General Gaming Thoughts That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread

[SimonBolivar 11,062]

I'm really enjoying watching people stream hardcore Classic WoW with permadeath. I have no interest in being sucked back into playing and potentially losing a character, but it's a blast to watch a level 40 something die after days of work.

[Sam Lin 3,597]

On 2/12/2023 at 12:09 AM, atomheartbevo said:

I listen to way more podcasts/watch more YouTube videos than I play desktop/console games, but most of it's retro videos on games from the 80s and 90s that I either never beat, or never got a chance to play at the time.  I'm fascinated by the companies/personalities from the 80s and 90s.

I watch a lot of gameplay and speedrun videos now, as a way to learn more in-depth aspects of a game and also appreciate what a truly skilled player can do. A lot of times I much prefer to watch an expert play than to play myself any more. It's like watching a performing art.

 

Particular shoutout to GDQ, Games Done Quick. They run physical events, livestreamed, a couple times year, where they get the top speedrunners for a pile of games to do speedruns in front of a live audience with livestream. The runs are commentated by other top streamers, so in one stream you quite likely have all the top experts in the world for a game, and between the gameplay and the commentary you learn SO much about a game. They add special goals to each run if certain donation targets are met (for example, they've had the player do a section blindfolded), and all donations go to charity. Sometimes the audience becomes a part of the stream, everyone sings one of the songs together, or a couple cosplayers impromptu act out a scene of the game while the player is going through it. It's just a wonderful gaming event with a wonderful community and shared single purpose. If you are searching, they do SGDQ for Summer Games Done Quick, and AGDQ for Awesome Games Done Quick.

https://www.twitch.tv/gamesdonequick

https://www.youtube.com/@gamesdonequick

 

For Faster Than Light (FTL), Twitch streamers Holoshideim and Rand118 are the top in the world. Holoshideim holds the record for longest string of wins on Hard mode, no Pausing. This game is insanely hard. New players take many tries just to beat Hard once, and that's with pausing to think about the next action and plan for enemy reactions. Holoshideim won 100+ games straight with no pausing.

For Fallout, Many a True Nerd. Just a guy who absolutely loves the games, and it shows. He explains, he demonstrates, he has hilarious screwups, it's just contagious fun watching him play. He notably did "you only live once," playing through the entire game using only one life bar. He also has done "kill everything" runs that are great fun to watch. He also streams other games, his Subnautica stream was a hilarious pile of mishaps.

 

ARS Technica has a lovely series of journalism-style articles and interviews talking about popular games and digging in to what makes them so good. For example:

https://arstechnica.com/video/watch/how-immersive-stories-deepen-the-horror-of-games-like-soma-and-amnesiac-rebirth

They've also done a series called War Stories where they go back and talk to developers of successful games and share some of the stuff that happened in development. Example:

https://arstechnica.com/video/watch/war-stories-ultima-online-the-virtual-ecology

 

On 2/12/2023 at 1:17 AM, atomheartbevo said:

like a Linux user that's never been laid.

Isn't that redundant?

 

On 6/5/2023 at 9:26 AM, Celery Man said:

Earlier this year I went back and finally beat Fallout New Vegas after getting drunk one night in 2010 or whatever, waking up with no idea what any of these quests were, and never picking it back up. Last week I heard a commercial or TV show or something with an Ink Spots song and now I’m playing through Fallout 3. These games are still so goddamn great, especially in a pitch black room with galaxy radio playing.

Watch Many a True Nerd on YT if you want to learn more about Fallout than you ever wanted. He explains game dynamics, he shows little bits of story that are super niche situations, it's just a way for even a die-hard Fallout fan to discover even more about the game. And even now he still learns new things, and he's been a Fallout "specialist" for 10+ years.

 

 

[Sam Lin 3,597]

On 6/7/2023 at 1:43 AM, SimonBolivar said:

I'm really enjoying watching people stream hardcore Classic WoW with permadeath. I have no interest in being sucked back into playing and potentially losing a character, but it's a blast to watch a level 40 something die after days of work.

