The Bill's Now Playing Video Game Thread (Now with Bames)

[The Bill]

It's when one of your sims is in the pool and you delete the ladder, immersing him in water while you quietly pinch your helmet.

I Googled “Are the Sims an Immersive Sim?” and while no proper answer was given, under more results was the question, “is pizza in Fallout?”. The answer is no, but pizza is a type of food.

The internet is ruined. I need to get into ham radio.

[FVBTVS]

im definitely with you on this one, The Bill

i didn't know this term until a few weeks ago myself

[spacehamster]

Wikipedia claims the term was first used for Ultima VI in 1990.

I vote we call them Immersive SMIs.

[The Bill]

Wikipedia claims the term was first used for Ultima VI in 1990.

So, RPG.


Listen now. Abouts 10 years ago I bought some PS2 first person shooters to play on the PS3. Of them, one was TimeSplitters 2. I beat this back in 2002. When I replayed it, I felt something was off with my memory. Loved it, but found it simple. Well, now. Looks like your friend The Bill was anxious to blast through it, (to get to other games) and played it on Easy. I’ve since installed the Dolphin Emulator and procured a TimeSplitter 2 iso, so I can play it even better one day. I replay the first level Siberia every season it seems. You know, to test emulation and I genuinely like this game. Funny thing is, I play this on Easy, just to zip through it. Well, imagine my surprise when I randomly stumbled upon a YouTube video with a thumbnail containing a mysterious helicopter for the game. Seems that Easy mode abridges the fucking game. Now, this just ties my socks into unsalted pretzels. I NEED to go back in and play the bastard proper, damn you. Crazy! I watched the clip and Easy cuts out like 1/3 of the level, including a boss fight. Teach me to be lazy and blitz through a great game.

[spacehamster]

Wikipedia claims the term was first used for Ultima VI in 1990.

So, RPG.

Well, the Wikipedia article also mentions Bioshock and other games that aren't RPGs.

All I can think about right now, though, is endless debates on the Bioware forums around the heyday of ME2 about whether it was really an RPG or not, and out of all of the stupid internet arguments I've been a part of in the last 25 years, that must have been the worst. So let's not have a conversation about videogame genres.

[FVBTVS]

i mean when i think harder about it i believe i had encountered 'immersive sim' in the wild many times but i felt like it was just an incidental descriptor and not intended to be a whole genre

i dont think anyone ever used to call system shock or deus ex that.

[The Bill]

i mean when i think harder about it i believe i had encountered 'immersive sim' in the wild many times but i felt like it was just an incidental descriptor and not intended to be a whole genre

i dont think anyone ever used to call system shock or deus ex that.

No, no one I knew, nor game reviewers used that term. It’s popped up out of the woods like “boomer shooter” did. They used to be called “with RPG elements” and retro shooter/DOOM clone respectively. There is some agenda behind it, I tell you.

[Honky Kong 64]

Finally beat Blasphemous. Good god what a fucking game. Wanted to 100% it but I'm a bitch and can't finish Alcazar of Grief and one of Miriam's challenges.

[ghost boner]

Ghost of tsushima fucking rules

[FVBTVS]

starfield looks insane

[The Bill]

starfield looks insane

No Man’s Sky, Mass Effect, and Elite Dangerous vibes, but between modern games needing constant patches and this being Bethesda how many years till it’s actually properly playable?

[FVBTVS]

fallout 76 was a special kind of disaster but fallout 4 was fine on launch day? to release a 45 minute deep dive worth of info and then release a jank fest would be an all time big dick bethesda move

Im trying to imagine what a game like that with a couple years of mods behind it could be like

[doomeddisciple]

30 fps cap after hearing about how Series X is the god tier hardware is a slight red flag to me despite how gorgeous the gameplay and everything is looking after the weekend.

I just more think of the PS3/360 days of Skyrim, or Fallout 3 or New Vegas where once the save files start getting chunky the amount flat out restart the console bugs those game all had.

Considering Sony have managed to get pretty consistent 60fps with their exclusives, I wonder if MS/Bethesda are aiming at 30 to make sure of it and not overstretch?

[The Bill]

30 fps cap after hearing about how Series X is the god tier hardware is a slight red flag to me despite how gorgeous the gameplay and everything is looking after the weekend.

I just more think of the PS3/360 days of Skyrim, or Fallout 3 or New Vegas where once the save files start getting chunky the amount flat out restart the console bugs those game all had.

Considering Sony have managed to get pretty consistent 60fps with their exclusives, I wonder if MS/Bethesda are aiming at 30 to make sure of it and not overstretch?

I can’t even fathom the days I’d play a game like Skyrim on console. Between mods, unofficial patches, and flexible settings, it’s down right primitive.

Benen playing the Half-Life mod Azure Sheep. Sure it may crash once in a while, and HL’s a.i. path tracing can be a bitch, but this friggin’ mod is better than any of these new “boomer shooters” or open world shooters I’ve played in years.

[The Bill]

That new Star Wars looks that complete unoriginal trash. Bad Uncharted with Star Wars wrapping paper around it. I bet right now a Darkwing Duck DOOM mod would be better than what this turns out to be.


