Random Gaming Thoughts (Read OP Before Posting)

[Raithos]

Just got mine too. The box it came in was rather nice. Simple but tasteful. Haven't had a chance to play it yet, will do after dinner though. What glitches have you ran into? Hopefully nothing too serious.

Just got a boatload of games (and films) from my birthday just over a week ago too, so my backlog just got a helluva lot bigger.

I need to be able to buy some time. Amazon for a fiver.

Hell yeah man! Anything good?

[Henry Spencer]

Gunstar Future Heroes (GBA), Metroid Prime (GC), Suikoden Tactics (PS2), Gladius (PS2), Street Figher Alpha Collection (PS2), Resident Evil: Revelations (PS3), Project Zero (Xbox version), No More Heroes 2 (Wii), Thief (PS3), Sin & Punishment 2 (Wii).

Sin & Punishment 2 is absolutely brilliant and just reminds me how much I love rail shooters and Treasure games in general.
I am also playing the Xbox version of Project Zero (AKA Fatal Frame) [first time playing the Xbox version, which contains some new stuff added in it like more ghosts and extra story] and it's surprisingly still just as scary as it was back in the day (I detest the broken neck lady and blind woman the most) and even harder than I remembered it being. The story is all kinds of messed up, which I did remember about it though.

[OL]

What glitches have you ran into? Hopefully nothing too serious.

Nah, it's nothing game-breaking or anything. Maybe "glitches" isn't quite the word I'm looking for. I just mean it suffers from the same graphical hiccups that games which use the Unreal engine tend to have. For example, there's usually a delay when a scene starts loading textures, which pulls you out of the experience for a second. The game will load a level or character model, and it'll be kind of flat or textureless before it's full loaded. You can see the same problem in games like Enslaved or Spec Ops: The Line. Just kind of an odd, ugly little "glitch" that happens with this engine. Some developers seem to have found ways around it (the problem is pretty much absent in Bioshock Infinite and anything by Cyberconnect), but it's such a common thing, I imagine it's kind of a headache for most devs.

[Raithos]

Oh OK yeah I know what you mean. Borderlands is bad about that, even having it on an SSD doesn't help. And although it used id Tech 5 engine, Rage was the worlds worst about not loading textures quick enough. Fun game, but that definitely took away from the immersion factor.

[Henry Spencer]

Original Mass Effect was also terrible with it, especially since it's such a cinematic game and it had all of this texture pop in which really broke the immersion factor for me, at times.

I don't understand just why it was so popular with developers/publishers in that generation, since it is so prone to graphical glitches. Was it cheap to license it, or something? Or was it a case of "well, such and such a developer is doing it, so we will too"?

Having said that, some games did end up still looking amazing despite the engine's problems like Killer is Dead, Asura's Wrath, Guilty Gear Xrd and the Batman: Arkham series.

[Kenny]

phpBB [video]

[OL]

I don't know if that video was supposed to be a good thing or not, but I just found it kind of sad. This little kid is thirteen, and he's already so desperate to be labeled by his property. Why are people so eager to be defined by stuff? There's nothing wrong with collecting or having a passion for something, but this kid is talking about it as if it some kind of art form, talking about "what it means" to be a collector.
Dude, it doesn't mean shit. It's a pastime.
So not only are we raising a generation of kids desperate to fit into a bunch of sad little labels, but they're pretentious as well.
Go climb a tree, kid.

[AnimeGamer183]

The question is where is he getting the money to buy that much stuff? For example, if he had a paper route or something and earned they money to buy all that stuff that would be alot different story if his parents just gave him the money for it. Almost think that could be fake honestly, some of the camera angles and its contents just seem a little too thought out. *the kid opens the drawer as we get a worms eye view from inside the drawer as the kid grabs a controller as if the camera isnt even there* so yeah, I wouldnt be surprised if that was acted.

[Raithos]

That's what shit like YouTube and the Internet does to kids nowadays though. Totally agree that he feels defined by the things he owns/collects, but that's the way his parents have brought him up it seems.

[Kenny]

Yeah I know what you guys mean. Especially with the dad, the collecting seems more like hoarding. Kind of unhealthy.

But the thing I liked was seeing a kid play stuff like the N64. For an aging fucker like me, it's a nice thing to see.

[Thief]

The way he talked about atmosphere in videogames -- this kid understands. Collecting is stupid, whatever, but this kid seems to actually care about the games themselves and not necessarily the 'collection'. Thirteen is a time to be bored as shit -- he seems smart so he'll likely value other things in time -- thirteen... bored as shit, outside, inside, games, books, still have fucking time to spare because fuuuuuuck no car -- friends parents are suuuuuck. I didn't want to be outside all the time when I was thirteen because outside sometimes sucks.

[OL]

He's just repeating stuff he read on the internet, trying to sound smarter than his age. Listen to what he says: he says Nintendo "defines the atmosphere of videogames" because they know how to "take you out of your comfort zone."
Wait... wha huh?
Nintendo's whole deal is keeping you comfortable. They're a company that primarily lives off of the nostalgia that their fans have developed for them, which is why Nintendo proper almost never makes any new properties these days; they revisit their already tried-and-true IPs and formulas because that's what their fans are comfortable with.
Even back in the day, they gained their cliche "kiddy" image precisely because they created comfortable gaming experiences.

I'm not knocking on Nintendo; none of this is bad by any means. I'm just illustrating that the kid doesn't know anything besides what he's read, and he's just regurgitating it in awkward quotes and soundbites.
And just to be clear, I'm also not trying to say that collecting is stupid. Collecting is fine. I collect what I like, and I do it so that I'll still have access to things that make me happy as time goes on. Nothing wrong with that, I think.
I just think it's stupid when people try to make it out like it's a lifestyle, as this kid is doing.

[Thief]

I don't know. It's really hard to tell what the kid thinks based off that video -- sure he could just be regurgitating crap but he could also believe it himself. As for the keeping you comfortable bit, he may have had a poor choice of words but atmosphere in regards to escape was what I thought he meant. To exist in a world (I used to just turn on my N64 when I was thirteen and just hang out in clocktown -- in the astral observatory or the laundry pool -- just to exist in the world). This same thought about games is one of the reasons why I love Shenmue so much.

Either way, I don't necessarily think this kid is making it a lifestyle. He's thirteen -- you barely have a life at thirteen. I don't think collecting is bad either, as long as you're passionate and knowledgeable about the things you collect, it has just been the 'drowning in your stuff' concept that has always turned me off (Pete Dorr's room...)

It's certainly going to seem like his interests revolve entirely around collecting when the only bit of context we have is a two and a half minute long video though.

[OL]

...it has just been the 'drowning in your stuff' concept that has always turned me off (Pete Dorr's room...)

THANK YOU. Yeah, I'm not a Pete Dorr fan either. He doesn't even seem to like games half the time, speaking in the most bored-sounding monotone possible, verbally shrugging over almost everything. He just hoards so he can show it off.

[Raithos]

I used to watch his collection videos until I realized he doesn't play even half of what he owns. Every other line was "I actually haven't played this game yet... I don't think I ever got around to playing this one but its one of the better titles on the system... I bought this one because I always hear great things about the series, but I haven't given it a chance yet.... This game is unique because XXX, I need to dig into it one day."

I have way more respect for the smaller YouTube channels I'm subbed too, where the person has 150 (Pokemon!) titles or less, but can passionately tell you everything they loved or hated about it and why.