Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

Tell me about it Squiggly, after the Bethesda conference I think I'm done with the Fallout games, they're turning a great RPG series into survival game shlock like Rust.

Though not sure why you're so down on indie devs, some indie devs might be the only creative people left in the industry at this point.

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

Squiggly_P wrote:

They showed off a teaser for FF7 a little while ago and the internet has collectively creamed in their pants at the prospect of playing a 20 year old game that looks pretty. But it's the most cynical, bullshit thing I can think of a game company doing. It will either be completely the same (but probably stripped down to the essential game mechanics without all the extra flavor bullshit, because can you imagine how much it would cost to actually make the ENTIRE game world of FF7 playable?), or it will be a different game with FF7 characters and plot tacked on in order to sell it. Either way, it's a shitty, cynical idea, and the reactions it's getting is just proof to me that no one who plays games anymore actually gives a shit about games. They just want to sit down and be happy about fun things for a couple of hours.

I love the idea of people taking old games you can't play on modern hardware, and making them available. I'd kill for a new version of Grandia (one that didn't crash like the Playstation version did), or Wizardry. While they've been porting all the other Final Fantasy games to iOS, FF7 has been held back. People just want to play it.

I write stories! With words!
http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

Squiggly_P: I heartily disagree.

You see, I've signed countless "petitions" to get a remake for FFVII. Ever since Advent children was released, people have been dying for it. The Tech Demo shown at E3 2005 running on a PS3 didn't exactly stop the rumours either, and most of the fans were dying to get a proper remake of it, with voice actors, a fully realised 3D world, etc.

Now, that being said, I said on an episode of Extended Edition a couple of weeks back that I had come to terms with the fact that FFVII would never happen. After playing the FFXV Demo on PS4, seeing what the current state of Final Fantasy is, I just didn't think Square would even attempt to do it.

But then they just up and did. And man, it's a good thing. The FFXV Demo showed what scale can be in a game like this. no more representative buildings and towns, and monsters/bosses that are finally to scale.
I'm already imagining how various key moments of FFVII will look and feel with PS4 tech, and while some of them can be downright insanely beautiful(forbidden forest, nibelheim, Cosmo Canyon, to name a few), some of them might be fun and cool(Gold Saucer, Honey Bee Mansion, etc), and some might actually prove a problem, unless done completely right(Cait Sith, Red XIII standing on two feet, etc).

Of course, depending on how the gameplay turns out, the battle system etc, it might be a completely different game than the original, but so long as the story is intact, and the key moments are beautifully rendered, as well as keeping with the original tone of the game(no j-pop/j-rock here, thankyouverymuch), I'm all game. Give me Midgar full-size. Give me infamous death scene with proper graphics. Give me The Highwind. Give me Jenova. Give it all to me. I'm so fucking down.



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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

I have absolutely no attachment to Final Fantasy in any way, I have yet to play any of the games. But I feel pretty much the exact same way about the Half Life remake that's on Greenlight right now. I was SUPER late to the Half Life party, but the actual game engine and most of the really old mechanics pretty much ruined the game for me, but I loved the story. So I am seriously looking forward to getting to actually play the game and story without all that frustrating decade and a half ago game weirdness.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

If my memory serves me correct, your "super late", means like last month, right?

Now multiply that by 18 years of love.

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

Hey give me a little credit.

It was like 6 months ago. tongue

But I wasn't really talking about the "longing" aspect of it, just the game mechanics part. I was never a gamer growing up, so I don't really have anything comparable anyways.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2015-06-17 14:34:43)

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

I'm probably going to have to read that again because that was a lot.

I'll mention in passing that I am amused by your comment regarding older games because I recently got in to a discussion on another board about Star Trek, and someone compared enjoying newer Trek series vs. TOS to liking modern games versus older platforms. The poster could barely tolerate one game on SNES, while I love playing things like Intellivision games on X-Box and the like because I love the gameplay.

I have no skin in modern gaming because I frankly don't have the time or money to keep up with it. I don't like all the scripted events, but I'll admit to enjoying the Fallout series now and might revisit the older ones just because they are fun. Which, is what games are all about, IMHO.

God loves you!

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

You make a series of good points, points I see, and agree on most of them.

But your remark about all the good games being Indie games? I kind of disagree with that, so here's a few elaborate examples of good games in this, and the previous generation of consoles.

