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

[spacehamster]

I hate to say this, but I think the industry’s forced hiring and firing of certain people just due to “social justice” type ways are eliminating people who actually are good at making games and introducing people just to check off boxes that are just treating this more like just a job. No surprise indie games are looking better and better. For example, I tried to play Halo Infinite. Holy fuck, what an unoptimized, generic bore of a Far Cry clone. New Cortana fucking sucks. I could not get past the third main “level” without falling asleep. It’s just so paint by numbers “safe” in every conceivable way except how it runs, which is a disgrace compared to the graphics.

It'll get better. Remember when the big publishers had all collectively decided single-player story games were a thing of the past until the God of War reboot came along?

[Eight Bit Alien]

It'll get better.

it absolutely won't

[spacehamster]

It'll get better.

it absolutely won't

Yeah, I know, cuz the transgenders.

[The Bill]

Oh brother! End of Resident Evil Village falls right back into RE 5 & 6 country.

[The Bill]

If you love Castlevania Symphony of the Night, check out Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth.

[spacehamster]

Platinumed Spider-Man today. Probably the easiest platinum I've ever done (though granted, it's not something I do a lot and most of them have been Souls games) - there's a bunch of really tedious stuff that the game could make you do for it, but then you don't have to.

Really good game overall, like I said a few days ago - aside from the traversal and combat being a ton of fun, it also just nails Spider-Man, for my tastes, and the voice acting is pretty great. The boss fights feel like something from 2010, though, all spectacle and QTEs. I'll probably do the DLC as well.

[The Bill]

Started Crysis 2 (with graphics mods). Not sure why I’m liking it so much more than I did back in 2011 on the 360. Do 60 fps really make that big a difference or do modern FPSers just retroactively improve older games with their crap?

[spacehamster]

From what I remember, I enjoyed Crysis 2 WAY more on PC with a good framerate too. It was actually one of the games that won me over for PC gaming, and I've been a 60 FPS nazi ever since.

Not sure I want to get the remaster, though. I think I mentioned here a while back that I couldn't make it through the remaster of C1, and as much as I enjoyed the second one, I think I actually may have enjoyed it a little too much back then. I really went full autism and played through it way more times than I care to admit. Kinda worried it'll still feel stale now.

[The Bill]

Not sure I want to get the remaster, though. I think I mentioned here a while back that I couldn't make it through the remaster of C1, and as much as I enjoyed the second one, I think I actually may have enjoyed it a little too much back then. I really went full autism and played through it way more times than I care to admit. Kinda worried it'll still feel stale now.

Fuck the remasters. Original version (with graphics mode) looks and runs way better. Plus, PC version of 2 (and 3) have the superior controller scheme already. I bought the remaster of Crysis 1, because I wanted 2’s controller controls. Problem is Crysis 1 is annoying and the remaster is one of the worst optimized games ever. Going 60 fps to 40 in a matter of seconds because ???.

[The Bill]

I want to play something Lovecraftian after Crysis 2. Anyone try the more recent Call of Cthulu or the Sinking City?

[spacehamster]

Problem is Crysis 1 is annoying and the remaster is one of the worst optimized games ever. Going 60 fps to 40 in a matter of seconds because ???.

Yeah, the optimization blew my mind too. It's not like I have a high-end rig or anything, but if I can't get a reasonably steady 60 fps out of your game at 1080p without ray tracing, I'm sorry, your name is now Captain Clown Pants. I guess, I dunno, someone thought the fact that Crysis 1 was basically impossible to run unless your PC cost more than your house was a feature, so the remaster had to do it too? And to be fair, that was the #1 reason why the game was so beloved by PC dorkbags at the time.

[The Bill]

I beat it on the 360, so I don’t feel bad, but Crysis 2 just suddenly no longer appealed to me, so delete!

Decided to give Darksiders 1 another shot. Free on Epic, why not? Image Comics type Zelda clone, lets go. Except my memory betrays me. This isn’t Zelda, this is PS2 era God of War meets Devil May Cry. And it’s boring and annoying and you have to smash every table/car/tree/what have you to collect all the souls. I fucking hate this. Delete!

Maybe it’s a further evolution of game tastes in my elder status, but good games aren’t cutting it. I only want to replay games I know or play something truly great. Crysis 2 and Darkriders are probably good solid games. I just need better now.

Probably replay Witcher 2 with these there fancy nVidia filter things.

[spacehamster]

Witcher 2 on full blast is awesome.

I never really "got" Darksiders either. People loved that game when it came out, but it bored the shit out of me.

[The Bill]

Looks like they came up with a new HD texture mod or pack or whatever you call these upscaled user made textures, for Witcher 2.

[The Bill]

Change of plan. Tried out this fancy new PS1 emulator called Duckstation. Oh boy, games look real damn nice, even getting rid of the Playstation’s woobly graphics thing it used to do. Some people like 8-bit, 16-bit, or pixel art retro graphics. I love the look of the PS1’s 2.5 stuff:



…but hated the low resolution and blurry visuals. This thing fixes that.