Then there's this, Diablo 4 race event to lvl 100 on permadeath. Guy wins, then server disconnects so his player is killed for "disconnecting."

https://kotaku.com/diablo-iv-hardcore-level-100-race-disconnect-carn-1850514675

[atomheartbevo 90,606]

On 6/8/2023 at 10:34 PM, Sam Lin said:

Then there's this, Diablo 4 race event to lvl 100 on permadeath. Guy wins, then server disconnects so his player is killed for "disconnecting."

[SimonBolivar 11,062]

I really need to take the week off for the Starfield release. It'll probably be the only Bethesda RPG we get until 2030 so might as well soak it all in.

[Sam Lin 3,597]

Wait until roughly the 4th patch if you want a good Bethesda gaming experience.

[atomheartbevo 90,606]

 

[Storm the Field 5,366]

 

Nintendo (NTDOY) shares saw gains Wednesday after the video game company announced it will release a live-action "Legend of Zelda" movie funded and distributed by Sony. This news comes on the heels of the successful release of Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. movie adaptation earlier this year.

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by Storm the Field

[atomheartbevo 90,606]

[Js1 87,148]

On 11/8/2023 at 1:42 PM, Storm the Field said:

 

Nintendo (NTDOY) shares saw gains Wednesday after the video game company announced it will release a live-action "Legend of Zelda" movie funded and distributed by Sony. This news comes on the heels of the successful release of Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. movie adaptation earlier this year.

 

The Rock as Link. Make it happen. 

[Captainant 28,477]

19 minutes ago, Js1 said:

The Rock as Link. Make it happen. 

Don't be a coward. The Rock as Zelda. 

[Js1 87,148]

Just now, Captainant said:

Don't be a coward. The Rock as Zelda. 

Idris Elba as Zelda. The Rock as Link. Meryl Streep as Ganandorf. Amy Schumer as Epona 

[Captainant 28,477]

Just now, Js1 said:

Idris Elba as Zelda. The Rock as Link. Meryl Streep as Ganandorf. Amy Schumer as Epona 

Sarah Silverman as Navi 

[Js1 87,148]

Just now, Captainant said:

Sarah Silverman as Navi 

Melissa McCarthy as Tingle 

[atomheartbevo 90,606]

So this is a game.

https://kotaku.com/walking-dead-destinies-new-game-bad-kong-game-mill-1851032588

 

Edited November 18, 2023 by atomheartbevo

[BurntOrange&White 41,837]

Lethal Company is fun and hilarious with friends 

[BERT 4,489]

Is Madden '24 worth buying? I haven't really played a Madden since before 2010 i think. Need something new instead of always playing GTA

and i finally got a Series X, so i want something that looks good. Not really a first person shooter type of player.

[Hawndoh 2,409]

If you get Gamepass Ultimate, which I'm sure there is probably a good deal for a new account, you can try Madden.

A lot of EA stuff is on Gamepass, but there are tiers and I don't think the EA stuff is on the cheapest tier.

[seven 1,368]

Anyone playing season of discovery? So far it's the most fun I've had in wow since og wrath. 

[atomheartbevo 90,606]

E3 is done.  Stunning how they fucked it up so bad, and so now we get some shitty game awards show with a bunch of trailer releases.

 

At least we have the PAX stuff and GDC (although I'm still pissed it got moved out of Austin).

[MillerEP 30,869]

The writing was on the wall for a while but it’s still a shame, I used to get so excited during that time of year.

[CurlyDumps 4,625]

 In the late nineties I used to get so excited for E3 coverage of upcoming PC and N64 games.  I obsessively followed Goldeneye.

Went once in 2015. The two highlights - playing a Destiny 2 pvp match before Taken King came out, and an actual blood fountain promoting Dark Souls III:

 

 

 There was also a cool Dishonored 2 teaser display. Had Corvo's "real mask" on display or something.

