Maf

Speaking of hating my life and everything in it, let’s indulge in some masochism

Yes, for the exact same reasons. Retire characters here and there for breaks, and get the audience used to recasts like James Bond or something, but killing characters off is a waste. They’re the building blocks of comic book stories 

It amazes me that comic book movies fell in to the exact same traps and solutions as the comics themselves. Never kill off your heroes! It doesn’t matter how big of a moment you think it will be, you lose so much story potential for one moment and some aftermath

If they’re not going to commit to anything permanent, it makes people feel like nothing matters 

I can’t believe this is real but RDJ says he would return to the MCU. 
 

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a60314472/robert-downey-jr-interview-2024/

Quote

How about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Would he ever return to it, as an Academy Award winner? “Happily. It’s too integral a part of my DNA. That role chose me. And look, I always say, Never, ever bet against Kevin Feige. It is a losing bet. He’s the house. He will always win.”

Who knows if he will or not. See how desperate Marvel gets. But after other interviews and things he’s said in the past few years, I would have said absolutely no way he comes back for anything other than a huge pay day. For RDJ to say “Happily”. Never would have believed it 

Again I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to undersell the MCU to lift up X-Men ‘97. I think Marvel has made really good films post IW/EG. But X-Men is the best thing they’ve done, definitely. 
 

And a lot of it falls on the shoulders of Magneto. He’s so good in this series (despite the terrible costume)

I’m guessing everybody has seen this before but you just reminded me of the Wii update song 😆

This shit never got the respect it deserved rip

Wasn’t the PS4 UI the same as the PS3 UI except it scrolls the other way? That’s how I remember it at least

UI is not really anything I have a strong opinion on. But coincidentally I used the Vita the other day and the whole thing with the different bubbles and ‘ripping off’ tabs is like wtf were they thinking 

10 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

But what I also think is there can be a hype backlash with stuff like this, cause I bought into the hype with Loki season 2 and gave it a shot and it was one of the worst things I watched. I'm not saying X-Men is probably like that, but when Disney overwhelm viewers with a lot of bad stuff and make them lose interest, it can actually really hurt exposure for things where they get it really right.

I wasn’t aware Loki S2 reviewed well or had hype. But I also think it was crap if that means anything. I only watched it because I wanted to see if Kang did something that would be relevant later. 
 

I also think D+ Marvel has hurt Marvel overall. I don’t think the films are much better or worse than they were before Endgame, but in terms of hype backlash, the constant wave of Marvel shit on D+ has ripped the blinkers of people and I think made people see what the majority of MCU films always were.
 

D+ glut and no overall sense of direction has killed the interest. 

But for what it’s worth I think X-Men ‘97 is amazing. It’s completely detached from the MCU which probably also helps. 

I didn’t have internet until the PS4 gen so for me those things just weren’t a factor. Didn’t deal with updates or online anything. The only thing I didn’t like about it was it didn’t have rumble.

But the system launched with Motorstorm and Resistance both of which were baller so I was over here having a good time

I think they had great games all the way through. 

Wait, PS3 was bad? When did that happen? 

I can’t believe how good X-Men ‘97 is. I’m struggling to find a way to speak about how good it is without sounding like I’m underselling the MCU (they made some of my favourite films ever) or speaking in hyperbole about the show (I’m not die hard X-Men tas fan by any means) But it’s the smartest, most creative, most clever thing Marvel Studios has done ever. Where did this show come from? For all the problems of their D+ content mandates Wandavision and now this has snuck through and actually been brilliant. This is definitely better than Wandavision as well. 
 

For all the critics of the MCU that it’s a factory, soulless and has no artistic voice or whatever. X-Men ‘97. This is all love and passion from every aspect of it. You can feel it in every frame.

The only negative I would give it is the pacing. Some of these plots feel like they’re on 2x speed. But you at least can’t knock it for being slow lol.

It’s only 4 episodes in but this show is 9/10. It’s so good. They even did a ‘people trapped inside a video game’ episode and it was actually good! I don’t think that’s ever been done before. 

