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Re: Random Gaming Thoughts (Read OP Before Posting)

Well this is new.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtX05ZJ95jA
3D remake? HD remaster? Shitty iOS version?
No idea yet, but I'm getting the urge to go back and finally get through that PSP version. Been on backlog forever. Damn near the top of the backlog, but it's just been sitting there regardless.
Also nice to see Square going back into the old Enix properties. More of that, thanks.
by OL
Sat Mar 03, 2018 11:27 pm
 
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Re: Favorite Alternate Costumes/Outfits

No, that's not what... I didn't mean...

Man, this place is dead. :lol:
by OL
Sun Mar 04, 2018 10:28 pm
 
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Favorite Alternate Costumes/Outfits

Place seems a bit dead at the moment, so hey, why not a new "favorites" topic? Maybe help pick this shit up. Obviously, just post some of your favorite alternate outfits in gaming. There are tons of them in fighting games, and superhero stuff tends to go nuts with it. Plenty of other places. Anything that isn't the default look applies.

I've just been playing through Spider-Man: Edge of Time, and was pretty delighted to see that the 90s Ben Reilly costume was unlockable. This was the costume being used in the comics when I first seriously started reading them way back when, and it's remained just about my favorite Spidey costume for all these years, even more than the classic look.
Only bummer is that it's only playable with Spider-Man 2099. Which, don't get me wrong, ain't horrible (I actually like Miguel O'Hara a helluva lot more than Peter Parker, honestly), it's just that the moves and powers aren't really a match for Ben Reilly.
Still, great costume. And a tasty chunk o' nostalgia for me.

http://oi63.tinypic.com/2hh17gw.jpg
by OL
Sat Mar 03, 2018 3:52 am
 
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Re: Recent Gaming Purchases

Spiritual successor to what is, in all likelihood (hard to be concrete about this stuff), my overall favorite game of the 16-bit era?
Fuck yes I'm preordering that.

http://oi64.tinypic.com/29nymiu.jpg

Feels like it's been in development for freaking forever , and even September feels far off. But at least it's actually in sight now.
by OL
Fri Mar 09, 2018 1:15 am
 
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Re: Review The Last Game You Beat

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Spider-Man: Edge of Time
http://oi66.tinypic.com/2cgjvqb.jpg http://oi65.tinypic.com/2ppgcxs.jpg

Within the past couple months I finally started reading the old Spider-Man 2099 comics from the early-90s. Never got to when I was a kid, yet the image of him has always remained ingrained in my head as an iconic reminder of the 90s; always gives me a warm, squishy feeling, the same way Genesis games, the X-Files, and Batman the Animated Series do. Low and behold I'm loving the hell out of the comics, so what better time than now to try out Miguel O'Hara's only legitimate appearances in gaming?

Shattered Dimensions actually features four versions of Spidey: Amazing (regular ol' modern-day Peter Parker), Ultimate (teenage, wearing the symbiotic black suit), Noir (an angsty 1930s version fighting gangsters), and of course 2099. The game is essentially split up into episodic levels (unlike the usual open-world mold that most Spidey games aim for), with only a loose shell of a story linking them together. And while the story is nothing particularly engaging, the dialogue is, on occasion, genuinely funny and entertaining. Weak story or not, it's still enjoyable hearing all the well-written chatter left and right. It's a good sign to me that the writer of this one, Dan Slott, is apparently also the writer of the new Insomniac-developed Spider-Man game coming to PS4, so I'm looking forward to that a little more now.

http://oi68.tinypic.com/1535s8o.jpg

Gameplay remains relatively the same between the characters (run around levels, beat up badguys, move on), with the one really notable exception being the Noir version. Instead of being all-out action, his levels are generally stealth-based. It's not the greatest stealth in the world, but the extra spice is always welcome when it pops up. And, if anything, I am really surprised by how much I liked this version of the character. I'm not particularly jazzed about reading the comics he's from (they're a byproduct of Marvel's post-2000 "cash in on whatever's hip" mentality, and apparently Sin City was on the brain when they did this), but his setup is still surprisingly engaging.
Regardless, I still had the most fun playing as Spidey 2099, since he was the whole reason I started this to begin with. He does have an occasional mechanic that pops up from time to time which is really cool, in which he'll go into free-fall and have to dodge objects and fight a boss, but it's used very, very sparingly; too sparingly, if I'm entirely honest.
And while the idea behind the voice casting for the different Spideys is great (they basically cast all the actors who have played him in old cartoons and whatnot), I think the 2099 version is horribly miscast. He's too jokey/goofy, and sounds like an old white guy making jokes to his grandkids. Kind of strange for a character who's supposed to be a half-Mexican 20-something.
Last note, Shattered Dimensions is also the first place where Nolan North got to voice Deadpool, which he would later do in the official Deadpool game itself. Perfect casting. Can't wait to play the Deadpool game now, if only to hear more of that.