[Captainant 28,477]

23 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

E3 is done.  Stunning how they fucked it up so bad, and so now we get some shitty game awards show with a bunch of trailer releases.

 

At least we have the PAX stuff and GDC (although I'm still pissed it got moved out of Austin).

When you think about it though, E3 just didn't make sense. Companies could spend millions on a keynote and booth space - OR - they could just do a live stream from their office for $0 and get the same level of engagement online 

[atomheartbevo 90,606]

Epic Games beat Google in court.  No idea on damages yet.

https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/epic-v-google-trial-verdict-a-win-for-all-developers?sessionInvalidated=true

Quote

Today’s verdict is a win for all app developers and consumers around the world. It proves that Google’s app store practices are illegal and they abuse their monopoly to extract exorbitant fees, stifle competition and reduce innovation. 

Over the course of the trial we saw evidence that Google was willing to pay billions of dollars to stifle alternative app stores by paying developers to abandon their own store efforts and direct distribution plans, and offering highly lucrative agreements with device manufacturers in exchange for excluding competing app stores. 

Quote

These deals were meant to cement Google’s dominance as the only app store in town - and it worked. More than 95% of apps are distributed through the Play Store on Android.

Google imposes a 30% tax on developers simply because they have prevented any viable competitors from emerging to offer better deals. And Google executives acknowledged in Court that their offer of a 26% rate on third party payment options is a fake choice for developers. 

 

[atomheartbevo 90,606]

 

[atomheartbevo 90,606]

 

https://variety.com/2024/gaming/news/atari-acquires-intellivision-brand-console-war-1236014502/

Quote

For fans of old-school games, it’s kind of like Coke acquiring Pepsi: Atari, which produced one of the first hit home game consoles, announced a deal to acquire the brand of long-time rival Intellivision and the rights to more than 200 games from Intellivision Entertainment. 

Quote

Atari and Intellivision battled it out what is considered the game industry’s first console war, starting in the late ’70s. The first Intellivision home video game console was released by Mattel Electronics in 1979, selling an estimated 5 million units through 1990, and it vied for market share against the Atari 2600, which was released in 1977. Mattel even recruited actor George Plimpton to appear in a series of ads comparing the two systems, as well as an eight-minute video shown at the Gamescom trade show.

Quote

Founded in 1972, Atari is currently owned by France’s Atari SA (formerly called Infogrames) and has focused on cultivating a lineup of retro games. Atari’s iconic games include Pong, Asteroids, Centipede and Missile Command.

With the Atari deal, Intellivision Entertainment will rebrand and continue its business of developing and distributing the Amico game console with a license from Atari to continue to distribute new versions of the Intellivision games portfolio on the Amico console. Intellivision claims it had the first 16-bit game console, a full two generations before it became the industry standard.

Quote

“This was a very rare opportunity to unite former competitors and bring together fans of Atari, Intellivision and the golden age of gaming,” said Wade Rosen, chairman and CEO of Atari.

Mike Mika, studio head at Digital Eclipse, an Atari-owned game studio, added, “Uniting Atari and Intellivision after 45 years ends the longest-running console war in history.” 

Quote

Atari said it will seek to expand digital and physical distribution of legacy Intellivision games, as well as potentially create new games, and explore brand and licensing opportunities as part of “a long-term plan to create value from the Intellivision properties.:

“Atari has been a valuable partner and we have every confidence they will be a responsible steward of the storied Intellivision brand,” Phil Adam, CEO of Intellivision Entertainment, said in a statement. “We look forward to our expanded collaboration and the prospect of bringing a broad array of new titles to the Amico family gaming platform.”

 

Quote

To mark the deal, Atari is selling new Intellivision T-shirts starting Thursday on its website, “with more Intellivision apparel and collectibles to come.”

[CleverNickname 1,345]

are any civ or RTS or 4x games any good on console, or is the lack of keyboard and mouse always a fatal flaw?

[Hawndoh 2,409]

Civ 6 is pretty good when it works. Depending on the console and which DLC you have it can crash a bit.

