Your video game hot take(s) thread

[BrawlMan]

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[BrawlMan]

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[Dirty Hipsters]

Telling me that "the glitches are part of the experience" doesn't make me more accepting of your half-baked product and it certainly doesn't make me want to play your game.

Sorry Bethesda and Arrowhead fans, just because you think falling through the map and losing progress is funny and entertaining doesn't mean that the rest of us do.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Telling me that "the glitches are part of the experience" doesn't make me more accepting of your half-baked product and it certainly doesn't make me want to play your game.

Sorry Bethesda and Arrowhead fans, just because you think falling through the map and losing progress is funny and entertaining doesn't mean that the rest of us do.

I'll tolerate bugs, up to a point, and some games are just intended to throw bugs at you (e.g. Goat Simulator), but telling me they're a great thing to have is just huffing copium.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Telling me that "the glitches are part of the experience" doesn't make me more accepting of your half-baked product and it certainly doesn't make me want to play your game.

Sorry Bethesda and Arrowhead fans, just because you think falling through the map and losing progress is funny and entertaining doesn't mean that the rest of us do.

TBF, these glitches do create hilarious moments and memes. But we're laughing AT the glitches, not laughing with them. People seem to tolerate the visual glitches more.

I think game-breaking bugs, crashes, progress being erased, or anything that hard-interrupts the gameplay is where people draw the line.

 

[BrawlMan]

Slay the Spire co-creator advises that 'taking risks is actually the least risky thing you can do,' arguing for the appeal of 'hyper-engaging' games

In our State of PC Gaming roundtable, Mega Crit's Casey Yano urged big game studios to give players novelty rather than the expected.

www.pcgamer.com

I agree!

Casey Yano, co-founder of Slay the Spire developer Mega Crit, quit his job several years ago to work on the deckbuilder that would eventually earn a 92% from PC Gamer and a 97% overwhelmingly positive rating on Steam. It wasn't a smash hit at first, when it launched in early access, but as Slay the Spire picked up attention it eventually became the inspiration for dozens more singleplayer deckbuilding roguelikes. Many of those games have also been successful, but the surprise breakout of this year's Helldivers 2 and its unique approach to a live service shooter prompted PC Gamer's Evan Lahti to ask to what extent developers should be trying to capitalize on whatever's currently trendy.

"If any big companies are listening: Taking risks is actually the least risky thing you can do," Yano said in a recent PC Gamer roundtable interview on the State of PC Gaming. His argument: "People just want novelty. If you see a strange flavor of ice cream, you're gonna try that ice cream. I want to try the weird ice cream. I'm just saying—the pineapple mint sorbet I had the other day was incredible."

The roundtable also included Larian's publishing director Michael Douse, who said that "the output of this industry is not defined by trends—I think the output defines the trends, the trends don't define the output." He conceded that there are now loads of deckbuilders in Slay the Spire's wake, but argued that those will continue even after they're no longer trendy. "For example, the extraction shooter has become established. They're always going to make those for the rest of time now. They're always gonna make deckbuilding games," he said.

Earlier in the conversation Yano said that Mega Crit's tiny team hadn't given any thought to creating or popularizing a genre with Slay the Spire. The game was simply born out of his frustration with how slow most card games felt, and that they typically weren't built to be singleplayer. "The expectation for a card game was that it has to be PvP, and I didn't think that was true," he said. "The only way to prove anything on the internet is to do it yourself, so we just made a game."

Douse pointed to Slay the Spire as a key example of a different sort of trend in modern PC gaming, one divorced from genre labels: what he calls "hyper-engaging games."

"We're seeing more people super into specific games and finding communities in those games," he said. "That's a cool thing, right? … There's a trend of hyper-engaging games at work. We made a hyper-engaging game. Traditional logic is don't make it hyper-engaging. Make it broad so you can pick it up off the shelf."

"Oh no," Yano said. "We went all-in."

Douse said that games like Slay the Spire "are completely unbothered by any notions of casualization or trying to create something for an audience beyond your own audience." He pointed to recent hit Balatro, a new deckbuilder that sold more than a million copies in less than a month.