1. Heavy Rain (2010, PS3)
If there ever was a game with choices that matter, this is it. There's a very solid story, with an engaging plot, and a mystery to solve. One could argue that the whole game is a series of QTE, and, to be fair, it sort of is. Most of what you're doing, when you're actually doing something, is a series of QTE, but then again, these all matter. For instance, you're faced with a question, to which you can reply 4 things. None of the choices are wrong, but one or two of them will give you the answer you're hoping for, one could just be brushed off as nonsens, and the fourth might actually get you killed. There's a plethora of interesting characters, and you can kill off most of them, resulting in a game with 23 different endings. The mystery may never be solved, and your first playthrough might actually downright suck, as you've not solved anything, and all the characters are dead. But solving it is a fucking grade A pleasure.

2. Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014, multi-platform)
A vast, epic and diverse RPG. Dragon age is played like a traditional RPG, with lots of choices, a rich world with genuinely interesting characters, a great plot and fun gameplay. It's a sequel to "Dragon Age: Origins" and "Dragon Age 2", but you don't have to play either of them to enjoy it. I certainly didn't, and I wound up clocking in over a 100 hours in about 2 weeks. Which doesn't come along often. There aren't any QTE, as far as I recall, but the choices you're presented with can make or break characters, kill them, or have them join your ranks. There's drama, war and love, and of course, great and fun combat. And, obviously; dragons.

3. The Last of Us/The Last Of Us Remastered (2013, PS3/PS4)
Naughty Dog has a pretty perfect rep when it comes to making games. From "Crash Bandicoot", to "Jak & Daxter" and "Uncharted", "The Last of Us" puts you in a world filled with good gameplay, and a VERY good story. It's hard to describe this game without spoiling anything, but the characters are where it's all at. Some might say it's a zombie game, one could argue for hours how it's not, and how they're not zombies, but fungus-infected humans, but in the end, they play out as zombies anyway, so it's not important. If you own a PS3/PS4, this is definitely one of the must-play titles.

4. Final Fantasy X/Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster (2002/2014, PS2/PS3)
In the history of JRPG games, this one is definitely something worth playing. It's an interesting world, with parallels to our own, but has great characters too. As you'd expect from a JRPG, there are sidequests, weapons, armour and items to collect(perfect if you've OCD), and hidden bosses to kill. The gameplay is pretty straightforward, in which it's usually pretty obvious where you need to go next, sure, but that aside, it's a fun game, with a very good combat system, one you can't win by just spamming powerful attacks. If you've never played a Final Fantasy game before, this is the one you should play, if you're looking for a game that wasn't made in the 90s. Of course, VII and VI are better titles, but X is a pretty solid title.


So, there's a few good examples. I could go on, but those may be the best of them anyway, and I'd have to do some digging to find great games the last 10-15 years. Which further proves your point, but I've played some REALLY good games this last decade and a half, dude.

*Also, I've never owned an Xbox, and I hear the main reason to get one; Halo, is pretty much a series of FPS games with vehicles. Which I loathe.*

Last edited by Tomahawk (2015-06-18 07:55:49)

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

You're gonna love egoraptor...

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

Skyrim's faulty in that an NPC will give you a quest to do something, and then there's a GPS telling you EXACTLY where to go all the time, which renders the need for said NPC completely obsolete. "Oh, man, I lost my knife in a drinking game last night. Swell if you could go fetch it for me. I'll pay you, of course, hehe, but you might need to take care of some bandits. Here's the exact location it's at, as I've put a tracking device in it. I'm just too lazy to do it myself, and you're the only damn person in this entire country brave enough".

Instead, it could've gone down a little something like this: "Oh, man, I lost my favorite knife in a drinking game last night. I'd like to get it back, but I don't know where the guy I gave it to is. Judging by his accent and appearance, I'm thinking somewhere near Riften. Here's some money to pay him back for the knife. Good luck, and thanks!"

Now, this quest would tell you it's possibly near Riften. It may not be, but at least you've a clue. No GPS, but a clue. It would certainly make the game more interesting.

