What are you currently playing?

[Drathnoxis]

By that logic, we can't expect every game to be as well-written as Baldur's Gate 3.

Do you expect every game to be as well-written as Baldur's Gate 3? Because I think you'll be disappointed. Rare spent a fortune on their modeling and rendering tech and it isn't really that surprising that other companies couldn't quite match it. Mario RPG still looks good and, personally, the animations worked fine for me, the game as a whole is more cartoony than DKC even with the 3D art style. Anyway, the point is entirely tangential to the argument as to whether a CRT filter improves the visual quality.

Ask me, it's the exception rather than the rule that games of that era only look good on a CRT TV, or with an artificial CRT filter. Most of them either never looked that good to begin with, or they still look good even without the 'softening' effect. I wouldn't go as far as Worgen as to say I "prefer" one look over the other, I just don't think that it's that important in the majority of cases. And don't bother posting more examples, I've played plenty of SNES and PS1 games without CRT to base my opinion on.

It's not that I don't understand your position. I just don't agree with it.

Yes it definitely is the exception. I don't play games on a CRT and I've played lots without a filter. My whole position was exclusively to do with sprite based 3D rendered games like DKC and Mario RPG and if you disagree with that, I don't even know. It's like we're looking at different images.

The user you spoke to is called Worgen, not Worgan.

Clearly you have taken this photograph from someone else who spoke to someone with the username Worgan. I didn't expect you to stoop to such lows just to win an Internet argument, but: exposed. Seriously though, good effort to photograph your telly.

Look, I can't help it if he misspelled his name when he made his account.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Do you expect every game to be as well-written as Baldur's Gate 3?

I don't even know how you came to the conclusion that that's what I was trying to say. Whatever. Guess this conversation's finished.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I don't even know how you came to the conclusion that that's what I was trying to say. Whatever. Guess this conversation's finished.

Drathnoxis: "Well we can't expect every game to measure up to Donkey Kong Country levels of rendering tech."

NerfedFalcon: "By that logic, we can't expect every game to be as well-written as Baldur's Gate 3."

I have no idea what else you were trying to say. I assumed you were disagreeing with me, but were you actually agreeing? The logic is sound, obviously we can't expect every game to be as well written as Baldur's Gate 3 (I'm assuming, never having played it, that it is actually well written based on the praise it's received). The best games are the best for a reason, because they do things better than the rest. If you have some other point you might consider using a few more words to explain it. Not that it really has anything to do with my original point, anyway.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

@Drathnoxis

This conversation is finished. On this topic specifically, I no longer care enough to keep talking about it.

I can't make myself any clearer than that.

 

[Drathnoxis]

@Drathnoxis

This conversation is finished. On this topic specifically, I no longer care enough to keep talking about it.

I can't make myself any clearer than that.

Funny how whenever people say that, they keep responding. Guess they can't help themselves.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Funny how whenever people say that, they keep responding. Guess they can't help themselves.

You could stop responding at any time yourself, but I guess you can't help yourself either. Yeah, I know I'm still replying to you, so don't bother to point that out. You done?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Alright, finished Afterimage and good riddance. That took way too long.

There're MV fans out there who're all about having as much content and as many biomes, checklists and endings as possible. Well, sure, if you're enjoying the game you don't want it to be over. But the game is as massive as it is scattershot, and by those tokens it exhausted me long before I could get into the fun of it.

Part of it is because you never get a good feel for story beats, or whether you're "done" with an area or not. The map stretches endlessly and strings biome after biome like it's automatically loading recommended videos.

The story is utter nonsense. I'm willing to tolerate the gobbledygook of something like Bloodborne or Hollow Knight or Blasphemous or Ender Lilies, so long as the theming is strong and there's a - how the hell do you phrase this - "air of mythical reverence that feeds the enigma of the world" (oh, atmosphere). The world is dead or dying and you're there to knock it off, probably via sacrifice. Everything else is color bubbles.