Edge of Time carries over most of the same gameplay from Shattered Dimensions, though now it's no longer necessarily level-based. Or rather, the levels aren't split up and accessed from a menu this time. One scene organically flows into the next, and it feels much more cohesive, less disjointed. It's just one genuinely exciting action scene and race against death after another, and it doesn't let up for hours. It's pretty great.
This time around, rather than jumping between dimensions, we instead see Spider-Man 2099 communicating with modern-day Spidey through time, usually with one getting into a jam and the other having to take measures to affect the future and change things in some way. It's a fun dynamic, though it's all very, very scripted; this ain't no sandbox.
Speaking of scripting, this one is written by Peter David, original creator of Spidey 2099, so everything feels really, really spot-on in that regard. Miguel O'Hara was also recast, so he sounds a helluva lot more like I've been imagining him as I read the comics.

http://oi66.tinypic.com/io3pj6.jpg

Overall, even more than Shattered Dimensions, this was the game I really needed to scratch that itch I had. It's hard to imagine there'll ever be much more in the way of Miguel O'Hara as a main protagonist in a videogame, so this was a helluva lot of fun, and a real treat for a comics dork like me, who actually thinks stuff from the 90s was pretty rad.
If only we could get a genuine open-world Spidey 2099 game; man, the freakin possibilities.
by OL
Fri Mar 09, 2018 3:50 pm
 
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Re: Random Shenmue III Thoughts

Totally random thing here, but it just occurred to me: I really, really hope the dub for Shenmue III doesn't include a ton of "wink to the audience" nods to the old dubs. With as long as Shenmue has been around, it's had plenty of time to gain a reputation on phrases like "let's get sweaty," Ryo asking about sailors and whatnot, that kind of shit. I just really hope the English voice actors don't feel the need to call back to that stuff, like they think they're being clever or something. I hope the dub is played totally straight, just like the first two games were.

I'll probably opt for the Japanese track anyway (long as it's included), but I'd still prefer not to have anything groan-inducing like that from the English one.
by OL
Wed Mar 21, 2018 1:25 pm
 
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Re: Recent Gaming Purchases

Don't buy a ton of games anymore. Typically not newer ones, anyway; mostly just stuff on Steam, outside of Rocksmith which I got earlier this month.
Saw that Natsume was bringing over yet another River City/Kunio-kun game though, so I preordered that and finally picked up the last one they put out. Natsume's a nice little company, but they don't advertise for shit. Hard to find out that they have anything new without looking directly at their site, or stumbling upon something on Amazon.

http://oi64.tinypic.com/atohat.jpg
http://oi64.tinypic.com/8wbm1i.jpg
by OL
Tue Oct 31, 2017 10:27 pm
 
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Re: Re-do English dub for Shenmue II

Kinda funny, I always actually liked the sound of the compressed dialogue; made it feel even more like a dubbed-over movie from the 80s to me. Not that better quality would hurt anything necessarily, I just always thought of it as an extra atmosphere-contributor, even if the effect was unintentional.
by OL
Tue Apr 10, 2018 12:38 am
 
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Re: What are the chances of Silent Hill PT being made?

It was pretty specifically a Kojima/Del Toro project, so with Kojima having separated himself from Konami... I'd say chances are close to zero. No doubt there will be another Silent Hill one day, but it won't be whatever they'd been putting together before.

There are some conspiracy theories to take a bit of solace in though. Some believe that Kojima's next game, Death Stranding, is pretty much taking up the reigns of his intentions with Silent Hills as it is. So whatever we would have seen in SH (conceptually, at least) may still be making an appearance in that (EDIT: Mr357 beat me to mentioning it).
Still others (myself included) believe that Kojima never actually intended to make Silent Hills a full game to begin with; rather, PT itself was made as a kind of artistic "resignation letter" from him to Konami. There's some really interesting, interpretive proof out there if you look it up.

Besides, I think PT stands pretty well on its own regardless, doesn't it? PT had its own horror gimmick of traversing the same hallways over and over as things slowly change and warp around you; a full game of that would be absolutely ludicrous (not in a good way). And if it wasn't going to be like that anyway, and was going to open up into a more traditional Silent Hill game... then why would PT hype us up for that? It'd be a completely different experience from what the "demo" showed us, and it was the "demo" that made us excited to begin with. So what would even be the point?
PT is pretty much its own game, and can fully be appreciated as such. Pining after a full on "Silent Hills" is kind of meaningless at this point.
by OL
Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:54 pm
 
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Re: Will the audio be improved in the HD version?

I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to it being improved upon, but like Kiba and I mentioned in another thread, the compressed audio actually contributed pretty well to the atmosphere back when we first played the games. They are, after all, based in the 80s and take place across Asia; the compressed audio mimics the feel of an old 70s/80s karate/kung fu dub.
Much like putting intentional film grain into something to make it feel older, the compressed audio helps to plant you firmly in the 80s. Decompressing the audio wouldn't kill the games or anything, but it would detract a bit from the Shenmue I know and love. As it is, nothing else in gaming really sounds like Shenmue; you can hear an uncredited voice clip from it elsewhere and know immediately that, yes, that's Shenmue. I personally kind of like that it's so identifiable that way, and "improving" the audio would only serve to remove that aspect.
by OL
Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:17 pm
 
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Re: Will the audio be improved in the HD version?

I’m going to guess they didn’t intend to make the voice tracks sound like that at all. It was a necessary evil due to hardware constraints.

Well yeah, of course it wasn't intentional. But then, you could kind of say the same thing about scan lines, or the curved screen edges of old TVs in retro sprite-based games. These weren't things that were planned for when devs made games back then, and yet they remain elements that some people actually prefer to see when playing them nowadays (hence their optional inclusion in a great number of retro re-releases). The compressed audio is really no different; it's a technical restraint/imperfection that some people nowadays actually prefer as an atmospheric element. Call it a nostalgia thing, but then... why shouldn't we feel some level of nostalgia for Shenmue's many quirks?
by OL
Tue Apr 17, 2018 10:57 pm
 
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Re: What Song Are You Listening To Now?

Well, you're not the first to get that impression:
viewtopic.php?t=46578
by OL
Tue Apr 17, 2018 11:49 pm
 
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Re: PS4 & X1 Physical Preorders?