It's controls were well implemented and stuff like that. However I stopped playing it on console in favor of PC because of mods. I can't play without some of the UI mods I use that make some aspects of the game so much nicer.

[atomheartbevo 90,606]

5 hours ago, CleverNickname said:

are any civ or RTS or 4x games any good on console, or is the lack of keyboard and mouse always a fatal flaw?

I think some ports are being improved by virtue of being on Steam Deck and publishers/developers realizing there’s money in games being made to fit different platforms.

But there’s also some real cartoony versions of such games that were made.

[Hozz 1,034]

I've never played any mobile game beyond helping my wife with some of those word ones.  I recently discovered Tacticus (IOS and Android) though and I am hooked, in a bad way.  It is (to me) shockingly deep for a technically free to play game.  It is a Warhammer 40K game, I wouldn't have noticed it otherwise.  Turn based tactics game where you collect different characters from various 40K factions and level/gear them and fight shit with them.  Virtually all of it instanced PVE content you can consume at your own pace (including guild raids/wars).  There is a live PVP component that rolls around every month or so for a few days.

 

[SimonBolivar 11,062]

Edit: Started its own thread
 

 

 

Edited September 26 by SimonBolivar

[CurlyDumps 4,625]

Finally getting around to Jedi Survivor. This game is excellent. Cal and BD1 are more memorable than any of the new movie characters imo. Combat is more fluid and fun than I remember FO being.  In FO sometimes I felt more like Star Wars Kid than a jedi:

 

[Captainant 28,477]

11 hours ago, CurlyDumps said:

Cal and BD1 are more memorable than any of the new movie characters imo.

Pretty low bar lol, the new trilogy is dogwater. 

 

11 hours ago, CurlyDumps said:

Combat is more fluid and fun than I remember FO being.  In FO sometimes I felt more like Star Wars Kid than a jedi:

Yeah the first game felt like a version of the dark souls combat, just not as punishing when you make mistakes. The second game was a fair bit more its own thing, I'm looking forward to how they finish Cal's story

[CurlyDumps 4,625]

Anyone fucked with OLED/Ultrawide/curved monitors? I hear great things about OLED.

Samsung has some deals going with an extra $50 off promo for your first in-app order.  I'm looking at this Odyssey G8 34" ultrawide curved monitor for $500. With an extra 5% referral code discount it beats Amazon by about $170.

[Captainant 28,477]

8 hours ago, CurlyDumps said:

Anyone fucked with OLED/Ultrawide/curved monitors? I hear great things about OLED.

Samsung has some deals going with an extra $50 off promo for your first in-app order.  I'm looking at this Odyssey G8 34" ultrawide curved monitor for $500. With an extra 5% referral code discount it beats Amazon by about $170.

Don't have a monitor but when I hook my PC up to my OLED in my living room it looks spectacular. 

Definitely make sure youve got the setup and correct cables for sending an HDR signal, it really makes games pop

[CurlyDumps 4,625]

Yeah my current monitor is HDR. It does make a big difference. Im excited to see how HDR looks on OLED. Pulled the trigger, monitor should arrive next week.

[elfenix 34,684]

Edit: see you already bought it, have fun

Edited November 23 by elfenix

[CurlyDumps 4,625]

Got a nice surprise, the monitor arrived early while we were thumping Kentucky.

It's beautiful. All my concerns alleviated. Redditors are hilarious. I saw some posts complaining about brightness and not being able to achieve 1000 nits or whatever. This thing fucking blinds me at 50% brightness. How bright do these dorks want their HDR to get? lmao

How the hell do you even measure nits or whatever? I see a lot of posts but no one ever explains exactly how they measure or "calibrate for 1000 nits" or whatever.

[atomheartbevo 90,606]

9 hours ago, CurlyDumps said:

Got a nice surprise, the monitor arrived early while we were thumping Kentucky.