But the story in Afterimage is something else. The dialogue is overwritten as fuck and the lore is impenetrable as fuck. Something about clones, memories, robots, faeries, crystals, masks, confluences. The lead is a clone from a clone, or a failed experiment that got cloned, and acts as a rekindled memory to a crystalized vessel who has to become an essential go defeat a transcendental? I'm a story guy first and it takes a special kind of headache to get me to skip skip skip dialogue scenes, but man I got there quick this time.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

The story is utter nonsense. I'm willing to tolerate the gobbledygook of something like Bloodborne or Hollow Knight or Blasphemous or Ender Lilies, so long as the theming is strong and there's a - how the hell do you phrase this - "air of mythical reverence that feeds the enigma of the world" (oh, atmosphere). The world is dead or dying and you're there to knock it off, probably via sacrifice. Everything else is color bubbles.

I don't know if you own a Switch or if you've already played it, but Metroid Dread took an interesting approach to lore: essentially, not doing much at all, instead assuming you played all the previous games and already know what the big deal is about the Chozo. In a way it's kind of a refreshing approach, and it fits with the status Samus is supposed to have. It's also a really solid 6-8 hour (first run) game, highly recommend even if you're not up on the series lore.

 

[Drathnoxis]

You could stop responding at any time yourself, but I guess you can't help yourself either. Yeah, I know I'm still replying to you, so don't bother to point that out. You done?

I'm fine with continuing the conversation.

Spoiler: here's some more cool images of CRT vs. LCD

Man I never realized that CRT's had such an anti-aliasing effect.

 

[Ezekiel]

I saw that one above with the dots for eyes becoming lines before. Amazing.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I saw that one above with the dots for eyes becoming lines before. Amazing.

Kind of makes me wish I had a really good CRT television. I wonder if anybody makes them anymore.

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

You could stop responding at any time yourself, but I guess you can't help yourself either. Yeah, I know I'm still replying to you, so don't bother to point that out. You done?

I'm fine with continuing the conversation.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

So I found a game that dropped on Steam with a price of $15 (local) and a 10% starter discount, but to explain what it is, I need to write a lot of context, bear with me. Or don't. I'm not a cop, just some idiot on the Internet. I wrote the game's title on its own line in bold, and from reading it you may already get enough of an idea what's going on.

For the rest of you still sticking around: In the first half of the 2010s, the hottest thing on Youtube was Major League Gaming, or MLG. A lot of people made montages of them playing Call of Duty or other first-person shooters trying to show off that they were MLG material, and other people came along and made parodies of those people's videos. Common features of the parodies included eye-watering filter effects, incomprehensible text flying across the screen, Call of Duty hit markers in games that are nothing like Call of Duty, and an obsession with Mountain Dew, marijuana and the Illuminati. If you know what I'm talking about, great; if not, look up some MLG montage videos so you know the basic style, then come back here. Done? Good.

In 2014, someone came along and made a free, 10-minute first-person shooter which turned itself into an interactive parody MLG montage as you played it, putting up flashing text and GIFs with every kill and making you drink (off-brand) Mountain Dew to restore health as you battle the Illuminati's forces of evil. That game was called GAME OF THE YEAR 420BLAZEIT. Ten years later, they've turned it into a full-sized (for low-indie price) game. The full title of which:

420BLAZEIT2: GAME OF THE YEAR -=Dank Dreams and Goated Memes=- [#wow/11 Like and Subscribe] Poggerz Edition.

The first level is essentially the full original game turned into a tutorial mission, after which you go through several vaguely-themed worlds with various levels; the first world has an alien spaceship, a conspiracy theory museum, and Area 51, for instance. It's really an excuse to put you through a surprisingly wide variety of insane and inane setpieces, and though the guns are fun to use (the Space Grenade is one of the most fun weapons I've used in an FPS) and movement feels great, how much you enjoy the game is probably going to depend on whether you find old memes funny. Making it worse is that to avoid any intellectual property issues, all of the memes are replaced by off-brand versions, which is actually a plot point - the Illuminati are responsible. There is some genuine comedy outside of memes, though, with the aforementioned conspiracy theory museum being a goldmine of it, but it comes and goes.