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

Tomahawk wrote:

Skyrim's faulty in that an NPC will give you a quest to do something, and then there's a GPS telling you EXACTLY where to go all the time, which renders the need for said NPC completely obsolete. "Oh, man, I lost my knife in a drinking game last night. Swell if you could go fetch it for me. I'll pay you, of course, hehe, but you might need to take care of some bandits. Here's the exact location it's at, as I've put a tracking device in it. I'm just too lazy to do it myself, and you're the only damn person in this entire country brave enough".

Instead, it could've gone down a little something like this: "Oh, man, I lost my favorite knife in a drinking game last night. I'd like to get it back, but I don't know where the guy I gave it to is. Judging by his accent and appearance, I'm thinking somewhere near Riften. Here's some money to pay him back for the knife. Good luck, and thanks!"

Now, this quest would tell you it's possibly near Riften. It may not be, but at least you've a clue. No GPS, but a clue. It would certainly make the game more interesting.

There ARE a bunch of quests like this in Skyrim, they just aren't the majority. I think this version would be really cool (and there's probably a mod that makes fetch quests this way) but from the developers' point of view I can see the argument that it discourages players from completing side quests. It forces you to pour a lot of time and effort into a quest with a miniscule reward. Tiny quests like that SHOULD be less complicated and easier to complete.

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

There's a point in FFVII where the main protagonist just disappears, and unless you pay attention, you're gonna go look for a while.

Granted, when I played it the first time, I was 13, and not 100% fluent in English, but I spent days looking, without as much as a clue.


And yes, this wasn't a side quest, but there's always gold chocobos and Knights of the Round.

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

Owen Ward wrote:

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131201215938/starwars/images/1/15/KotOR_Cover.png

It's been a long time coming, but I'm finally getting round to playing KOTOR. I actually picked it up (along with the sequel) during the last Steam summer sale, but I only really played it for a couple of hours or so. Now with the Star Wars Humble Bundle coming about, I decided to take another stab at it and oh, am I loving it!

It's been a while - but I did it, I finally did it. I bloody well loved this game, the last section in particular had me insanely gripped. My final playtime was almost exactly 30 hours, but Steam tells me my actual time spent with the game has been almost 50. It's been a long journey, but it was so worth it. I think I could do with something a little shorter for my next game though, hmm...this unplayed Portal 2 looks nice and shiny.

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

DUUUUUUUDE. Portal 2 is FANTASTIC.

And if LucasArts/Disney/Whoeverdafuck owns the rights now weren't so douchey over the whole youtube thing, I would totally be playing KOTOR. But as it is, it will have to remain unplayed sad Maybe one day.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

I've not heard anything about that, I thought they were cool with it?

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

The issue is that no one really knows who to talk to, LucasArts doesn't exist in any real fashion any more, and I'm not even sure if Disney knows they own the responsibility for this stuff. I'm gonna talk to my network about it, but there are tons of rumours and stories of people getting their stuff pulled even for having something Star Wars video game related.

It's not like Nintendo where they outright said "LOL, no, we'll claim that shit like it's gold". It's just a cluster of confusion for anyone trying to get permission legit, and there's to many stories for me to just say f- it and go for it.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2015-06-23 01:33:53)

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

KoTOR is one of my all time favorites, and a game I still go back to some times. The sequel is pretty good too, and while I haven't yet had a chance to play through it with the content restoring mod, I've heard it's fantastic.

"ShadowDuelist is a god."
        -Teague Chrystie

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

Yeah, I have no idea how much of the Star Wars news in unsubstantiated and just people hearsaying. But it's a big enough concern that I'm not testing it. Plus I don't like to put anything up without some solid version of a release.

Nintendo has gotten better... sorta. They'll generally leave you alone if you're not monetizing videos (Again, some people say yes, some say no), and a while back they introduced their partner system where you could register with them and monetize their content but they'd take a cut of the earnings. Which I and a lot of other people rightly consider a giant pile of horse shit. But it's better than it was.

And yeah, I just got hit by the Valve thing, I just put up my first episode of a revisit of Portal yesterday. It got hit by some assholes claiming the Portal menu screen. Luckily I disputed it and they had the claim released in time for me to release it yesterday morning with monetization intact. But it still sucked.

Also funny you bring your whole thing up Squiggy. I'm rewatching eXistenZ literally as I'm typing this and that deals with the whole idea of a video game that replicates real life (ish) in terms of making choices and discovering where you need to be and what you need to do. Really interesting Cronenberg flick if you've never seen it. I love the hell out of it.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2015-06-23 05:35:03)

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

SF Debris manages to get away with it by being on Blip, and he has done a variety properties he explores.