"Balatro's completely unbothered by any notion of what it 'should' be, and is really just focusing on what it can be and what you want to make. We're definitely going to see more of that in the PC space," Douse said.

Our 2024 State of PC Gaming roundtable touched on a range of other topics, from the influence of Slay the Spire to the current use of AI in games to the biggest trends in PC gaming over the past year. You can check out the full conversation in the embeds above and below, or find PC Gamer Chat Log wherever you get your podcasts. You may also be interested in Slay the Spire 2, which was announced after this discussion was recorded. It's due out in 2025.

 

[Gergar12]

You're not getting me to update Steam.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

Difficulty options should effect all aspects of the game.

This is inspired by Tales of Kenzara: Zau which has your standard three difficulty options. The descriptions explain that these settings only affect combat and do NOT effect hazard damage.
But "hazard damage" means you die if you just touch a spike or a lava pool or some mystery cloud gas chasing you.

So there are these platforming sections where you gotta jump, dash, break walls, etc- execute this precise string of inputs. The trickiest is with gliding and flying so you're messing with gravity. You know the drill. But some of these sequences are long- sure, many in optional challenge areas, but a couple in the main game. And you screw up once and you gotta start over.

So why should I be able to lower the difficulty to get through the combat parts but there's nothing I can do to prevent having to start a whole big sequence of platforming actions.

Heck even for the optional parts this should be the case because there are also optional combat arenas but I can lower the difficulty for combat.

It's just inconsistent. Especially since for this game in particular, the combat is actually easy and the actual challenging parts are the platforming, the thing I can't have difficulty options for.

Ok so how would you handle an "easy" options for falling on spikes and such? Well there's the rewind feature that I've seen on old Nintendo games being played on the Switch. Or add some more checkpoints. Or.. I dunno, it ain't my job lol. But either way it would mean actually implementing something and not just changing the formula for health bar sponginess. And I get it's more dev time and all that but if it's already acceptable to call out games for lack of accessibility it's fair to call this out too I think.

 

[BrawlMan]

After playing Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Gold) and SF Alpha 3 back-to-back, I can see why most US/EU fans prefer Alpha 2 over Alpha 3. For Japan, it's the reverse. I still prefer Alpha 3 over Alpha 2, but I played way much more of the former back in the PS1 days. Alpha 2 I only played a few times in the arcades or at a friend's. I will Alpha 2 & Gold have hands down the best presentation in the Alpha/Zero series. Though the PlayStation1 version of Alpha 3 has the most single player content. That is why I played that game so much back then.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

So here's an interesting conundrum: say you have a much beloved older videogame from another country getting a remake. Do you
A) preserve the original localization, leaving in localized jokes, added dialogue, potentially offensive material, etc, to remake the version of the game that was released over here

Or

B) produce a more accurate retranslation, making the localized game truer to the original, but significantly changing the version of the game that was released before, effectively censoring out pitentially offensive material and changing characters?

This post is about Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

 

[BrawlMan]

So here's an interesting conundrum: say you have a much beloved older videogame from another country getting a remake. Do you
A) preserve the original localization, leaving in localized jokes, added dialogue, potentially offensive material, etc, to remake the version of the game that was released over here

Or

B) produce a more accurate retranslation, making the localized game truer to the original, but significantly changing the version of the game that was released before, effectively censoring out pitentially offensive material and changing characters?

This post is about Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

I have little nostalgia for this game, as I only played the game a few times at a friend's; that was it. I am fine with either option.

After playing home versions of Street Fighter Alpha 2 & 3 (I'm getting the Alpha Anthology Collection tomorrow) on emulation, fighting games need more modes like Dramatic Battle. Not exactly like it, but just a fun and addictive, goofy mode for the sake of it. Remember when fighting games back in the PS1 and PS2 days would add in bonus content and modes to keep you playing? I do. I know fighting games like SF5 (after many update and content patches), SF6, Gran Blue Fantasy VS, and Tekken 8 brought back bonus modes or added them in later, but most modern fighting games still don't do this. Though NetherRealm pretty much mastered this by the time of MK9 and MKX. They got the ball rolling with Deception.

