The Hot Topic Returns

[Maryokutai]

Spider-Man 2 (the one on PS2/GC/Xbox) definitely was a highlight at the time. The freedom of movement was really unparalleled and I've seen people mention that they actually prefer its swinging mechanics to the Insomniac games. I really loved that game.

 

Arkham City is of course up there as well, which I still prefer to its successors due to the more tightly designed Metroid-style gameworld. Sure, floating about in a city is fun and all, but it's the kind of thing every superhero game aims for. Asylum's design was probably a forced decision limited by a lack of engine knowledge and development budget, but, as it sometimes does, I think those limitations made for a better game.

 

What I've always wanted to see is a She-Hulk game by Capcom. Basically Ace Attorney x Final Fight. It would probably feel completely disjointed and might not be that much fun, but the source material just lends itself too well for it to not be worth a shot in a 'money no issue' scenario.

[Nag]

I think the Arkham games just pip the latest Spider-Man games for me... boring answer I know.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing what Motive Studios can do with Iron Man.

[mfnick]

Favourite ones - Midnight Suns is definitely up there. Spider-Man 2 (PS2 and PS5 ones - the PS5 one basically being near perfect IMO), Guardians was fantastic. Marvel Vs Capcom 2 is one of the greatest fighters of all time. 3 was really good too. X-Men Origins Wolverine is my unsung hero (haha) in this lot though. It was exactly what I wanted from a Wolverine game. Having his skin come off when damaged is still one of the coolest things in any game. 

 

I really liked Batman Asylum, not as much as everyone else though but still definitely deserves to be mentioned here. I really didn’t like City and Knight though. The open world ruined the amazing structure and pacing of Asylum. Much preferred exploring Asylum to the full city too. 
 

As for what I want in future, basically another Origins Wolverine. But with a God of War style budget. Maybe have Deadpool in it too. I’d fucking love that. 
 

Or give me a Midnight Suns 2. 

[one-armed dwarf]

2 hours ago, OCH said:

 

See I'm not sure what this image is supposed to be saying, other than this guy looks stupid with his 'look at how seriously evil I am' skull and crossbones belt.

 

I think Drax in the video game is great cause they go for this flatness of affect thing with him which works well in both the deadpan comedic sense but also even with the dramatic moments, which land really well in a game that's all about the theme of family and fatherhood. GOTG doesn't quite stick the landing but it's absolutely not the same type of game Avengers was, and even if it derives inspiration from James Gunn's films it doesn't feel overly derivative of them either. It just seems to run out of money along the way and throw shit together for the finale that feels really cheap and shit. But I still like it cause I find it hard to buy into these worlds now with how (annoyingly) they've dominated pop culture and cinema for over a decade, but GOTG managed to make me interested in its world and characters. Such a shame there won't be a sequel

[DANGERMAN]

2 hours ago, one-armed dwarf said:

If money was no object I'm not sure id waste it on another cape game. That said, it would be MVC4 I suppose

 

I think the only marvel game I've really liked in recent years was GOTG. It has this kind of energy that the original Nier had where it was like this loving pastiche of older narrative adventures. The final third of the game sucked, but it was a more outstanding game to me than Spiderman which felt more like a 'going through the motions' AAA. It also had a better version of Drax the Destroyer, and I can see why Dave Bautista maybe has mixed feelings on that character. An actor like that could have been used for a lot more

I should pick up GOTG at some point before it vanishes, but I'm always surprised how much people love it. The combat looks so spongey and drawn out to me 

[one-armed dwarf]

You know, I was going to say it's unlikely it will be delisted cause it doesn't have a GAAS component. But then I remembered all the licensed 80s songs, yeah it's definitely going to be removed from digital stores someday. Might be a good one to have physical if it's a good sale tbh

 

The combat is terrible, it's the thing I put up with because of how good the game is at building its world and how playful it is within its narrative-adventure genre space. It's a cliche to say a game is carried by its charm but that one definitely is, much like Nier again actually.

