Gaming Shout Thread

[mfnick]

“It’s not effected me so it doesn’t exist”

 

Come on, you’re better than that. Just because you’ve had issues doesn’t mean they’re not there. Just means you’re lucky and as Dwarf says you’ve just not done a specific set of things which make these problems arise. 
 

Yea some of the complaints are a bit ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ and nit picky but a lot need calling out. 

[DisturbedSwan]

That's not what I said, I just think the term 'broken' is thrown around with reckless abandon sometimes nowadays, broken to me means there are game breaking bugs and you can't progress, not a few slight graphical glitches, bugs and other anomalies. 

 

I also said that on PC, the game is near what I would consider 'broken' and that is super shit, but on XSX and PS5 it just has a few weird performance issues at the moment that are not what I would consider game breaking at all. 

 

I played through Fallen Order on PC a few years back and that was definitely rough around the edges, from this it feels like a Naughty Dog (console lol) game in that it feels super polished with literally no issues so far for me, I am playing in Quality Mode though, whereas the issues seem to lie in the Performance mode.

[HandsomeDead]

So, it is something I've noticed too.  People conflating broken and unplayable with a bit of jank or mild performance drops.  I recently saw it looking around in regards to Ghostwire: Tokyo.  While I've not played the new Star War, Fallen Order wasn't the slickest game in the world all the time, though I did play it years after release and probably didn't play it at its rawest but none of it hindered my enjoyment.  It just had a bit of jank, and in certain contexts that can be charming I dunno.

 

It's different if it's crashes of course and I have dropped games for that, but it's always been with games that don't have a reputation for it.  I was having awful luck with Final Fantasy XII, I was getting frequent crashes with Bloodstained way after it's initial problematic release (Xbox version).  But I gotta say that when I went looking for a fix there weren't many having a similar experience.

 

I guess the reason why I don't know how seriously to take people 'calling this stuff out'.  Is it legit or is it making something out of nothing? bug videos are some fun social media content (and pretty high engagement 🙂) but how representative is it?

I want to see developers optimise for the hardware as much as anyone but I dunno how useful or informed a lot of this feedback is.

[mfnick]

Yea I understand what you’re saying. But because a lot of people get hyperbolic about it doesn’t mean it’s not an issue though. Plus some people take it differently, going back to the frame rate stuff, l genuinely struggle with games where the frame rate is uneven. Even a 60fps game, if it keeps dropping to 40-50 it feels fucking terrible. I just can’t play them if they’re like that. I’d much rather play a game at a locked 30 if it does that. But then at 30 it can give me a headache due to the stutter (doesn’t happen with all games though funnily). But to some people it just doesn’t matter at all. So where do we stand with things like that? 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Where I'll agree with Blakey is people do enjoy sticking their oar in on a game that they have not played that looks buggy, cause of the high they get off the whole 'buggy game' discourse. Not trying to say anything about JS in particular with that, as tbh the progress corruption screen just puts me way off. But it feels like bug compilations gives the impression that you see nothing but bugs. 

 

Like with Cyberpunk, when it came out I really tried to communicate that my problems with the game had nothing to do with bugs but that its design was a bit flat and padded out with tedium. I still feel that way about it. But not everyone felt that way about the game, some people thought it was amazing. But people have this idea that the game is a house of cards falling over all the time, but I never got that with the 2020* version or the 2023 version, I think it's mostly the same game. Again I might have just gotten lucky with the bugs and stuff, but still. People say it's fixed now but things like the police AI and wanted system is still the same, which I think shows that what's really happened is the detractors got bored and moved on and now you mostly hear about CP2077 from the people who really like the game (so the discourse shifted in another direction)

 

*obviously last gen console versions are a different beast, but it feels irrelevant to bring up the ps4/xone versions these days.

 

I think people should play more janky games tbh. In films you never hear people watching Evil Dead and going 'fuck sake, that was some janky shit. The effects made the film unwatchable'. Or 'that new album's production is janky as fuck'. Some of these 'janky' games are out there doing really cool shit. 

[mfnick]

I’ll take a glitchy game where people T pose all over, have spinny heads, and clip through scenery over a dodgy frame rate anyday. 

[DANGERMAN]

It is worth saying that DF said the pc version of this is the worst they've seen in a bad year for pc ports. I don't really see why it's on the audience to specifically separate out versions as not being "broken". Fuck knows I don't give Arkham Knight a pass for being ok on PS4 

[shinymcshine]

Great to see @merman1974 get a mention in the Star Letter in this month's Retro Gamer, for his "fantastic homebrew section" !

 

Fabulous.

[OCH]

Nice one @merman1974!

Reminds me of my old GTM days.