(although I gotta say, it is nice for the UK to get preferential treatment with games for once! :D Even if this is only a preorder I'll take any win i can get :) )

Heeeeeey now, you guys actually got S2 on Dreamcast with full Japanese audio back in the day, while the US got shafted. Don'tchu be talkin about no "for once."
I'ma fight you.
by OL
Thu Apr 19, 2018 4:05 pm
 
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Re: Yakuza series

lol I still don't find Haruka's parts cringeworthty...

Not to beat a dead horse (I've rambled before on it), but it's mainly the bits where Haruka's manager is explaining to her that being a pop idol is some kind of noble pursuit, that she gives people something to love, so she needs to work extra hard at it or whatever. Meanwhile there's touching music playing in the background, as if the developers themselves actually believe this crap.
Because yeah, being a little girl in a skimpy outfit singing squeaky baby songs mainly for the pleasure of lonely 20- and 30-something-year-old men (which the game totally acknowledges during the "meet and greet" minigames) is super noble.
I'm not sure if the series can make me cringe any harder than that stuff does. That stuff actually hurt Haruka's character for me; I see her on the cover of 6, and all I can think is "ugh." Never used to be the case before Yakuza 5. She seemed like a really strong character until then.
But yeah, rant over. Just had to specify.
I wouldn't mind Haruka's section so much if it were, say, poking fun at the idol scene, or if it were about some kind of corruption or crime going on within. But instead they go the "follow your dreams and be an inspiration by becoming a child sex symbol!" route, and I just can't really dig on that so much.

Aaaaaaaaaaaanyway , I've finally played into Yakuza Zero a pretty good deal now.
Weren't people making Mr. Shakedown out to be some kind of super-difficult fight before? I've beaten him about ten times now (damn good payout for it, so I've been hunting him down), and all you have to do is run around and hit him as he comes out of his charge. Takes a long time, but it seems easy enough. Not a big deal, long as you catch him in an open enough area.
And the 80s atmosphere is pretty great (love how the sidequests draw directly from that stuff, like helping a yanki band seem tough, or tracking down a kid's stolen videogame cartridge), but I am a little disappointed at certain visual elements. Like... why are all these posters of hosts and hostesses clearly made with modern styles? The hairstyles and shit are nowhere even close to what would have been common in Japan in '88. Takes me out of it a bit, having to see guys who look like they're in a modern boy band or something. I just wish I could say the atmosphere is completely on-point, but it's a bit of a mixed bag here and there.
by OL
Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:49 pm
 
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Re: Yakuza series

^^Hey now, careful on spoilers. That wasn't too revealing, necessarily, but still.

But yeah, I played a bit of the opening while skipping cutscenes (since I'm not up to 6 yet; just wanted to try it for the gameplay), and yeah, the scale of Kamurocho itself seems to have been expanded. Streets are definitely wider, and I wouldn't doubt if buildings in general were made a bit taller. Makes it all feels a little more realistic now, so that's nice. I'm playing Zero now, and the environments are starting to feel a little "videogame-y" at this point (after 5 games covering the same streets), so that upgrade in 6 is definitely very, very noticeable.

Also, just have to say it; it feels good when you finally throw your first enemy off of a building. I lured a pack of guys up an entire stairwell just to try that out. :lol:
by OL
Tue Apr 24, 2018 3:52 pm
 
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Re: Favorite Alternate Costumes/Outfits

Any time I play a Ninja Gaiden game, I tend to go with this by default. Never been a huge fan of Ryu's all-black look, and at least this way he looks a little more like a ninja and less like a superhero. Faithfulness to the NES games is a plus.
Image
by OL
Thu Mar 08, 2018 8:01 pm
 
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Re: Yakuza series

I was about to say that Kiwami would be the place to start, since it's a remake of the first, but Harry makes a good point on starting with Zero. I'm about halfway through the story of Zero now, and it occurs to me that playing Kiwami after this is really going to make everything between Kazuma and Nishiki resonate a helluva lot more than it ever did in the original game, really make it "pop" in ways it never had the time to in the original PS2 version.
Only drawback is that, from what I hear, the sidequests and whatnot are pretty much all exactly the same in Kiwami as they were in the original Yakuza 1. That is to say... they aren't going to be quite as fun and charming as the ones in Zero.
But all the same, for main story purposes, Zero's definitely the best starting point.

And then, as luck would have it, Kiwami 2 releases in August.
Zero, then Kiwami, then Kiwami 2; it really is a pretty perfect time for people to jump on board with the series now. I've been following it since the beginning, so it's not the kind of thing I have to think about much, but just like what a lot of people are saying about Shenmue HD, I'm almost jealous of anyone getting to start the Yakuza series right now. The devs have the series down to a science by this point, and it's all pretty great (long as you don't burn yourself out, like I did a while back; only just recently got the spark back).
by OL
Sat Apr 28, 2018 5:21 pm
 
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Re: Yakuza series

Personally I think it'd be kind of a moot effort to actually remake 3-5. Maybe port them to PS4, sure, but full-on Kiwami-style remakes seem pointless. I understand they started a new graphics engine with 5 (that's the one Kiwami and Zero run on, right?), but the visual differences are minuscule; the change was done mainly for performance purposes, not visual ones. More people in crowds, less slow-down, faster loading, etc.
Releasing "Yakuza 3 Remastered" or something might make sense (just a bump into 4K or whatever). "Yakuza 5 Remastered" would work even better, since it's already in the right engine, and we never got a physical release in the west.
But full-on "Kiwami"-style remakes for any of them?
Sounds like a bad business decision to me.
Not that I wouldn't buy it ('course I would) I just wouldn't bother making it if I were with Sega.