Any PC folk use an external SSD drive for game type ways? My main storage is an internal HDD that has served me well, but the newer games aren’t even being tested on HDD, so load times and texture pop in is going to get irritating. This is probably the last tinkering I do with this PC and hope to get it running well enough for 2-3 years before buying a new beast.

[The Bill]

Any PC folk use an external SSD drive for game type ways? My main storage is an internal HDD that has served me well, but the newer games aren’t even being tested on HDD, so load times and texture pop in is going to get irritating. This is probably the last tinkering I do with this PC and hope to get it running well enough for 2-3 years before buying a new beast.

Screw it. Ordered a supposedly decent Samsung one off Amazon that was on sale. I think a great test will be the Dolphin emulator when it loads custom textures. That seems to be the most noticeable lag I’ve seen. Aside from Rage 1’s texture pop in when you just turn around.


Beat Azure Sheep. Need to get back to Rats 2: The Game once the SSD arrives.

[ghost boner]

My God you guys are nerds

[Eight Bit Alien]

SHUT UP

[The Bill]

My God you guys are nerds

Vern, Verny, Vern. We all know your social standing as “cool” lays between the mortician from the beginning of Friday the 13th 4 and Col. Mustard in the library. Anyhow nerds defeated Ogre and the jocks, so, would you rather be a winner or a whiner.


That SSD drive is a Godsend. Load times on levels and textures on what i tried are decimated. Custom textures for Windwaker on Dolphin went from 5 minutes to fully load to less than a minute.

Beat Plague Tale: Requiem. Game goes from wannabe Tomb Raider to wannabe Akira. It was good, though.

Also beat Megaman 2. Damn, even a legend of a game like this has some bullshit that’s only beatable if you memorize a level perfectly. NES games are real assholes.

I leave for a long ass vacation in less than 2 weeks. I don’t know what to play.

[Eight Bit Alien]

Also beat Megaman 2. Damn, even a legend of a game like this has some bullshit that’s only beatable if you memorize a level perfectly. NES games are real assholes.

Taking night shift with the baby, i played through Megaman 6 to 2 in reverse. Used save states the entire time, absolutely refuse to apologize.

[Eight Bit Alien]

2 has to be the best out of all of em. Really a perfect game. Megaman was such a pure, genius little series. It fucking sucks that they never figured out how to modernize that series... i never enjoyed any of em after X2.

Edit: I lied. There was a few Zero games on GBA which were absolutely fantastic. Insanely hard tho

[The Bill]

Also beat Megaman 2. Damn, even a legend of a game like this has some bullshit that’s only beatable if you memorize a level perfectly. NES games are real assholes.

Taking night shift with the baby, i played through Megaman 6 to 2 in reverse. Used save states the entire time, absolutely refuse to apologize.

Oh, I did as well. Too old and not enough time to be replaying Quickman’s bullshit laser traps or what have you. Plus needing an entire full Crashman’s weapon bar to get past that later stage boss room. I don’t believe I ever played 5 & 6. I remember beating 4 pretty fast, only had to rent it once from Blockbuster. 4 has Pharaohman, right?

[Hunter]

I completely dropped Marvel Snap, as it started feeling like I was constantly chasing new cards, and that shit sucks. I will say that the early game is a ton of fun, but after a certain point it starts feeling pay to win.

A couple weeks ago, I picked up Tears of the Kingdom, after having already convinced myself that I'd pass on it. I never got very far with Breath of the Wild - it's not the kind of game you can put down for a week and come back to easily. TotK is likely similar, but I had some time off to get into it - and holy fuck did I put time into it (approaching 60 hours at this point). I know there's a lot of hype about this game, almost obnoxiously so... but I'll be goddamned if it doesn't live up to it.

[doomeddisciple]

My God you guys are nerds

Vern, Verny, Vern. We all know your social standing as “cool” lays between the mortician from the beginning of Friday the 13th 4 and Col. Mustard in the library. Anyhow nerds defeated Ogre and the jocks, so, would you rather be a winner or a whiner.


That SSD drive is a Godsend. Load times on levels and textures on what i tried are decimated. Custom textures for Windwaker on Dolphin went from 5 minutes to fully load to less than a minute.

Beat Plague Tale: Requiem. Game goes from wannabe Tomb Raider to wannabe Akira. It was good, though.

Also beat Megaman 2. Damn, even a legend of a game like this has some bullshit that’s only beatable if you memorize a level perfectly. NES games are real assholes.

I leave for a long ass vacation in less than 2 weeks. I don’t know what to play.

Got a 2TB ssd for external ps4 games and a Firecuda 2TB memory expansion for ps5 internal and happy with performance on both fronts.

Playing Judge Dredd on SNES cause someone told me the dark judges were in it and I don’t think I’ve seen them in any media outside the comics

[The Bill]

Playing Judge Dredd on SNES cause someone told me the dark judges were in it and I don’t think I’ve seen them in any media outside the comics

They’re in the first person shooter Dredd game. It’s on Steam and GOG, but you can also emulate the PS2 & Gamecube version. It’s just okay. I never finished it.