I give more leeway on the small or indie budget fighting games, but the larger ones just have either Story (Guilty Strive does not count) Arcade, a mix of two, Versus, Training, Online, and nothing else. They're glorified arcade games you're paying $60-70+ with not much bonus content going for them, other than a roster update/season pass etc. They pretty much have no excuses not to do proper bonus content anymore. Not at those high prices. He's hoping more fighting games have worthwhile single player content and bonus modes, after what SF6 and T8 did to bring them back into the proper limelight. Tekken 8 especially went the whole 9 yards.

 

[Drathnoxis]

So here's an interesting conundrum: say you have a much beloved older videogame from another country getting a remake. Do you
A) preserve the original localization, leaving in localized jokes, added dialogue, potentially offensive material, etc, to remake the version of the game that was released over here

Or

B) produce a more accurate retranslation, making the localized game truer to the original, but significantly changing the version of the game that was released before, effectively censoring out pitentially offensive material and changing characters?

This post is about Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

Why does making the translation closer to the original necessarily mean censoring potentially offensive material? Couldn't the more accurate translation be more offensive?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Difficulty options should effect all aspects of the game.

This is inspired by Tales of Kenzara: Zau which has your standard three difficulty options. The descriptions explain that these settings only affect combat and do NOT effect hazard damage.
But "hazard damage" means you die if you just touch a spike or a lava pool or some mystery cloud gas chasing you.

So there are these platforming sections where you gotta jump, dash, break walls, etc- execute this precise string of inputs. The trickiest is with gliding and flying so you're messing with gravity. You know the drill. But some of these sequences are long- sure, many in optional challenge areas, but a couple in the main game. And you screw up once and you gotta start over.

So why should I be able to lower the difficulty to get through the combat parts but there's nothing I can do to prevent having to start a whole big sequence of platforming actions.

Heck even for the optional parts this should be the case because there are also optional combat arenas but I can lower the difficulty for combat.

It's just inconsistent. Especially since for this game in particular, the combat is actually easy and the actual challenging parts are the platforming, the thing I can't have difficulty options for.

Ok so how would you handle an "easy" options for falling on spikes and such? Well there's the rewind feature that I've seen on old Nintendo games being played on the Switch. Or add some more checkpoints. Or.. I dunno, it ain't my job lol. But either way it would mean actually implementing something and not just changing the formula for health bar sponginess. And I get it's more dev time and all that but if it's already acceptable to call out games for lack of accessibility it's fair to call this out too I think.

I remember the first time I played God of War 3 there was a jump that I really struggled to make. I had gotten through the entire game until that point without a single death. I had fought Hades for the first time without even taking a hit. I spent probably 20 minutes trying to make this one jump because the camera was awkwardly positioned and I was having a lot of trouble judging the distance.

After like my 5th death I got a pop-up asking me if I wanted to lower the difficulty. Then I got the same pop up again every couple of times that I died on this jump. Not only did it feel insulting, it also wouldn't have helped because changing the difficulty only changed combat difficulty, and I wasn't having any issues with the combat. I didn't find the combat to be challenging at all even though I was playing on Titan difficulty, but this 1 fucking jump had ground me to a halt and it felt like the game was laughing at me.

"Oh you didn't think I was hard enough? What now *****? Want to lower the difficulty you big baby? SIKE!"

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Why does making the translation closer to the original necessarily mean censoring potentially offensive material? Couldn't the more accurate translation be more offensive?

In this instance specifically, the tutorial Goombas are cat-calling Goombella in the English version of the game, when no such thing was happening in the Japanese version of the game

But you do make a good point: there's also the but with Vivian, where in the English version of the game, where Bedlam makes fun of her for being ugly, wherin the Japaneseversion of the game, Vivian and Bedlam's conflict is based on Vivian calling herself a shadow sister while Bedlam yells at her because Bedlam thinks she's a man. The Japanese version is doing transphobia as a plot point, which ironically has trans people excited and the anti-woke crowd mad

 

[BrawlMan]

The Japanese version is doing transphobia as a plot point, which ironically has trans people excited and the anti-woke crowd mad

Fuck the anti-woke. Most of them never touched a Paper Mario game to begin with. If this game didn't get a re-release, those fools would have been focused on something else. They're parasites with nothing better to do in life.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

I remember the first time I played God of War 3 there was a jump that I really struggled to make. I had gotten through the entire game until that point without a single death. I had fought Hades for the first time without even taking a hit. I spent probably 20 minutes trying to make this one jump because the camera was awkwardly positioned and I was having a lot of trouble judging the distance.