[spacehamster]

Meanwhile, I'm working on 100%-ing the DLC episodes for Spider-Man. The stuff's definitely less polished than the main game, but the stories are great and the gameplay's fun, plus I'm in the third and final one now, so no point in stopping now.

[Eight Bit Alien]

I hate the tutorial section of video games so much.

I can't enjoy a game until I play it.
I can't play the game while it's setting up a story, or teaching me how the menus will work once I'm allowed to play it.
I don't care about any video game story until I've played it ENOUGH TO BECOME INVESTED.
I don't like reading or hearing about imaginary people I don't care about yet.

Fantasy "world building" bullshit, factions, kingdoms, fucking crap histories are 99.9999.9999999.9999% absolute trash in this entire shit medium.

MOVIES EXIST. STAY IN YOUR LANE FUCKING NERDS
LET ME PRESS THE BUTTON

I get unreasonably angry at this, and I'm starting to think it borders on unhealthy/bizarre. Like maybe this hobby isn't for me anymore, or maybe I should take the initiative to avoid games which seem plot-heavy, or maybe I should research how long a tutorial/prelude section is before I play the game.

It just feels like my time and attention is being taken for granted in many cases.

[FVBTVS]

no you're not alone its absolutely torturous and it gets worse and worse

when im getting onboarded into a game and i start to bump into new stuff or unfamiliar ui im not used to i have next to zero patience now

i want to be in the middle and enjoying myself

[Eight Bit Alien]

"The spider people ar-"
"Our castle is under atta-"
"I'm a baby/whore schoolgi-"
"Space ship secto-"
"Igakaru Nabunabusta prese-"
"50,0080 years before the blork blork war-"

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
START START START START START START START START START START START START
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
START START START START START START START START START START START START

[The Bill]

Haha. I’m with you two. It’s good that I learned to speed read in preparation for the SATs, because I just hammer through most dialogue if subtitles are on. The majority of my most recent Skyrim play through was definitely not spent listening to the voice acting.


If you want to know true brutally try unlearning how you’ve played 3D games with a controller since 2001 in favor of inferior controls. How the fuck did people play these PS1 games? Outside of Metal Gear, I only ever played sports or wrestling games on the PlayStation. Well, I did play the first 2 Resident Evil games, but tank controls are one thing. These action games are busting my balls over here. Damn shame! I wanted to enjoy stupid shit like this:

[spacehamster]

I didn't play any new games between 1999 and 2009, so imagine my surprise when I came back to find this tutorial shit and other kinds of hand-holding that were completely alien to me. I think tutorials have gotten a little better since then in that at least they usually don't feel like they're completely disconnected from the rest of the game anymore and like a chore you have to deal with before you can actually start playing, but it still annoys the shit out of me. I come from a time when you would stick your cartridge into your Sega Mega Drive and 30 seconds later you'd be shooting stuff.

I'll never forget that load screen in Far Cry Blood Dragon that said "grenades explode".

[E.E 3.0]

oops

[THE KILL]

"The spider people ar-"
"Our castle is under atta-"
"I'm a baby/whore schoolgi-"
"Space ship secto-"
"Igakaru Nabunabusta prese-"
"50,0080 years before the blork blork war-"

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
START START START START START START START START START START START START
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
START START START START START START START START START START START START

Let me recommend arcade games to you again, especially bullet hell shooters from the late 90s and 2000s. Almost all of Cave's games come highly recommended: ten seconds after you started loading any of their games you're blowing shit up, and after battling the second boss (they usually have five stages and it takes around 20 minutes to beat their games... if you practiced a lot before, that is) you're drenched in sweat. And then things start to get really fucking insane. A couple of days ago I rediscovered the awesomeness of Mushihimesama Futari



and Muchi Muchi Pork:

[The Bill]

Argh! I downloaded too many PS1 roms, now I’m all discombobulated. I had started Witcher 2, but now I’m downloading textures for Zelda OoT because I decided the Gamecube version of Resident Evil 2 with textures is probably smoother than the PS1 even though I have Metro: Exodus running and looking the best my PC can do. Plus does the charm of original RE1 outweigh the GC’s fancy remaster, while the PC version is even fancier, yet save states would be welcome vs the ink ribbon nonsense. I’m trapped between too much shit I think I might want to play and still feeling like most games aren’t worth my time anymore.

[spacehamster]

Let me recommend arcade games to you again, especially bullet hell shooters from the late 90s and 2000s.

16-bit Jap Shmups are the best form of entertainment invented by our species. I'll never, ever, ever get sick of those games, and the graphics have aged like fine wine too.

Anyway, meanwhile at the farm, I'm now also NG+ing Spider-Man on the highest difficulty because the game has definitely given me autism. It's not as fun as I expected it to be, though -with everything completely upgraded because I also 100%-ed all of the DLC, there's really no incentive to do any of the side stuff, and just playing the main story missions is really weird. You can tell the story was written assuming you'd do some stuff between them, and a lot of the story missions are dull non-combat stuff where you're just walking around listening to audio recordings on the exact same device that for some reason every supervillain in NYC uses.

Yet I'm still playing.