Man, oh, man. I feel sorry for anything X-Men live action because it has to be the follow up to this. 
 

Damn, man, I just can’t believe it. I wasn’t anticipating this show at all. Not only am I not a big original X-Men tas fan, but also the state of Marvel’s animation so far has been so bad. Then bam. They even made Jubilee bad ass. There’s no way the comics don’t start stealing her uses of powers from the show. 

Easily for me the worst console I’ve ever owned is the PSP. I remember buying it, unpacking it, playing GTA for an hour and the level of regret is unmatched by any other console.

Although the worst computer I almost had is when I went to my aunt’s and she had a Commodore 64 and let me play, and then asked me if I wanted it - for free.

And as a kid who had no amount of discernible taste for anything video games I was like - no thanks 

I started this last night in search of a palette cleanser kind of game and was pleasantly surprised by it.

On the one hand it is what I thought it would be. It’s the most Xbox 360, 420 bro, yo that guys head came off do it again, dumb game I thought it would be. But the acknowledgement and self awareness while embracing its dumb concept is handled with surprising balance. I think what makes it work is the characters are well written stereotypes. So they are what you think while every now and then dropping a realistic and well acted like that gives them the extra shade that they need to be fun

I think what helps sell them as well is not just good writing and VA but they look great as well. They’re not like Naughtdog level characters or something but again, just surprisingly high quality.

Never once did I fire up Dead Island 2 and think the thing which would hit me first is how it’s all presented
 

In terms of gameplay, it’s first person melee, which again to my surprise, I don’t hate. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed first person melee. At best it’s serviceable. And I don’t think this is great. But you can run and drop kick zombies and there’s some simple environmental usage which helps mix up the bash, bash, bash nature of it.

I only played it for about 2 hours, so I will see how long the gameplay lasts before I get bored of it. 
 

But between low expectations and a game I put on because it’s free and I didn’t want to think/try too hard. It’s much better than I thought it would be and I was legit having fun

Yeah, the biggest leap comment is something they can turn around later and say “for Xbox” or they back away from it later

The thing that catches me is the “new hardware paradigms” that could definitely imply cloud gaming. But I think could gaming, as streaming games or “using the power of the cloud”, has never proven itself or really taken off. So if I were them I wouldn’t put all my eggs in that basket

I dunno. It’s too vague turn of corporate speak to guess anything real, but it sounds generally they’re not going to focus on making great games for a great console, and instead trying to change what a console is to fit their own ambitions of Xbox becoming a service.

I suppose it’s very old man to complain about attempt at change, maybe consoles shouldn’t/can’t go on the way they have for the last 30 something years. But just as an idea I’m kind of like fuck that. Build 1 box not 2, get the quality and rate of game releases up, and if you want to have the best backward compatibility features ever on a Xbox then great. But prioritise these things instead of cross save cloud support and hardware paradigms. 

I agree that it’s the same 5 characters over and over. But I enjoy the decision making, understanding of the game and the way things like RC is used at top level.

Except for NYTempest who plays Leo. I do not have it in me to respect Leo players 

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/exclusive-xbox-president-sarah-bond-has-set-up-a-new-team-dedicated-to-game-preservation-and-forward-compatibility
 

I wonder what the plans are for the next Xbox. Imo, even though I understood the strategy for this generation - play on value for money and give people lots of options - I think it’s proven to be flawed and not something that gamers seem to want or care about. I think there’s a lot going on with why Xbox came last this gen between exclusives, reputation, slow production, etc. but on paper it made sense to me, especially Gamepass, and I thought it would work. But clearly it has not. 

So this news about focusing on preserving games “across future hardware paradigms” and stuff like that. Either they’re going to try this again in a different way or have not learned. I would have thought build a great Xbox, but have games more ready to go for the first couple of years, and then start expanding options to bring in people once demonstrated Xbox is the place to play great games. But again it seems to be about just providing an Xbox service wherever they can put it.

I think they have to convince people to want to engage with Xbox first. And I think they have to do that by building a great console + great games. It still works for PlayStation and Nintendo. 
 