On the subject of 3, I still think the omissions made in the western release are small enough that they, by themselves, definitely don't justify a re-release. Without knowing beforehand that they made any omissions, absolutely nothing seems out of the ordinary when you play it anyway, and the stuff missing is absolutely minor at best.
by OL
Sun Apr 29, 2018 6:09 pm
 
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Re: Recent Gaming Purchases

http://oi68.tinypic.com/ou1moz.jpg http://oi65.tinypic.com/168bjm8.jpg
http://oi68.tinypic.com/nyco4g.jpg http://oi67.tinypic.com/ac76tl.jpg
http://oi68.tinypic.com/2hdznfb.jpg http://oi65.tinypic.com/33m6f10.jpg

So I guess I'm officially over my years-long aversion to modern anime-style Japanese games. Maybe. For the moment at least. I'm a total fucking flake. It turns on and off.
Originally wasn't super interested in Nights of Azure 2, because the whole focus is on tits. But now I'm like, hey... tits. Still need to beat the first game though.
Blue Reflection is the kind of thing that usually repels me completely, but I randomly watched a small bit of gameplay, and the visuals and music are just so... weirdly fucking pleasant . It's modern Sailor Moon, but relaxing. The fuck is that all about?
Utawarerumono, I'm still a bit iffy about, because I'm not usually a big visual novel fan. But the interspersed SRPG gameplay looks nice, and apparently the world and lore are really well-realized. So I'll try it.
Alliance Alive is from the same devs as Legend of Legacy, and that was pretty cool. Very Saga-esque, but apparently AA has a much better story (written by the creator of Suikoden, so maybe that'll appeal to some here).
And Nobunaga's Ambition ain't anime-style, but I always preorder this series as soon as they're announced. I like that KoeiTecmo takes the risk of releasing niche stuff like this so often, so they've got my support.

So yeah, mostly a weird batch of games for me. But, excluding Nobunaga and Alliance which are both Amazon, they were all surprisingly cheap on Gamestop's site, which is rare. Been a while since I've just grabbed up a big haul of games.
by OL
Sun Apr 29, 2018 11:25 pm
 
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Re: Yakuza series

Just finished Yakuza Zero.
Got about halfway through the game doing side-activities as much as possible, then just fast-tracked it to the end once the story got too intriguing to put aside. And god damn.
I knew it was going to be good, and I fully expected a lot of badass posturing and a return to legit yakuza politics and whatnot (which was very, very welcome after the weird sidetracking done by Yakuza 5), but I definitely didn't expect it to be genuinely touching on top of it all. Some of the final scenes -- particularly stuff with Majima and Makoto -- actually managed to choke me up just a bit. Really, really good storytelling.
I was also thinking the whole game, as things ramped up and got more and more serious... how the fuck is any of this going to segue properly into the story of the original game/Kiwami? Seemed so much like bridges were being burned and original plot points were being overwritten. And yet... it all works out. Perfectly. In ways that prequels rarely ever seem to get right.
Not to mention that the final fight playing as Kazuma is easily one of, if not the absolute greatest one-on-one brawl in the series (and remember that I haven't finished 5 or played through 6, so I can't count those). And the final scene, when the intro music for the original Yakuza on PS2 starts playing? Goddamn, what a great feeling that was.

I'm often late to the party on playing certain games, and so often people will tell me "Once you play it, you'll be kicking yourself for not doing it sooner."
That never happens. I'm usually completely content in just waiting for the mood to strike me, and I never mind that I waited.
But this is probably the first time I actually am kicking myself.
I got burnt out on the Yakuza series by playing 50-something hours into Y5 and then getting such a bad taste in my mouth with the Haruka stuff that I just had to put it down and leave it for a while.
But man, if I'd actually just worked my way into Zero back when it was first released, it would have brought my taste for the series back almost immediately. Should have done it sooner, without a doubt.

I think now I will go back to Yakuza 5 and finish that. I remember just where I was (right around the point of starting Akiyama's story), so it'll be no problem jumping back in. Shouldn't be long before I finish that, and I'll figure out if I want Y6 immediately after, or if I should give Kiwami a go first.
But yeah, mood's back. So much that I might just go watch one of the Battles Without Honor and Humanity movies tonight.
by OL
Mon Apr 30, 2018 8:21 pm
 
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Re: Shenmue HD announced for PS4 / XBOX ONE / PC

So a quick question about the game graphics. Are they remastered in HD or is this a port upscaled? I keep seeing conflicting reports.
I'm not sure how you define "remastering in HD" versus "upscaling a port"?

I've always figured "upscaling" is simply what, for example, the old "fat" PS3s did with PS1 and PS2 games; it output them into a higher resolution, and nothing else. Nothing was changed about how they function or appear; any aliasing or blurriness in textures and edges is still going to be apparent. The only difference is that they're being output into 720 or 1080p, which only serves to make them a bit clearer on modern screens (whereas something output in the original 480p would need to be stretched to fit a modern screen, and therefore would come out a bit blurrier).

A "remaster" takes the original game files and actually puts work into smoothing out edges, decompressing textures to make them less pixelated, opening the edges of the screen up to allow for true widescreen format, etc. Essentially, a remaster takes the original archival material and spruces it up a bit to take advantage of the fact that it's now running on stronger hardware. Occasionally they may also alter mechanics in some slight way to make them more "playable" for modern times (such as in the case of the Final Fantasy XII one, which allowed you to literally speed up combat at the press of a button).

There are also "gradations" between the two, I guess you could say. The "PS2 on PS4" line on the Playstation store, for example, takes old PS2 games and basically runs them on an emulator to make edges smoother and output them into higher resolutions, but it does nothing to change aspect ratios or decompress textures or anything like that. They work with the material that would be on the game disc, but they don't actually mess around with the original archival data from during the games' development, and they have no way of fundamentally altering things like gameplay or display aspects. So in that respect, they lie somewhere between being "upscaled" and "remastered."