I know based on my description so far that the word 'good' has no business being anywhere near this game, but if you're from the right era and have the right kind of mindset, it really is a great time.

 

[BrawlMan]

Playing Panzer Bandit after not touching it since back in April of this year. This game while being a Guardian Heroes clone, has slightly better combat than the former. There are no RPG elements, but you're given 4 attack buttons. Low, Medium, High, and Ranged Attack/Magic Attack. There are hidden moves that use simplified directional inputs a la Guardian Heroes. Instead of magic, characters get two different super moves. One via directional and button combination input, and the other by pressing R2.

This game has a lot of fighting game elements that reminds me of the Marvel vs. Capcom games, and would come afterward with the Stylish Action genre. If anything, Panzer Bandit reminds me of Viewtiful Joe, because the similar anime super deformed art style. Though the characters in PB are much more realistic in comparison to any characters in the VJ art style. The mecha and robot mooks in PB almost look like puppet doll versions of the Biankies from the first VJ game. PB obviously came out first. I played as Kasumi, and she's my favorite of the four to play. She has some of the best combo set ups in the game.

I did a few rounds of Die Hard Arcade and Dynamite Cop. Both are still fun games, but the latter will always be the best of the franchise.

 

[Ezekiel]

Found the little warehouse behind the cabinet as Leon and also found the upgrade for the 50 calibur pistol. First or second shot went through two of the fleshy zombies in the facility. Hardcore. Wouldn't have had quite the same impact with the cam behind Leon. Game is really overpowering and easy, though.

 

[Worgen]

Finally beat Coven. Wasn't hard, just got distracted by other games. Its weird that its early access since it feels like a full game, you kill the bad guy at the end. Anyway, it was neat, not my favorite boomer style shooter, but was pretty good with some interesting concepts like the magic system and some time traveling stuff.

Been playing a ton of Helldivers 2 again. Its Helldivers 2, what more needs to be said, the rebalances its gotten have worked really well, so many of the weapons feel really good to use, some are still more effective then others but now most of the weapons feel viable against every way more targets. Like being able to call in a strafing run that can knock out a hunk or the bot factories is awesome, the heavy machine gun being able to penetrate heavy armor feels really good. While it certainly became easier, it also became much more fun since your not locked into taking that damn railgun. (I find the railgun unfun)

 

[Ezekiel]

Done.

Expanding on my previous post...

I liked the remake. More than most new AAA games. But, whatever compliments you can give it, it shouldn't have been made. Capcom could have made an original survival horror game just as good or even better if they weren't so bloated and scared of departing from the narrow, linear design with all the hand-holding that obviously isn't that desired anyway, judging from... Wait, RE7 and Village sold HOW much? That's depressing.

Anyway, the RE2 remake is so inconsistent from being a game from the '90s under all that expensive realism, making the ridiculous, including the progression in these illogical structures, stand out more, and it's probably made worse with a few things changed up for the sake of originality. RE4 was so far ahead of RE2 technologically, and pretty ridiculous too, but I accepted it all more easily than in the RE2 remake because it was confident in its tone and set in a place so foreign and rural that we could just pretend they really are backwards.

A bunch of content is not in the remake and the B ending with the monster inside the train is less climactic thanks to this expensive realism. The area between the sewer and lab was dropped for more time in the sewer. The trip to the police station was shortened, but you now play through Claire's encounter in the gas station. In the original, it's a cutscene, followed by the player being thrown right into the street with a bunch of zombies. I prefer the efficiency of the original over the kiddie glove intro of the remake.

