The Hot Topic Returns

[shinymcshine]

Probably the £150 spent on Band Hero & Instrument set (360) upon release - so many hours on multiplayer, and we still get it out at least once a year.

 

Same too with the Singstar games (PS2) so much multiplayer fun, and we still play them together a few times a year.

 

Otherwise, as above for single player, so many hours sunk into CRPGs, Elder Scrolls, Fallout etc.

[OCH]

Probably Binding of Isaac. I think I paid £7.99 for the last one (the game before the most recent). Considering I probably got over 1000 hours out of it. That is pretty good value. 

[spatular]

halo 2/3/reach/infinite and destiny for me as i've played them so much online. also played some free to play stuff like fortnite/apex/cod warzone, (oh yeah and halo infinite is free to play too). played far too much drop 7. oh and guitar hero/rock band, played those a lot but also spent a lot on dlc in rockband.

[Nag]

They've not changed the question again this week for some reason so....

 

 

Quote

Nag says... "What's the biggest gaming franchise that you've played no games from? And is there a reason for that?"

 

I'd say for me it's got to be Pokemon (Pokemon has to be bigger than Zelda right?)... main reason I guess is that I've only ever owned two Nintendo consoles and Pokemon was never ever on the radar when I did have those mainly down to me struggling with cutesy stuff.

[mfnick]

Can’t really think of any. Must be a big PC IP like Warcraft, StarCraft, League etc. just never been into traditional PC games. Especially of the strategy variety. 
 

Majority of console IPs I’ve at least tried. 

[one-armed dwarf]

Probably Metroid. I'd probably like them but well, that fov in the Prime remaster 🤮

[HandsomeDead]

I've still not even touched Fortnite.  Minecraft I may have touched for about 10 minutes but that's it.  And there's some like Five Nights at Freddie's but these are all more recent big deals that it's easy for a guy pushing 40 to miss.

 

But to keep it a bit more in the spirit of the question a series that comes to mind that I've not played which may be surprising is I've never touched a Ratchet & Clank game.  I don't have a good reason why, I've played the Jak games (I may have only touched Sly Cooper for 30 minutes tbh) but I guess it just never happened, there was always something else getting my attention.

[OCH]

Same picks as @HandsomeDeadand @mfnick really. Big PC names like WoW, Fortnite, Minecraft. PC gaming, beyond Broken Sword (which I've never played on PC) and the little Rogue-like niche Binding of Isaac introduced me to. It has largely passed me by. I remember once watching a cousin play Diablo 2 and honestly, my eyes were glazing over watching what he was doing.

 

I think I've only ever played the Sony Platformers as demos. 

 

2 hours ago, one-armed dwarf said:

Probably Metroid. I'd probably like them but well, that fov in the Prime remaster 🤮

If you are interested, I'd recommend Super, Fusion and Dread. Definitely wouldn't recommend Metroid 1 though.

[DANGERMAN]

yeah, Fortnite for me too. I think I've played some of most of the big franchises. I've never played WoW, but I have played Warcraft, I've played some Starcraft, 

 

Maybe something like The Division, but that's only 2 games, I have played some Ghost Recon back in the day, very different to what it is now and boring as fuck, but it will likely be some dry multiplayer focused shooter

[Sly Reflex]

Dragon Quest. Not played it since I do not give a fuck about it. I don't care how good it is.

 

Red Dead Redemptions. I played Revolver. Not played the Redemptions. I might one day. I don't really care for cowboy shit.

 

Apparently the Harry Potter games are classed as a big thing according to wikipedia. Never played. See entry one for reason why.

 

Kingdom Hearts. Helped a ex beat a boss once. That was enough for me. I did watch a complete playthrough from a Rik and fuck that game series. It is a nonsense.

 

Megami Tensei. More JRPG bollocks. I'll pass, thanks.

 

Gundam. Never been bothered, might be up my street, I don't know.

 

Yu Gi Oh. You know why. I made my choice.

[bellow]

Monster hunter, I think might be the biggest one, but then there's all those online shooter games that don't have a single player. Aren't they the biggest games around? Not sure, but I don't give a monkey's about them. And footy games. I hate footy. Any sports games really.

 

There's loads.

[DANGERMAN]

@Sly Reflex I'm furious about a few things in your post, but Kingdom Hearts is a shout. There's never been a series less for me

[HandsomeDead]

I've played the first few hours of Kingdom Hearts and maybe I could find stuff to like in the sequels I don't think I can handle the delivery method.  I like a bunch of Disney films well enough and have tolerance for melodramatic anime but... It just seems too much.