However, I know he moved away from YouTube because any number of things could flag a copyright for ridiculous reasons.

God loves you!

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

fireproof78 wrote:

SF Debris manages to get away with it by being on Blip, and he has done a variety properties he explores.

However, I know he moved away from YouTube because any number of things could flag a copyright for ridiculous reasons.

ugh. Dude. You have no idea.

Someone claimed MY intro, like 100% my own visuals that I made in after effects from the ground up, on like 15 videos one time. My last episode of Bioshock 2 Minerva's Den got flagged for the custom soundtrack music used in the closing montage, even though it was written FOR that game and should technically fall under their blanket release for LPer's, because it's a licsenced piece of music through another company, I get fucked for the whole video.

I could fucking rant about ContentID bullshit all day man.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

BigDamnArtist wrote:

And if LucasArts/Disney/Whoeverdafuck owns the rights now weren't so douchey over the whole youtube thing, I would totally be playing KOTOR. But as it is, it will have to remain unplayed sad Maybe one day.


Do you have to record games you play and put them on YouTube? Fucking' hell, get your finger out and play KoToR, just don't record it. Jeez!

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

Here's the thing. I put out daily content. I spend ~2 days a week during the day playing games, to record enough content. So any time I have that I'm not doing that, is spent doing the 15 million other projects I do on a regular basis.

The amount of time I've spent playing video games and NOT recording (Or doing prep work to record something) in the past few years could just about fill a teacup. If at some point in the future I have the additional time to play a game I'm not recording then, A, it'll be a gawddang miracle, and B, I will.

So no, these days, if I'm not recording a video game, I'm not playing it.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2015-06-23 06:58:58)

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

BigDamnArtist wrote:

DUUUUUUUDE. Portal 2 is FANTASTIC.

After finishing it just now, I'm very inclined to agree with you. At first it seemed a bit just 'more of the same', which I was totally down with - and then it got even better. I was actually a bit hesitant about Stephen Merchant being in this, don't get me wrong - I bloody well love him, but I just wan't sure if he'd fit in. Within seconds of his introduction though, I was completely sold.

Ah, Portal 2. You are bloody good. I should probably get around to giving this co-op mode a go.

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Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

Nice. It's definitely a very different "feeling" game, P1 is very ambient and kinda creepy, with a splash of humour. P2, has a lot more outright humour mixed in with a bit of ambient and not nearly as much creepy. But I don't think it suffers, I think trying to recreate that sort of tone in P2 wouldn't have worked, it would be like you said, just too much of the same.

I have a lot of love for both games, I'm in the middle of a revisit of Portal 1 right now, and I had honestly forgotten a lot about that game. It's really good, but I think the mystery/ambient/creepy factor of it only works because it's so short.

And yes, Wheatley is fantastic. When P2 trailers were first coming out I thought he looked like the stupidest thing on the face of the planet and would completely ruin it. But turns out he's one of my favorite parts of it all.

I've only played a bit of the co-op so I can't really comment, but there are A LOT of really awesome custom maps with full storylines out there in the Community Testing Initiative. And a new one just got released here a couple days ago called Mel, created by one of the games that runs one of the larger Portal fan film channels on youtube. I'm hopefully gonna get a chance to check it out sometime this week.

And cause why not, cause it's one of my favorite shorts Harry101uk has done...cause you know...space core:

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2015-06-29 02:41:44)

ZangrethorDigital.ca

100

Re: Hey, Whatcha playin'?

I hopped back into Elite: Dangerous a couple of weeks ago. Still going the trading route, though I've done some minor exploration and stumbled across an NPC with a bounty that I killed and turned in.

https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtf1/t31.0-8/11427854_602453977024_632499374070230626_o.jpg

https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/t31.0-8/11538120_602468448024_7612521848133452831_o.jpg

https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xat1/t31.0-8/s2048x2048/11270678_603188709614_8876553063122905384_o.jpg

The cockpits on the first and third images are the same size... just the bottom ship is that much bigger. (Also don't mind the slightly dodgy panorama stitch on the third one.)

Boter, formerly of TF.N as Boter and DarthArjuna. I like making movies and playing games, in one order or another.