After like my 5th death I got a pop-up asking me if I wanted to lower the difficulty. Then I got the same pop up again every couple of times that I died on this jump. Not only did it feel insulting, it also wouldn't have helped because changing the difficulty only changed combat difficulty, and I wasn't having any issues with the combat. I didn't find the combat to be challenging at all even though I was playing on Titan difficulty, but this 1 fucking jump had ground me to a halt and it felt like the game was laughing at me.

"Oh you didn't think I was hard enough? What now *****? Want to lower the difficulty you big baby? SIKE!"

Yes I remember this lol. Maybe not the same jump and I certainly wasn't blazing through combat on hardest difficulty or anything but I do remember pop-ups asking me to lower the difficulty for things I can't change so my experience with Kenzera probably re-awakened that embedded memory.

 

[Old_Hunter_77]

So here's an interesting conundrum: say you have a much beloved older videogame from another country getting a remake. Do you
A) preserve the original localization, leaving in localized jokes, added dialogue, potentially offensive material, etc, to remake the version of the game that was released over here

Or

B) produce a more accurate retranslation, making the localized game truer to the original, but significantly changing the version of the game that was released before, effectively censoring out pitentially offensive material and changing characters?

This post is about Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

Ideal situation would be to consult with the original game lead designer and come to a solution that just made sense.
But I personally have no love for old timey offensive stuff. in a bubble and with not context the idea of "preserving the original" and "no censorship!" is great and I'm for that but, anecdotally, every specific instance I've seen of folks getting all intense about preserving stuff is just an excuse to say the n-world or some such and it's just so exhausting.

So, as if everything, the correct answer is "it depends."

 

[hanselthecaretaker2]

I remember the first time I played God of War 3 there was a jump that I really struggled to make. I had gotten through the entire game until that point without a single death. I had fought Hades for the first time without even taking a hit. I spent probably 20 minutes trying to make this one jump because the camera was awkwardly positioned and I was having a lot of trouble judging the distance.

After like my 5th death I got a pop-up asking me if I wanted to lower the difficulty. Then I got the same pop up again every couple of times that I died on this jump. Not only did it feel insulting, it also wouldn't have helped because changing the difficulty only changed combat difficulty, and I wasn't having any issues with the combat. I didn't find the combat to be challenging at all even though I was playing on Titan difficulty, but this 1 fucking jump had ground me to a halt and it felt like the game was laughing at me.

"Oh you didn't think I was hard enough? What now *****? Want to lower the difficulty you big baby? SIKE!"

No need to feel like that, as the game’s camera system was generally meant to favor cinematic styling more than playability. The difficulty prompt was a clear design oversight, but I am kinda wondering what jump that was since I played a lot of that game. Guessing the giant cube section?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

No need to feel like that, as the game’s camera system was generally meant to favor cinematic styling more than playability. The difficulty prompt was a clear design oversight, but I am kinda wondering what jump that was since I played a lot of that game. Guessing the giant cube section?

I don't remember exactly where the jump was. It definitely wasn't that far into the game, I think it might have been in the caverns in chapter 3.

There was a jump that you had to make jumping away from the camera across a big gap that required you to use you max jump distance with the wings, but there was a little fence or something before the jump and if you nudged the fence at all while jumping over it then you wouldn't get the necessary distance. The camera was kind of low so you never really saw the pit you were jumping over, which made it difficult for me to judge the distance.

No one I've ever talked to remembers this jump. It's not mentioned in any guides. It wasn't a problem for anyone except me.

I was also 19 when the game came out, and definitely took myself to seriously at the time, so the jump felt personally insulting to me.