OT: Video Game Talk (oh, also the Week before the All-Star Break Pre-Game Talk "archive")

[expatriatedtexan]

I wish games were priced on how good they were. I mean, I guess Steam sort of does that for PCs by having multiple steam sales through out the year that really offer some good discounts.

I would have had no problems dropping $70 for any Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper, Jax and Daxter, etc games. Plenty are worth that amount. But every single console game is being released at that price point. Steam at least has indie games out there for dirt cheap. PCs also allow you to download and play any game that some dude creates for the PC. Folks aren't allowed to do that for consoles.

Sorry...didn't mean to drag this back into a difference between console and PC gaming. PC games are launching at higher prices too, and the PC market does some pretty unscrupulous things as well. Pre-release gaming is one. Some of the times it works, but many of the games never really get finished either. I've played DayZ for freaking YEARS now and while it released finally on consoles it did so in a shitty state and will never be completed because the Bohemian only used DayZ for creating the engine that they wanted for the new Arma game.

 

[henchman21]

People always bring up GhostRunner 2 when they talk about great 3D platformers. I haven't tried it, but it does look fun.

It's pretty fantastic.

 

[AvsMakar08]

I wish games were priced on how good they were. I mean, I guess Steam sort of does that for PCs by having multiple steam sales through out the year that really offer some good discounts.

I would have had no problems dropping $70 for any Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper, Jax and Daxter, etc games. Plenty are worth that amount. But every single console game is being released at that price point. Steam at least has indie games out there for dirt cheap. PCs also allow you to download and play any game that some dude creates for the PC. Folks aren't allowed to do that for consoles.

Sorry...didn't mean to drag this back into a difference between console and PC gaming. PC games are launching at higher prices too, and the PC market does some pretty unscrupulous things as well. Pre-release gaming is one. Some of the times it works, but many of the games never really get finished either. I've played DayZ for freaking YEARS now and while it released finally on consoles it did so in a shitty state and will never be completed because the Bohemian only used DayZ for creating the engine that they wanted for the new Arma game.

I left console gaming years ago when I noticed that I can play games in higher resolution and a much higher frame rate. I no longer needed to always click on auto aim on for easier kills on the consoles. Keyboard and mouse just felt more natural to me. I still have my old 980TI EVGA black edition or whatever it is called. Great PC does not cost 2k but more like 4k. 4090 is like $1800 by itself and now reading on 5090 it finally looks like PC will beat the s*** out of console. You want to enjoy the games to the max with ultra 4k eye popping graphics and a fast frame rate then you have to pay the price. I don't know what happened to EVGA making graphic cards but they seemed to be more reliable then other brands and even gave like 6 month time period to upgrade your GPU.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

I left console gaming years ago when I noticed that I can play games in higher resolution and a much higher frame rate. I no longer needed to always click on auto aim on for easier kills on the consoles. Keyboard and mouse just felt more natural to me. I still have my old 980TI EVGA black edition or whatever it is called. Great PC does not cost 2k but more like 4k. 4090 is like $1800 by itself and now reading on 5090 it finally looks like PC will beat the s*** out of console. You want to enjoy the games to the max with ultra 4k eye popping graphics and a fast frame rate then you have to pay the price. I don't know what happened to EVGA making graphic cards but they seemed to be more reliable then other brands and even gave like 6 month time period to upgrade your GPU.

The thing is... 4K gaming is a f***ing joke. Nobody should be trying to do that. I can't even tell the difference between 1080 and 1440 with a good GPU as long as I'm playing on a high refresh rate non-TN panel. You really need the color reproduction of ISP to enjoy games. You only need TN if you don't give a shit about the look and only want to achieve high frame-rate for competitive FPS games. The vast, vast majority of gamers do not need that shit. Nobody should build a 4090 of 5090. My 2080S is still killing everything. The only problem I had with Cyberpunk 2077 was with the game design and choices itself, I had absolutely no issues absolutely loving the quality of the picture and frames. I actually game on a GSync 1080 TN AOC monitor that has a 144Hz refresh rate for DayZ, but every other game I play is on a 1080 ISP Acer monitor that is locked to a lower a 60fps.

[edit...Another thing...when actually playing a game, ray tracing makes absolutely no f***ing difference if you are invested in the game and its story. The only time I've ever noticed a difference between playing a game that is ray-traced enabled or not is when I watch a youtube video that shows them side by side and calls out the actual difference. While in the game, none of that makes even the slightest difference if the game is good enough to actually have you like it for either its story or gameplay. Selling games based on a technology piece of candy that you don't notice until someone points it out is only something that a company can do in the US where the public is truly this f***ing stupid and prone to buying everything an advertising agency or gaming magazine says as gospel.