Tired also of having the cam locked behind the character's back in every second AAA game that isn't in first-person view. It becomes so visually boring after a while. Enemies have to take more bullets because of how overpowering the modern over-the-shoulder combat is. This is why a new Dino Crisis would never work. OF COURSE they would put the same combat in, and OF COURSE they would add clunk like in the RE4 remake. (I played the demo.) But it still wouldn't work. You'd be shooting so many bullets at the dinosaurs that they wouldn't even seem like animals. Never had a problem with tank controls. I would put an old-fashioned cinematic camera in a survival horror like Resident Evil or Dino Crisis, but obviously fully render the environments.

Again, the new RE2 music is too bland to be listened to, and the classic OST available as DLC is incomplete and doesn't match the new tone.

That the story and writing aren't very good stand out more in the more realistic remake as well. They even replaced the huge underground cavern in which Claire first fights William Birkin with a more realistic industrial/science area, trying to hide the weirder elements that felt more at home on the original PlayStation that produced such simplistic graphics, and got rid of the killer ravens, giant spiders and moth. It wasn't enough.

 

[BrawlMan]

it shouldn't have been made.

Too bad, people wanted/demanded that RE2R for decades, ever since RE1R. You can cry and wangst all you want, but it boils down to a you problem. And only you or those stuck in the past with blind nostalgia. You might as well biatch at Shinji Mikami while you're at it. FTR, they did make an original survival horror: RE7. I don't like 7 either, but I don't deny the impact it made at the time.

You never lost a damn thing, and Capcom will never take the original away. There is too much legacy behind all of these games, and Capcom know this. Thus you can still get them digitally or physically. If you're looking for original survival horror that badly, go to the indies and stop your useless crying not having enough "good graphics"/"doesn't remind me of the good ole days" bullshit. Either that or Evil Within 2. The latter I do highly recommend. Though knowing you, you're gonna have your head up your ass about these games in some way.

Playing Powerstone 1 right now. It is better than 2, but Powerstone 2 is a super fun game when you get 4 players involved.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I don't know if you own a Switch or if you've already played it, but Metroid Dread took an interesting approach to lore: essentially, not doing much at all, instead assuming you played all the previous games and already know what the big deal is about the Chozo. In a way it's kind of a refreshing approach, and it fits with the status Samus is supposed to have. It's also a really solid 6-8 hour (first run) game, highly recommend even if you're not up on the series lore.

I don't own a Switch, but as much as I've become The Metroidvania Guy around these parts I've never been that big a fan of Metroid. I played Super Metroid and Samus Returns (or Return of Samus, whichever was in the original GB) and that's about it. But I definitely treasure the smart ~10 hour Metroidvania that is all about one or two new fun ideas over the 40 hour completionist decathlon.

Craft is about knowing how to get started, art is about knowing when to stop, to paraphrase J-Lo's ex husband.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I don't own a Switch, but as much as I've become The Metroidvania Guy around these parts I've never been that big a fan of Metroid. I played Super Metroid and Samus Returns (or Return of Samus, whichever was in the original GB) and that's about it. But I definitely treasure the smart ~10 hour Metroidvania that is all about one or two new fun ideas over the 40 hour completionist decathlon.

I can't help but feel like some wires got crossed here; I already said Dread is about 6-8 hours long if you don't go for the 100%, based on personal experience. I don't know how long the 100% is but I definitely wouldn't estimate it anywhere near 40 hours.

Though, since you don't own the platform it's on, the point's moot anyway I suppose.

OT: Still playing 420BLAZEIT2 GAME OF THE YEAR (I'm not typing the entire thing out again), and it's still more fun than it has any right to be. It's not to the degree of Cruelty Squad, since that game had an actual point to its story, but there's still a clear level of intelligence in the level and setpiece design hidden under the garish meme humor. And speaking of short games, at the rate I've been going I expect it should be finished in one more session. So it's about as long as your average Call of Duty campaign, maybe a bit less, going for a sixth the price and with a lot more original ideas and features.