 

I can see what they were going for with its combat, it's sort of supposed to be a FFVII Remake system where Quill is a central decision maker and kinda floats over the proceedings with his rocket boots or whatever. But it doesn't integrate its systems in nearly as interesting a way as FFVII did. 

[OCH]

16 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

See I'm not sure what this image is supposed to be saying, other than this guy looks stupid with his 'look at how seriously evil I am' skull and crossbones belt.

That's the original design for Drax. He was weirdly enough, never a villain. Despite the skull and crossbones motif.

 

I think I had a demo or something for Wolverine: Origins. I never completed it so I don't really recall much of it. There was a Wolverine game on PS2 with Logan voiced by Mark Hamill. Which in spite of the Hugh Jackman cover, was entirely comic book based aesthetically. Which is the "if money were no object" thing feature I would want most: Forget the movies! Make games with actual source material designs. No silly "realistic" armour or any of that shite. 

[spatular]

Yeah same boring answer of the first rocksteady batman game and the first insomniac spiderman game for me. That gotg game does the characters really well imo, not sure i can explain it too well its more the dialogue thats good rather than the story as far as i remember, nice graphics too, i didnt think the combat was too bad, but found the puzzle sections really boring. Only got half way through, not sure why as overall i was enjoying it.

[Maf]

Couldn't stand GotG. I thought the combat was 'fine' but the talking interminable. Each character is just one 2D personality so it's different dialogue repackaging the same jokes and responses over and over. 

 

The calculator joke did make me laugh though, was very good. 

 

It's not Marvel or DC but The Wonderful 101 is an amazing superhero game (More Power Rangers/Anime superhero spoof). I don't know how it plays on anything other than a Wii U, because the game controls were very specifically made around a 2 screen idea. But, man, I loved that game. Still one of the best endings to a game ever. 

 

Don't know if anyone else played it on here but Marvel Snap was actually really, really good as well. Just as per being a phone game you could only play it to a certain point until having to pay which got in the way. 

 

But I think it's the only card game I've ever liked 

[HandsomeDead]

Another Arkham vote I suppose.  I think I may have liked City more in the end.  I replayed some of it later on and I think it might be the one that hits the best notes.  I don't really think of it as open world but more like an older 3D Zelda game.  It's a hub with dungeons.  Asylum is Metroid, City is Zelda and Knight is the one that gets a bit bloated but still not as guilty as most open world games.  They just did such an excellent job making a Batman game it's hard not to give them all the props.

 

I've not played that many other super hero games, and even less that I really liked.  To get away from the obvious there was a Judge Dread game on the Mega Drive I liked quite a bit.  I think it was meant to be based on the Stalone film but really wasn't.

Oh, The Darkness was a comic book... A super hero? probably not but arguably so I'd say just so I can mention it here.  It's a pretty cool game.  Maybe these aren't getting to the spirit of the question.

 

I've never played any of these games.  That Wolverine game, that Deadpool one, etc.  I was just never drawn to them.

 

 

And to add, I know what they're talking about when they mean super heroes but aren't a lot of video games very super hero coded?  Like Dante from DMC is as much as a super hero than Blade.  Even Mario is.  He even has a cape, sometimes.

[Metroid66]

Just Spiderman and the first 2 Rocksteady batman outings for me. And I only really bought Spiderman because I like Insomniac, and batman because I liked the look of the stealth gameplay. Otherwise I'm not a big fan of the whole superhero thing.

 

Most videogame hero(ines) are sort of superheros anyway, aren't they. 

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

I think the problem for me is the ones described by this question are very devoted to their mythologies in ways that leads them to kinda tell the same specific story over and over in a lot of their adaptations, with little wiggle room. In other respects you could compare a character like Dante to a character like Deadpool, in most respects actually. But when I saw the trailer for Spidey 2 and it was doing the storyline from the third raimi film, I kinda just checked out on it.

 

I've heard that Midnight Suns is secretly amazing though

[mfnick]

46 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

I've heard that Midnight Suns is secretly amazing though

It really is. 