This might be the biggest thing a PC gaming system can give you that a console can't. You can actually build a PC to be good enough, without having to pay extra for shit that doesn't make one single difference in the actual game play. Like I said, nobody needs a 3090/4090/5090 when a 3070/4070/5070 is more than most gamers will every need and quite frankly most gamers can't tell the difference between an upgrade from here unless someone shows them side-by-side and specifically calls individual things out. Yes, there are advantages to paying more, but the diminishing returns are also very f***ing real. With a PC you can min/max things...do you want more storage? Do you want or even need to stream or do video editing? If not that can significantly reduce the cost. If you want more storage, it's a hell of a lot easier to stick a m2.2280 4TB+ drive, that is no bigger than a stick of gum, into your motherboard than it is to deal with external hard-drives plugged into a console.]

 

[MacKaRant]

People always bring up GhostRunner 2 when they talk about great 3D platformers. I haven't tried it, but it does look fun.

I played the first and didn't particularly like the experience on console. Once I mastered the movement, there were a few levels where I was able to get into a flowstate with moving around and defeating enemies, but for the majority of levels, I felt bogged down by needing to retry combat encounters lots of times. I suspect the combat plays a lot better with mouse/keyboard and I played on console, speaking of the PC vs console discussion.

 

[S E P H]

On the topic of gaming, I found this...

 

[expatriatedtexan]

On the topic of gaming, I found this...

Reminds me of an NCIS episode where two sailors on a deployed ship where living out there MMO fantasies by actually fighting each other with swords in mostly abandoned areas of the ship, leading to a death and man "lost at sea". Stuff that is so incredibly stupid, I now almost absolutely believe instinctively because it involves the human race.

Man, the older I get the less impressed I become by us and what we are doing with our potential. I really am becoming the old man screaming at the trees. I apologize for that effecting a lot of my posts y'all. It's just where I'm at now but now that I recognize it, I'll try to limit it.

 

[Murzu]

The thing is... 4K gaming is a f***ing joke. Nobody should be trying to do that. I can't even tell the difference between 1080 and 1440 with a good GPU as long as I'm playing on a high refresh rate non-TN panel. You really need the color reproduction of ISP to enjoy games. You only need TN if you don't give a shit about the look and only want to achieve high frame-rate for competitive FPS games. The vast, vast majority of gamers do not need that shit. Nobody should build a 4090 of 5090. My 2080S is still killing everything. The only problem I had with Cyberpunk 2077 was with the game design and choices itself, I had absolutely no issues absolutely loving the quality of the picture and frames. I actually game on a GSync 1080 TN AOC monitor that has a 144Hz refresh rate for DayZ, but every other game I play is on a 1080 ISP Acer monitor that is locked to a lower a 60fps.

[edit...Another thing...when actually playing a game, ray tracing makes absolutely no f***ing difference if you are invested in the game and its story. The only time I've ever noticed a difference between playing a game that is ray-traced enabled or not is when I watch a youtube video that shows them side by side and calls out the actual difference. While in the game, none of that makes even the slightest difference if the game is good enough to actually have you like it for either its story or gameplay. Selling games based on a technology piece of candy that you don't notice until someone points it out is only something that a company can do in the US where the public is truly this f***ing stupid and prone to buying everything an advertising agency or gaming magazine says as gospel.

This might be the biggest thing a PC gaming system can give you that a console can't. You can actually build a PC to be good enough, without having to pay extra for shit that doesn't make one single difference in the actual game play. Like I said, nobody needs a 3090/4090/5090 when a 3070/4070/5070 is more than most gamers will every need and quite frankly most gamers can't tell the difference between an upgrade from here unless someone shows them side-by-side and specifically calls individual things out. Yes, there are advantages to paying more, but the diminishing returns are also very f***ing real. With a PC you can min/max things...do you want more storage? Do you want or even need to stream or do video editing? If not that can significantly reduce the cost. If you want more storage, it's a hell of a lot easier to stick a m2.2280 4TB+ drive, that is no bigger than a stick of gum, into your motherboard than it is to deal with external hard-drives plugged into a console.]

I was a (semi) pro PUBG player for years and I rocked a i7-8700k and 1070ti for that whole time. Of course I didn't go for the highest graphics, but at the same time PUBG optimization was horrible. And I did just fine.

Very few actually need those 2000$ GPU's. Unless you insist on using the best graphics on games that require A LOT from your PC.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

I was a (semi) pro PUBG player for years and I rocked a i7-8700k and 1070ti for that whole time. Of course I didn't go for the highest graphics, but at the same time PUBG optimization was horrible. And I did just fine.

Very few actually need those 2000$ GPU's. Unless you insist on using the best graphics on games that require A LOT from your PC.