I'd say these Shenmue ones do count as genuine remasters. Smoother graphics and widescreen capability, sure, but they're also updating button prompts to match whatever system they're played on, they're including alternate control methods, dual-language options, hopefully including the time-skip in Shenmue 1 (fingers crossed), etc. They're taking the original development materials and creating a new package out of it.
So yeah, genuine remaster.
by OL
Sun Apr 15, 2018 12:39 am
 
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Re: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Although I don’t think there’s really a boring character...

...save for Scarlet Witch, I'd say, who's still just as dull as a wooden spoon. Funny how her accent just disappeared though. It was always pretty horrid in Age of Ultron.
I'd agree on Thor though, they've certainly managed to make him pretty great by this point (I still haven't seen Ragnarok unfortunately, but it's a priority now).
Yeah, movie was okay. I get what they were trying to do with the ending, but to be entirely honest, it fell pretty flat for me.
(anyone who hasn't seen the movie, really, don't look in the spoiler tags unless you give exactly zero shits. In which case... why are you looking in the spoiler tags?)
If there were actually anything at stake, I'd say it was all extremely well-done and shocking. But it's a Marvel movie. It's part of a cash-cow franchise that Disney assuredly won't allow to slow down.
Meaning, they didn't really kill Spider-Man. They didn't really kill Dr. Strange. They didn't really kill off the Guardians. And they definitely didn't kill Black Panther. There's still too much money to be made off of all these characters, and therefore... none of it means anything. Without even thinking hard about it, I already know what happens in the next movie. Everyone (or at least everyone that still matters) gets brought back by the infinity stones. Or Captain Marvel does something wacky and galactic-y to bring everyone back. Whatever the case, everyone will come back.
There, I just wrote the next movie for Marvel.
That aside though, I do have to say the movie definitely suffers from "convenient powers" syndrome. Just like so many of these movies (and tv shows; comicbook stuff is all guilty) powers only seem to work when they're convenient, and they only seem to be used in ways that are convenient. If Thanos can literally alter reality with the reality stone... why not fucking do that ? He literally turns Bruce Banner's Hulkbuster armor incorporeal when he shows up at the end. Why not do that to everyone ? Wouldn't that save you a shit ton of trouble? Why didn't he do this to Tony Stark et al. when he was fighting them?
Shit like that always gets under my skin.
Plus, I haven't seen Black Panther... but why is it that, in literally the most technologically-advanced country on Earth , the king has his troops carrying sticks and spears? They make it so the spears shoot lasers or some dumb bullshit, but still... why spears? Is Marvel aware that we'll still be able to tell it's Africa even if you don't go all stereotypical with it? I mean, I get it if they have a general tribal motif going on, but making everyone literal spearchuckers ? In a property originally created by a bunch of white dudes? That shit's just racist.

So yeah, I get that it's a big impressive spectacle movie, and yeah, it was entertaining and all. But there are still all kinds of issues I find with it. And I don't even consider any of it nitpicky.
by OL
Tue May 01, 2018 11:30 pm
 
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Re: Yakuza series

^^Funny, just today I can across one, got a prompt to activate it, and all it said was "(fire extinguisher)."
Figured it was something that would come into play later on, but it's good to know I should remember them.
by OL
Fri May 18, 2018 4:07 am
 
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Re: Random Gaming Thoughts (Read OP Before Posting)

Me neither, but apparently people were whining about... framerate drops or something?
I dunno. Whatever it was, they cleared it up later with patches, but supposedly there were some small graphical sacrifices made in order to get it running smoothly. But there was a big hooplah about it for a while. Ya know how gamers can be.
by OL
Fri May 18, 2018 4:03 am
 
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Re: Random Thoughts

They make me think specifically of Pizza Hut.

Got a model kit for the first time in ages.

https://i.imgur.com/VUa6b1Y.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/MbRBzvh.jpg

I bet it'll look great when finished. :D


Kudos for getting Heavyarms. Always struck me as the most underrated of Gundam Wing's mecha (my friends in highschool all seemed to prefer the rest of them), but always remained my favorite.
Wish I had more time for model kit stuff. Dorky as hell hobby, but it's always fun and satisfying. Just takes freakin forever if you plan on going all out (with paint and glue and sanding and all that).
by OL
Sat May 19, 2018 10:07 am
 
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Re: Fun With Screenshots (Post Yours)

^^Merged the new topic with the old one. Changed the title to your new one, just so it's clear I'm not favoring "my" topic or anything silly like that. It's a good idea to resurrect either way. I'll pop back in with some later.
by OL
Mon May 21, 2018 12:59 am
 
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Re: Yakuza series

So I started watching Rurouni Kenshin earlier (seen a few episodes years ago, but never got far), and it got me to thinking about Hokuto ga Gotoku... like, how great would it be if Sega started doing more of these games in the Yakuza mold, but with a variety of other anime franchises?
They've got Fist of the North Star covered, but Rurouni Kenshin is another that would work brilliantly, and I could probably sit here and make a whole list of others that could totally fit the bill. Seems like such a simple idea, but the basic Yakuza setup could be really multi-functional if they licensed a bunch of other stuff.
KoeiTecmo does it with their Warriors line (they've done Fist of the North Star, Berserk, and Arslan so far), so why not Yakuza? At the very least the Yakuza formula is far more conducive toward storytelling than Warriors ever has been.
Would be nice if that kind of thing happens. Just a random thought.
by OL
Sat May 19, 2018 10:01 am
 
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Re: Random Gaming Thoughts (Read OP Before Posting)

Holy balls! After the excellent Wild Guns Reloaded remake they are hinting at another remake and some ERA users pointing out the logo is similar to Ninja Warriors! My god I hope it's true. The arcade game I hope and not the SNES sequel.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/wild-guns-reloaded-team-working-on-a-new-remake.43467/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=296&v=OFjv6_p7qRE
Seems like it probably will be Ninja Warriors Again, since apparently the devs of Wild Guns Reloaded actually made that back in the day (their site doesn't mention the original Ninja Warriors, but it does show the SNES game).
Always liked it just for graphics and concept's sake, but yeah, it wasn't the greatest of games. The good thing is though, they've already shown they can outright improve on old games like this what with Wild Guns being the way it is. I look forward to seeing what they do with Ninja Warriors.
by OL
Mon May 21, 2018 1:16 am
 
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Re: Your captured video game screenshots (merged)

Few new shots. As before, spoiler tags are just there to keep the post from taking up too much space. No spoilers present, really.