[Maf]

I think one unsung hero is Ultimate Spider-Man on PS2/GC/Xbox. The swinging was actually a downgrade from Spider-Man 2, but I love the art style and it was written by Bendis who wrote the comic book. So it’s really funny as well. There’s a joke Spider-Man does in this cutscene where he says “Don’t worry. Nothing’s broken. Except my spine. A few ribs. And maybe everything else” 

 

I swear I used that joke on Saturday at the gym

 

 

There’s another line I like when Spidey is trying to chase The Beetle and he shouts at him “If I was the Hulk, this would so be over by now!” 

[AndyKurosaki]

On 11/02/2024 at 21:04, mfnick said:

It really is. 

Midnight Suns is absolutely incredible. I’ll keep singing its praises until my last breath. It’s really, really good. Amazing in fact.

[Nag]

 

Quote

Readers discuss how they approach difficulty in video games and whether they increase or decrease it, to suit their skills and preferences.

 

The subject for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Grackle, who asked how skilled you believe yourself to be as a gamer and whether you think games do enough to offer different challenges and options.

 

Most seemed happy picking and choosing, and often changing multiple times during the same game, although for some reason Mass Effect ended up being the most mentioned game – but we think that’s just a coincidence, as it’s not known for being difficult.

 

[AndyKurosaki]

I pretty much stick to Easy these days. I’d rather finish a game, and enjoy doing so, than hit barriers that piss me off. Most games these days at least give you the option of changing it at any time. Sometimes I’ll go through on Normal. Depends how I feel at the time. 
I barely bother with Hard mode anymore, but having said that, I am currently going through Infinite Wealth: New Game+ mode on hard. But i bloody love that game, and know what I’m doing. 
 

Souls games can just fuck right off. I’m not saying they’re bad games, but I just don’t have the skillset, or patience to deal with them. Armoured Core last year did my fucking head in, the tutorial boss killed me repeatedly. Elden Ring quickly became an utter chore to play. I tried the demo for Lies Of P, and pretty quickly went “Nope” and gave up. 
I play games to have fun. Repeatedly getting killed by some total bell-end, and having to traipse through enemy filled areas, just to have another go, is most definitely not my idea of fun.

[one-armed dwarf]

In RPGs I like to set to a higher difficulty, within reason, cause it seems to make a lot of stat decisions more meaningful. I'm playing a modded version of FFVIIR right now which gives you slightly more materia slots but also deducts stats with materia like in the original game, and it makes things like weapon upgrades much more interesting to reason about. FF7R has one of the best weapon systems in FF aside from XIII, but a mod like this makes it even better and you get to enjoy the stat progression that you don't get to experience on hard mode

 

Depends on the game, obviously more skill driven stuff like Ninja Gaiden or DMC requires you to actually develop muscle memory with it on its lower difficulties first, before progressing to the more challenging level where its systems really sing. Even there though I don't see it so much as being about difficulty as being about exercising newly established muscle memory in a mode that requires it, it basically shouldn't feel that much more difficult. It should be like ranking up in a fighting game

 

Last game I dropped to easy might be the latter sections of Guardians of the Galaxy

[shinymcshine]

I'll predominantly play on 'Normal' but will occasionally switch down to "Easy" especially towards the end of a game, where there's nothing new to see except an increasing quantity of repetitive enemies.

 

I liked the variation of difficulty settings in  "The Last Case of Benedict Fox" where you could separately adjust the combat & puzzle difficulty (so towards the end I dropped down the former, and left the latter - but can understand why some might enjoy doing the opposite).

 

TBH most of the time it's getting that balance right between enjoyment & challenge.

[Maf]

I just stick to normal mode for any first playthrough of any game and then will go up or down on a replay depending if I'm trying get trophies or not, and which trophies I'm trying to get.

 

But always normal from start to finish first is I think that's the developer intended experience. Of course the actual developer intended experience is what ever suits you, that's why the game has the difficulty options. But I still think in 9/10 cases normal is what the game is balanced/designed around and that's what I want to see. 

 

Also I think most hard modes are bullshit. Some games like DMC actually change the game and to push those skills you develop. But a lot of hard modes just dial up the advantage for the CPU and dial down the health for me. It's harder, but not harder in an interesting way