Anyway, I watched a YouTube video on a really intriguing game (that I'd never heard of before). The more I listened, the more it sounded right up my street. Which of course meant, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. The game was Fear & Hunger. Granted it is an older (2018) game now. Albeit gaining in notoriety via streamers etc in recent times. The catch being: PC-only... 😔

[HandsomeDead]

 

The Video game History Org recently did a study in how the games industry is doing in game preservation and it's a grim result.

An odd fact is games from the mid - late 90s are more readily available than games from the mid - late 2000s, probably because of catering to the nostalgia of the average gamer while ultimately treating games as disposable.  The market can't be trusted with this and I really hope their lobbying to keep it the markets responsibility fails.

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah I linked to this in the hot topic thread, wrt Metroid Prime's remaster. It's a reason why I take a slightly cynical view of the way IPs can be sat on for decades and be used to fill in a game catalogue with a HD remaster. Not to say that people shouldn't enjoy an upgrade of a game they love, some of these updates do majorly improve their oroginal, but would we value these as much if we could just as easily play the gamecube original, and do so legally? Because I really don't think that remasters are a good way of maintaining continuity of access, as these games will too become lost to time. Hell, Konami are selling us the Metal Gear Solid HD collection all over again.

 

I went through this when trying to get into Armored Core, not a single one of those games are accessible through conventional methods. You've got to pony up for really expensive discs on ebay, which is itself a bit of a gamble (like Vaati's scratched Last Raven CD). So emulation really just has to be a thing here, because companies like Nintendo and Sony don't really give much of a fuck about it. In the case of Jim Ryan he doesn't even understand why people want to play old games 

 

https://www.vg247.com/why-would-anybody-play-this-says-sonys-jim-ryan-about-backwards-compatibility

 

It can have a stifling effect also on just appreciation of these old games for their artistic expression. I look at copies of Panzer Dragoon Saga on ebay sometimes, which has now catapulted to RTX 4090 prices I guess due to the 'grading' bubble and inflation. Like imagine if something like Citizen Kane was so expensive and inaccessible. Is there a parallel universe where a game like PDZ reaches an audience a decade later and changes the course of gaming, much like Kane did for film? The industry and copyright law does not facilitate this

[HandsomeDead]

I don't even think a remaster like Prime would be affected by this in a similar way a 4K Blu-ray of a classic movie still finds an audience.  I think it's more the digital versions of old Nintendo and Sony games they offer now which are the most basic emulations which are sometimes worse than the originals.  It would force them to make their reissues more meaningful.

[shinymcshine]

Walking Sims - I just don't really get this type of 'gaming' experience.

 

I've just played through "Adiós" a 90 min plod with a number of interactive elements and dialogue 'choice'. Whilst the subject matter and narrative was okay - I think it could have easily just been done as a 15 min animated short (and perhaps would have been better for it).

 

I could have watched a 90 min movie in the same time, and as the 'game' parts didn't draw me any closer to the story or characterisation, so I do wonder at times what's the point of it?

 

Does making an animated story into a 'game' give it wider exposure (clearly with 'Adios' as it was on Games with Gold)? Is the gaming industry so desperate for wider acceptance that it encourages interactive stories (esp. with mature themes) so it's taken more seriously as an alternative art form?

 

I have enjoyed titles such as Until Dawn, and As Dusk Falls, even some of the Telltale games too - but other walking sims really do feel, for me, somewhat pointless.

[DANGERMAN]

I think playing an active part in a story can make it connect more. Dear Ester I think is great, but there's very little to it, it all comes from the player being involved. Same with To The Moon, there's very little game to that, but because you're living those memories its emotional gut punches really hit

[Sly Reflex]

I think as well some of them are living art pieces, right?

 

Proteus' thing about being born, flourishing, getting old and dying comes to mind.

[Sly Reflex]

Teardown is a game that makes me think we should be doing all we can to make everything that has destruction in it work with voxels. 

[DANGERMAN]

It's a very cool looking game 

 

Also 3D Dot Game Heroes was a cool as fuck pixel art style thanks to its voxels 

[DANGERMAN]

I think I've said this on here before, but I really need to work out how to make more of my nights. I've not played a minute of anything since Sunday. Same last week, just at the weekends. It's bullshit, I need to sort it

[Sly Reflex]

You got that whole boot up the PC and stare at everything until it's too late to start anything vibe going on?

[DANGERMAN]

49 minutes ago, Sly Reflex said:

You got that whole boot up the PC and stare at everything until it's too late to start anything vibe going on?

Come home, fuck about, cook, eat, rest/fuck about, exercise for an hour, rest, shower, fucks sake, bed 

 

You can see how I'm struggling to game