The ones from Atelier Sophie might not seem like much, but I made a little game for myself; there's usually dialogue on-screen at all times, so I've been trying to time my presses of the share button just right so I catch the images in the split-second between when a dialogue box disappears and the next appears. Tough getting it right, but they look great when you do. I like how the characters in Gust's games really "pop" against the backgrounds. They certainly aren't triple-A, but they tend to look nice anyway.

http://oi68.tinypic.com/296hpvp.jpg

http://oi64.tinypic.com/2ev97vm.jpg

Some Dishonored 2 ones. Like my ones for the first Dishonored, none of this is from cutscenes or anything; It's all in-game angles with the HUD dropped. I like how they turned out.

http://oi65.tinypic.com/x4hzrc.jpg
http://oi67.tinypic.com/2yzkj83.jpg

http://oi68.tinypic.com/35lf312.jpg

Kazuma never killed nobody. No sir.

http://oi66.tinypic.com/34o2c5f.jpg

I just liked the setting for this one.
http://oi66.tinypic.com/egrdc2.jpg

This is just from a cutscene in Nioh, but I liked how it looked anyway. Wallpaper-worthy. Still absolutely love that Yuki-Onna was a boss in this.

http://oi63.tinypic.com/5kf6t3.jpg
by OL
Mon May 21, 2018 9:05 pm
 
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Re: Yakuza series

I beat Kiwami 2 Wednesday afternoon and man, I still don't see how people love the game's plot so much; for those that can't stand Haruka's part in 5, I don't know how ANYONE can stand the blubbering, wailing mess of Kaoru, at the end of 2 (especially for a, "tough woman," who, "fights and brings down Yakuza)."

Well, the two issues are inherently pretty different.
The main problem with Haruka's section in 5 is that it just doesn't fit, in any way, with the general groove of the rest of the series. You spend round about 5 games (I'm counting Dead Souls here) playing as tough guys and badasses roaming the streets, getting into scraps, and just generally being the kinds of manly men that all aspiring manly men should look up to.
Then in Y5, for some reason they decided it would be a good idea to play as a little girl with dreams of going to the city and being a big star by dancing like a monkey on tv.
Uh?
It's like trying to fit a Hatsune Miku-shaped peg into a Bunta Sugawara-shaped hole. It's one of the weirdest (and in my mind, least-welcome) sidesteps I've ever seen a long-running videogame series take.

In the case of Kaoru's blubbering and so on, it might have been a while since I've played Y2, but in my multiple playthroughs of it I don't think it ever came across all that annoying; if anything, it fits right in with the usual "melodramatic-yet-chauvinistic" groove the series usually takes on. And yeah, the series is typically chauvinistic as hell. It's part of its Japanese charm. Women are there to be saved, or to serve as Macguffins in the plot. Nobody honestly plays these games for their strong female characters, so Kaoru being the stereotypical crying girl is just par for the course.
At least they don't force you to play as her with a series of timed button presses during her crying sessions. Then it might actually be comparable to the Haruka sections of 5.
by OL
Fri May 18, 2018 11:24 pm
 
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Re: Your captured video game screenshots (merged)

Ha, speaking of Zone of the Enders...
The demo for the ZOE2 remaster came out today, so as I was checking that out I just started clicking the share button to take shots, and made a weird little discovery (which I'm sure has been seen by others before, but I was unaware).
During close-range combos, Jehuty's arm "stretches" at the joint to about three times its normal size (you can see how the texture is blurrier than everything else on screen). Kind of an interesting detail, something done to exaggerate the action during those split-second animations I guess. Never would have seen it without being able to take my own shots.

http://oi66.tinypic.com/2im45g3.jpg
http://oi63.tinypic.com/16kq3px.jpg

Game looks gorgeous by the way, even in regular ol' 1080p. I don't have 4k or VR, but this thing is still spiffy enough to warrant another purchase from me.
by OL
Thu May 24, 2018 2:16 am
 
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Re: Japanese Music

Just discovered this band. Apparently they've been around 9-ish years, but somehow they've always escaped by notice.
Not everything is golden, but when I find something of theirs that I dig, I seem to really dig it.

This first one, it's mainly the tune of the chorus. Those sliding (or are they bending? Pitch-shifting?) guitar chords are fucking gorgeous. I can only dream of coming up with shit that sounds that groovy. Me being me, you'd think I'd be all about the heavier parts, but not as much here (though that stuff is still great).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb6tpT-KYks&t=0m28s

And this one I just love the slight gothic slant to it. Aside from that though, I really like how good the band is of doing these huge tonal shifts between verses and choruses. Good showcase for that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP93GId83as
by OL
Mon May 28, 2018 3:08 am
 
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Re: General Anime Discussion

So I caught the first episode of the new FLCL on tv... but I couldn't sit through more than about two minutes of it.
Not because it was bad, mind you. I just can't take watching this show in English. And being that the whole thing is premiering on Toonami, of course it was going to be in English. Thought I might be able to stomach it... but no, not so much. The animation was beautiful, and the Pillows music gave me a total boner, but the voices... nah.