It's beautiful. All my concerns alleviated. Redditors are hilarious. I saw some posts complaining about brightness and not being able to achieve 1000 nits or whatever. This thing fucking blinds me at 50% brightness. How bright do these dorks want their HDR to get? lmao

How the hell do you even measure nits or whatever? I see a lot of posts but no one ever explains exactly how they measure or "calibrate for 1000 nits" or whatever.

redditors cranking it all the way up

[thunderlounge 8,394]

This has been working out fine for me:

[Captainant 28,477]

Man, using moonlight and sunshine to stream my PC directly to my TV over my LAN feels like the future. I can pair controllers to the TV or just directly to the PC a floor away, and either works with no friction. 

I did have to enable dev mode on my TV to install the moonlight client, but that's just because LG insists on using webOS. Most android TVs you can just side load the apk and let it rip.

I'm getting rock solid 1440p 120hz over my wired LAN, it's really brought couch co-op back to my PC gaming household

[Js1 87,148]

New GOT game looks like a shitty mobile game that is 5 years too late 

[NAVY 6,920]

https://www.naughtydog.com/blog/intergalactic_the_heretic_prophet_announcement
 

 

[Hozz 1,034]

Comments disabled...never a good sign.

[Storm the Field 5,366]

On 12/13/2024 at 9:52 AM, Hozz said:

Comments disabled...never a good sign.

Incels big mad about a female protagonist with a shaved head. You know exactly what the comments would be.

It will probably get review-bombed when it first comes out. Since it's Naughty Dog, I'm guessing critics score of 96/100 or something with a user score of 2.8. It will eventually sell several million copies and win multiple GOTY awards.

[Hozz 1,034]

If you have a product you don't want to hear feedback about, maybe it's not a good product?

I don't think it will do as well as the budget would suggest.  Most gamers don't want an unattractive female lead.  The incels you're talking about are happy to play a hot Lara Croft.  The character in this trailer is ugly though, and there's also some 'girl power' fatigue in general.

[atomheartbevo 90,606]

 

5 hours ago, Hozz said:

I don't think it will do as well as the budget would suggest.  Most gamers don't want an unattractive female lead.  The incels you're talking about are happy to play a hot Lara Croft.  The character in this trailer is ugly though, and there's also some 'girl power' fatigue in general.

I get that most gamers want a plain-looking young teen girl like Ellie or an older, hunky, rugged handsome guy like Joel as their leads like Last of Us presented, but it’s the first in a franchise series, so there will be other games with other leads.

[Captainant 28,477]

6 hours ago, Hozz said:

If you have a product you don't want to hear feedback about, maybe it's not a good product?

I don't think it will do as well as the budget would suggest.  Most gamers don't want an unattractive female lead.  The incels you're talking about are happy to play a hot Lara Croft.  The character in this trailer is ugly though, and there's also some 'girl power' fatigue in general.

There's been a decade plus long effort to make gaming discourse extremely hostile towards anyone that isn't an incel white dude. It was a whole thing called gamer gate, and I can't blame a publisher for just turning off the comments. 

And again, as far as "girl power fatigue" I would argue that that's largely a self-inflicted grievance. It's not like there's been zero games made for dudes and only games made for ladies lol. There's a big segment of people online that are just programmed to be BIGMAD every time there's something outside of the typified videogame sterotype

[Murfdogg21 4,563]

My boys are wanting NCAA/Madden football games that aren’t supported on their Switch. Is there a consensus among needs of which is better for kids/sports games between whatever are the newest Xbox and PS consoles?

[bad_teammate 13,488]

On 12/16/2024 at 12:12 PM, Hozz said:

If you have a product you don't want to hear feedback about, maybe it's not a good product?

Are Teslas bad cars because people hate Elon Musk? Is modern medicine bad because people hate Big Pharma? Is capitalism bad because many people are alienated by it?

Social media comments aren't real life and the feelings of the angriest online activists aren't representative of the entire market.

The video game girls these dudes complain about would, in real life, still be well out of their league. That's the funny thing. The video game monitor isn't a very good mirror.

Edited Wednesday at 04:12 PM by bad_teammate