[one-armed dwarf]

imo, it's best to play the most recent one and skip any cutscene if it gets difficult to tolerate.

 

KH is sort of like Harry Potter, I think. A lot of people got into it when they were kids and then become like a captive audience and are in it for the long haul, and as the series audience got older they awkwardly tried to introduce darker themes into it but it makes the whole thing very try hard. But like Potter, there can be bits that are decent and in KH you can ignore the bits that are shite (the cutscenes, skip them all)

 

KH3's remind DLC was very cool with the new boss fights it added. They were really difficult and interesting challenges to try and figure out, something completely absent from the main game.

[HandsomeDead]

If I played it when it was first out it maybe could have stuck.  I know I watched a friend play it on release and I just remember being really impressed with how well the Disney characters were rendered.  Disney characters had not looked this good in 3D game before.  But it wasn't until around 2006 I played KH for myself and I just have to accept I missed the boat on it.  It's fine.  You kids have fun tho

 

I don't really mean to dwell on the age thing really because I had access to it because of my Aunt who is a bit of a Disney Adult I just mean the planets weren't aligned.

[Jimboxy]

For me it's Bethesda ARPGs. I've left the vault maybe 3 or 4 times in Fallout 3 never to play it again. I did get a few hours under my belt in Skyrim but never clicked with it

[Sly Reflex]

5 hours ago, DANGERMAN said:

@Sly Reflex I'm furious about a few things in your post, but Kingdom Hearts is a shout. There's never been a series less for me

There's actually one JRPG I'd like to have tried, same ex mentioned in previous post played it and I was supposed to play it after, but I just didn't get the time.

 

I can't for the fuck of me remember what it was called, but I think the save points were a very effeminate tailor and the turn based combat were more like Paper Mario in that you had button presses to get the most out of your attacks. It was on PS2. I probably would have gotten bored of it, but from the bit I saw it looked like it was worth giving a go. You never know, it might have been one of the few I liked.

 

Overall JRPG's are not for me at all. I don't particularly like the way the combat system work, they're generally opaque as fuck. I don't really get the accolades for the storytelling either. Generally that goes for a lot of videogame story telling though, not just Japanese stuff.

 

A year or so back my missus was telling me about someone in the office playing Switch and they were playing Octopath. I told her that if she wanted to play it, we'd get a Switch and share it. She started talking about JRPG's and the ones she'd played and then said something along the lines of "I don't want to spend 60 hours playing a game to get 2 hours of story, I could watch several seasons of stuff on tv on top of films in that time."

 

She talked herself out of it in the end, but that argument sort of sums up how I feel about games like that. My tolerance for turn based stuff the way many Japanese games do it is very very low. I'm not talking about Advance Wars or Fire Emblem ways of combat, more the FF way. I find zero joy or compelling strats in that. It's just taking turns to hit each other and doing big attacks when gauges fill up or clusters of enemies are there. It's gameplay filler. Fine if that's your thing, but that sort of stuff is a hard pass for me.

 

I actually considered getting the PC version of FFVII so I could finish it and see what all the fuss was about because you can remove the fighting parts, it just auto completes it apparently.

[one-armed dwarf]

The thing with that, imo, is the turn based combat can also be a way the game naturally paces the story telling and lets you sit with those significant story beats for a bit while you smack some frogs. Which is to say I don't know that FFVII has quite as much to offer with the fighting removed, even if the fighting is not good the slow feeling of progress interleaved with the story developments is a big thing that contributes to ppls fondness of it

 

Its fine to not like jrpg tho, frankly wrpg has better stories imo. I would just grab remake instead and try that out

[Sly Reflex]

So with that, to some degree I agree. It's why some games that kill a team member or a character off have an impact, double so if you've invested a load of time into beefing up and making a connection with them. Unless you're given significant time with a character the deaths are absolutely meaningless. They're just pixels at that point, why give a fuck?

[mfnick]

Ouch! The JRPG hate cuts deep. It’s one of my favourite genres. But I love the turn based combat, OTT characters and melodrama of them.

 

Fair enough though, I’ve never been that into WRPGs. Always find them a bit clunky and the combat really stunted and unsatisfying. There’s still stand outs for me though like Fallout 3 (which kind of solved having poor combat with VATS) and the Mass Effect trilogy which is to this day one of my favourite gaming experiences.