Fucking bummer, because FLCL is a really special anime for me. One of the only anime I actually bothered to download fansubs of, waaaaaay back before it had appeared in the US yet (only other one I bothered doing that was with the Cowboy Bebop movie). Far enough back that I still get irritated when I see the title spelled out as "Fooly Cooly"; it's Furi Kuri goddammit. First watched it at a time when everything was going kind of shitty for me, but this show was just such a jolt of fun, positive energy, so to this day it remains pretty much the be-all, end-all "feel good" anime for me personally. Or close to it, at least.
So when I watch the new one, I want to watch it right , in Japanese with subs, as I did with the original. A bunch of annoying English VA trying to mimic the cadence and energy of the Japanese VA just makes my ears bleed.
So I guess I'll be waiting for the bluray or something. Feels like such a long damn wait. Seventeen years for me, man. Maybe eighteen by the time the bluray comes out.
That's a Shenmue-level wait.

Guess I'll just go watch the original for now and drown myself in nostalgic greatness.
by OL
Sun Jun 03, 2018 1:03 am
 
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Re: DMCV announced at MS E3 show

Yeah, this is, uh... disappointing.
I'll just get out of the way that I hate that girl. HATE her. Jesus christ, that's gonna be one annoying-ass character to have around for a whole game.
Having Nero around is fine (I loved DMC4, screw the haters), but there's something about these modern graphics that bothers the hell out of me. Is it weird to say that I don't like how realistic the people look? There was always a very videogame-specific type of stylization to the characters in past generations, but now that the graphics are more realistic... I dunno, it just saps a bit of the likability away.
I've also never seen so many smug little shit-eating grins in one trailer before.
And the gameplay looks pretty meh.

And what the fuck kind of crappy music is that? What happened to the Zombie-influenced industrial freak-metal they always had before? That shit defined DMC before, but in this trailer they showcase some shitty electro-pop?
Ugh.
by OL
Sun Jun 10, 2018 11:23 pm
 
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Re: Metal Wolf Chaos teased

phpBB [video]
by OL
Sun Jun 10, 2018 11:57 pm
 
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Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Have to say, I'm not the Assassin's Creed fan I used to be. Loved it up to Syndicate, but I still haven't tried Origins, and I really just don't care much at all about the overarching story of the whole thing anymore.
So with that said, I don't really give a shit that this is a new AC, so much as the fact that it's friggin ancient Greece , and it looks goddamn beautiful. Ancient Greece has always been a major point of appeal for me personally, so I'm digging what I see of this so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSw6JeHge1Y
by OL
Mon Jun 11, 2018 6:18 pm
 
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Re: Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt's new project (no pun intende

I still need to play Mankind Divided. Loved Human Revolution. Not so much interested in Detroit.
Main thing about 2077 to me, looking at it now, is that unlike so many other games that claim to be "cyberpunk"... this actually does indeed look to be cyber punk .
I mean, the genre's name originally came from the fact that the stories tended to involve the dregs of society, the people on the lower rung... the punks. The criminals.
Shadowrun is one of the few that still gets that, and actually has you playing as those dregs.
Stuff like Deus Ex, meanwhile, always has you playing the law.
So it's good to see that a game taking its title from the name of the genre itself is actually sticking to the classic sensibility of it all. I love Deus Ex and Ghost in the Shell and all manner of stuff like that, sure, but sometimes it just makes more sense to focus on the lowlives.
by OL
Mon Jun 11, 2018 6:32 pm
 
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Re: Armored Core

Armored Core V.
Verdict Day is great, but it's basically an expansion to Armored Core V. It's better if you have your AC built and geared up from the beginning, as is the case with any of the expansions in the rest of the series, and for that you have to play V.

I don't think you're going to like any of them regardless, but since you already said you didn't like AC4, the next one to logically try would be V (since For Answer, likewise, is basically an expansion to 4).
by OL
Thu Jun 14, 2018 2:01 pm
 
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Re: Armored Core

If one wanted to get into the earliest games, I do have a suggestion.
Most will find that the PS1 (and most of the PS2) games have a bit of a strange control scheme by default, where the shoulder buttons control camera movement up and down. Luckily, a weird hallmark of the series is the fact that you can customize the controls completely , so I always switch all camera control to the right face buttons, with foreward, backward, and left and right strafing on the D-pad. Still takes some getting used to, but it moves it closer to dual-analog control. Much simpler and more intuitive.
by OL
Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:32 pm
 
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Re: Random Thoughts

Himuro was one of those old member who's been warned (under previous accounts) over and over again across several years to can it. He's one of those who tends to follow a pattern. The staff knew who he was and could have banned him on the spot, but in the interest of fairness he was left to continue in his new account. He seemed a bit more reserved, so why not?
But his basic patterns started to emerge once again, and the staff has seen where it eventually goes if left alone.
You really have nothing to worry about. This one is more a matter of him having an actual history of shitposting and obnoxiousness that has previously resulted in the forum being... shall we say, offputting . To phrase it mildly. The ban was based on that, and where we could see his current manner eventually leading to. It's just an old dance that nobody feels like going through again.
by OL
Sat Jun 16, 2018 2:28 pm
 
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Re: new *Armored Core game Daemon X Machina