Also framing it as preservation is a bit manipulative of the spirit of game preservation, but it’s technically true so it’s fine. Hopefully one expansion they make is features for games like FPS boost and such. So games just aren’t preserved but like PC can scale with the new console.

I dunno. Even though this is actually good news story and I don’t want to be cynical about it. And maybe the vision becomes clearer in time when we see what this new Xbox is and what makes it different. But I can’t help it, the language used here sounds like the same thing they just tried. 

I messed up and put the news in a spoiler box and not a quote box and I can’t edit the post. My bad

Quote

EXCLUSIVE: Xbox President Sarah Bond has set up a new team dedicated to game preservation and forward compatibility

 

What you need to know

• Per emails received by Windows Central, confirmed by Microsoft as genuine, Xbox President Sarah Bond recently briefed her team on various topics. 
• In the emails, Sarah Bond reiterated Microsoft's plans to build new Xbox hardware focused on delivering "the biggest technical leap ever in a generation." 
• Sarah Bond also revealed that Microsoft has set up a dedicated team to future-proof our digital Xbox game libraries across future hardware paradigms to further "build on [Xbox's] strong history of delivering backward compatibility." 
• Additionally, it was revealed that Xbox has become Diablo 4's most prominent platform since the game's inclusion into Xbox Game Pass. 

https://www.eurogamer.net/gears-6-will-be-announced-in-june-leak-suggests
 

Rumour - Gears 6 to be announced in the summer.

Feels right. It’s been a long time since Gears 5 now. Would be very excited. I think Gears 5 is the best one they ever made, so more of that would be great. Especially after such a long break.

Coincidentally I’ve been thinking about playing Gears 5 again. I never did my collectible or Insane run like I do in these games so might go back and finish that soon.

Also strikes me we’re only 2 months away from “E3” season. Oh, boy. Big time video game stuff coming soon

Leffen was streaming Millia gameplay because he says he’s dropping Happy Chaos and trying to find a new main lol

When I tuned in he was winning and was going “this the thing about Millia, every one who plays her is just bad, she’s got so much cool stuff”

He then got walloped by a Sol spamming special moves and stuff and was “well, maybe she’ll be a secondary character”

Which then devolved further into “the problem with Millia is you just can’t attack head on or you randomly die”

Leffen is an amazing player but I find it hard to take him seriously when he talks because he’s opinion changes according to how well the last 5 seconds went.

Millia is such a fun character, but she’s not a winner. You want to have fun you play Millia, you want to be really competitive in the big leagues you play Sol, or stick with Happy Chaos. My understanding is the last patch did finally tone that character down, but he was toned down from top 1. It’s not like he’s bad, and I bet still better than Millia

Millia’s fundamental problem is she just forces straight guessing games and they’re not like the split second 50/50 guessing games that Leo, I-No, Sol, Nago etc force. She sets up a disc and hovers there and it;’s like well what’s it going to be. Her problem in terms of tournament level play or competitive is you can’t win by making a high level player guess wrong 8 times in a row when they only have to clip Millia twice

I want Danny Devito as E.Honda 

And it is done 

Now I need a rest as well 

I played this for a couple of hours yesterday and this game is excellent. I think between now and last time I played it I've gotten a bit better at these types of games and being able to apply that knowledge has actually helped me find secrets and stuff like that, which is always the most rewarding parts of these games. 

I do find myself being stretched a little bit with the shinespark stuff. It's kinda hard. And there were a few secrets that look like to me if I fail the shinespark attempt then I have to go right around the map again to give it another go. Not a fan of that.

But the bosses are great, the map is great, the game looks extraordinary. I'm actually really impressed with it considering it's a GBA game. 

Plus the other day when I said it doesn't do creepy very well. Actually, playing it on monitor with speakers to enhance the sound and running into the SA-X. It's way more effective than I gave it credit for. 

Extremely impressed with the game so far. This is kinda brilliant 

Sydney Sweeny

For no particular reason 👀

Oh, and they should have Jason Momoa as Blanka 

Who should play Blanka? 🤔