k you could find) when I replayed the Retribution I found a single problem - while the campaign with different factions where a nice idea, the problem is that nothing react to you like in Dawn of War I (which had amazing, in warh40k level, dialogues), does not matter if you play as Tyranid or Imperial Guard, dialogues where the same. That can be a bit strange, specially when you play as the Tyranids, as no one even freak out when you show up. Also the fact that Tyranids have a single hero and you control more standard units, does not work really well. Much of the fun in Dawn of War II was micro manage you four heroes, without it kind fell like a normal rts, since you won´t use much over as the Tyranids nor have much control over them, also you don´t control enough units to feel like a swarm.

 

Know what? I am really enjoying Attila, its not perfect, but its no Rome II at lauch (right now Rome II is quite good, however the ui still bad), performance is good, much better interface/UI and many new elements which I am enjoying it a lot.

[Sno]

Very recently, i played the first Dawn of War and its expansions for the first time, and it struck me as a very odd game. I came away with the impression that you have very little precise control over movement micro due to the way the pathfinding shakes out, where in exchange the game emphasizes unit abilities and unit customization to a seriously unusual degree. I often felt like i was spending 80% of the game staring at the game's taskbar, because that seemed to be where the majority of the action was happening.