It looks fine, I guess. Alongside Henry and Raithos, I guess you could say I'm one of the resident AC-heads here, but for some reason this one isn't really hyping me up that much. I mean, don't get me wrong, it looks like it plays well enough and all, sure. But it's not really doing anything different, is it?
The AC series tended to be pretty similar between games from the PS1 era through the PS2 era, but then AC4 came about and they really did things differently; it was faster, more expansive, a little sleeker. It clearly felt very different from the previous games (and For Answer took things even further with it's giant bosses, making it almost like Shadow of the Colossus meets AC). Then with ACV, they changed it up again, making the world itself even more post-apocalyptic than ever and giving the AC's a slightly smaller stature and a slower, much more tank-like style of control. Basically, once the PS3 came along, From Software started making the differences between them much more pronounced and interesting. Which means that, looking forward toward Armored Core 6, it's completely reasonable to expect the next evolution of the whole thing. Another big change.
And this ain't it. Again, like I said, it looks fine and all. Nothing wrong with it that I can tell. I'm sure it'll be a good enough game and all that. But it's really just retreading everything the AC series has already done, rather than trying to actually be its own thing, or to be the next big thing.
I'll probably play it, sure (provided it appears on a platform I actually have). But saying that "the former AC team is just flat out making Armored Core 6" is a bit much.
by OL
Thu Jun 14, 2018 3:01 pm
 
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Re: Recent Gaming Purchases

Image

Already have it on Steam, and I love what I've played (really need to get further; it truly is one of the best retro-style, pixel-art games I've played), but I can't pass up a physical copy. Comes out next month.
by OL
Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:55 pm
 
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Re: Kickstarter Update #84 - Survey Info #1: Survey Started!

It's funny, sometimes I feel like I may be just about the only one who's actively avoiding most scraps of info that we get on the game. For all the money I spent on the kickstarter (good god, did I really spend that much?! Most expensive game I've ever bought, that's for damn sure) I'd rather the whole thing be as fresh as possible for me.

That being said, that survey video is actually impressive as hell to me. I've seen a few comments about the facial animations being bad, or about some of the effects feeling a generation or two behind.
Most important thing to me?

It actually has the same vibe as the original games.

Shucks to any of that complaining; I hope the whole game looks just like this. I didn't think they'd be able to do it, but despite the graphics obviously being far more advanced than they were in the originals, the overall visual style and the quality of the animation is weirdly comparable to the first two games, in terms of personality.
My biggest fear when the game was announced was that there would be some kind of ugly discord in visual style between games, so that going directly from a playthrough of S2 to S3 would feel jarring and unnatural. Jumps between generations can often be that way. I was one of those that used to always say, even as generations moved on, that I really wouldn't even mind if they just made S3 with the same graphics engine as the originals, in the interest of keeping the whole series as "harmonious" as can be. Always figured "next-gen" graphics would hurt it.
But no, it seems like they've made it so that the jump will be as seamless as is reasonably possible.
Serious kudos on that. It's just a throwaway survey video, but still. Fills me with a bit of extra faith that things are going well.
by OL
Thu Jun 28, 2018 3:11 pm
 
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Re: 100 GB! S3 is not going to be small

Uh, yeah, it's not gonna be that big.
Compression of all files into the final game package is one of the very last things that happens in the development process. They haven't done it yet, so that 100gb figure is completely tentative.
I know that's already been said, but it feels like everyone is saying it with a hint of uncertainty for some reason.
So I'll just say it flat-out: a kickstarter-backed, halfway-indie, non-AAA budget game is not going to turn out to be the biggest burden on your hard drive of anything released this generation.
by OL
Fri Jun 29, 2018 1:29 pm
 
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Re: What are you currently playing?

After finishing Wolfenstein 2, I got the urge to go back and try to finish Doom. Only got about three or four levels in before. Playing past that, it's crazy how intense the action gets later on. And it's kind of amazing how true it is to the spirit of the original, while still feeling fresh and modern as hell. Just such a fantastic FPS. I might be only about halfway through, I think, but I'm already way more hyped for the upcoming sequel now.

Also grabbed both Destroy All Humans games on a flash sale on PSN a few days ago. Been playing the first, and I'm weirdly blown away. I never really looked into the series before, but it's a helluva lot of fun so far. Also didn't realize it was made by Pandemic (the same now-defunct studio that made the Mercenaries games and The Saboteur). It's one of those series that I always saw on store shelves but never payed any attention to, so it's like a weird little revelation playing it now.

Got Earth Defense Force 4.1 on the Steam summer sale as well, so I've been playing a bit of that in co-op multiplayer with my brothers. Just good, dumb fun. My brothers had never played the series before, so they seem to be continually impressed by how expansive the levels are, and how big the scale is of some things. One of them played as an Air Raider yesterday and called in the Walking Fortress Balam (a giant robot, one of the main new additions to 4.1), and it was just a chorus of all of us on Discord going "Whooooaaaa, what the f..."

And a totally random thing, I started up Front Mission Evolved, since I never finished that back in the day. Had it on Steam as well. It's actually much, much better than I remember. Most Front Mission fans seem to absolutely hate it for the fact that it isn't a strategy game like the rest of the series. I personally never really hated it, but I was bothered that it was another one of those Japanese series outsourced to be made by a western company. I remember thinking, if anything, that it was just kind of unremarkable.
But booting it up now, it's actually pretty damn good, all things considered. Pretty basic third-person shooter, but the aesthetics are really nice, and the cutscenes are really well-animated and directed. Back when Segata Sanshiro used to post on here, I remember him basically likening it to a modern remake of Front Mission: Gun Hazard, and y'know what... that's not a bad comparison. I'm having fun with it now, so that's what matters.
Makes me itch even more for Left Behind, the upcoming stealth-action game set in the FM universe. My biggest disappointment with the recent E3 was simply that that wasn't shown at all.
by OL
Thu Jun 28, 2018 6:23 pm
 
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