Yeah, I feel like the PC industry is a bit guilty of overselling what folks actually need. I played on an AMD2 system with a GTX-470 for like 7 years. It wasn't until I tried playing GW2 WvWvW maps where you are playing with 30 people in your team and battling anywhere between 20 and 120 on the other team that the CPU really struggled. So I upgraded to an i7-4070K CPU with a GTX-970 GPU. Ran with that until the 970 started showing it's age a couple of years ago and then upgraded to an RTX-2080s. But at the time, I also wanted a much smaller PC as I was transferring from a Corsair 650D to a Dan Case (7.24 L case). This meant a new mITX motherboard, so I naturally went with the newest platform available (Gigabyte Z790i at the time) which then required a new CPU (i7-13700K). Even so, with a 2TB m2.2280 SSD you can build the entire thing for 2K. If you aren't locked into a micro system, it gets a lot cheaper since you don't have to pay a premium on the motherboard and GPU for smaller versions capable of the same specs.

As for PUBG, I really enjoyed it but couldn't stick with it because I suck at the mechanic that forces everyone to get closer to the center. I'm much better at guerilla warfare in games like DayZ where I have time and the patience to lay diabolical traps and wait. I've actually made structures that completely locked players inside them and had trip wires strung throughout that would eventually kill them. It was a death house that if you entered you would die regardless of whether I was online or not at the time. The building itself would kill. Turns out, as a nerd interested in engineering I'm smarter in combat than I'm skilled in it. Twitch in your face combat is fun, but I'm not especially good at it. My hats off to you for being successful and rocking PUBG.

 

[UncleRisto]

PC gamers be like yeah but the frame rate, but what they don't consider is that the PS2 port I'm playing doesn't scale to an HDTV well at all.

 

[sethro109]

PC gamers be like yeah but the frame rate, but what they don't consider is that the PS2 port I'm playing doesn't scale to an HDTV well at all.

Then you're not using the right emulators and mods. If you're not play Metal gear sold with 4K textures and Ray tracing, then you're not really playing metal gear sold.

 

[UncleRisto]

Then you're not using the right emulators and mods. If you're not play Metal gear sold with 4K textures and Ray tracing, then you're not really playing metal gear sold.

What if it's this PSOne port of Aladdin in this little bullshit screen?

I'd give up way too much money for a port like this of Tarzan.

 

[TruePowerSlave]

The game development costs are out of control. Hundreds of millions spent on crap and then the devs/board wonder why they can't break-even.

Most don't even need a game to push graphics to the max, tons of mediocre looking games sell really well. Keep the cost down and shorten development times. Focus on gameplay, not size and graphics please. The industry would instantly be better.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

Had a cookout and party for a bunch of my wife's scholarship students at the fire station last weekend. Broke out both our mini Atari Classic and mini Nintendo Classic that both came with USB plugs to the TV and about 200+ games loaded on them. These guys and gals were all born in the PS, Xbox and Wii console eras and had never played games like Combat!, Pitfall, Asteroids, Excitebike, etc... before and had an absolute blast. Those old games before the era of save slots actually stand up even with shitty graphics as a party console. Basically tons of rather short games that you can player vs player on a single TV. It's more of a social experience like a game of cards than what folks consider true "gaming" today.

One of my favorite aspects of gaming is the community and even some of the shit talking that goes hand in hand with it. Even consoles like these two will shine in a party atmosphere because of the huge collection of rather short player vs player games.

 

[Pokecheque]

Had a cookout and party for a bunch of my wife's scholarship students at the fire station last weekend. Broke out both our mini Atari Classic and mini Nintendo Classic that both came with USB plugs to the TV and about 200+ games loaded on them. These guys and gals were all born in the PS, Xbox and Wii console eras and had never played games like Combat!, Pitfall, Asteroids, Excitebike, etc... before and had an absolute blast. Those old games before the era of save slots actually stand up even with shitty graphics as a party console. Basically tons of rather short games that you can player vs player on a single TV. It's more of a social experience like a game of cards than what folks consider true "gaming" today.

One of my favorite aspects of gaming is the community and even some of the shit talking that goes hand in hand with it. Even consoles like these two will shine in a party atmosphere because of the huge collection of rather short player vs player games.

Oh Good Lord Combat remains one of my favorites. Nothing compares to tank battles with ricochet settings on.

 

[Ceremony]

I'm so glad NHL 24 lets you change the price of the hotdogs and have Mackenzie Weegar Bobblehead night. What an experience!

 

[sethro109]

I'm 40ish hours into FF7 Rebirth and I'm enjoying it fine, but I'm still annoyed about the story changes and the traversal isn't great. There's too many bumps in the terrain that the characters have issues crossing even on Chocobo back and driving.

 

[TruePowerSlave]

I'm 40ish hours into FF7 Rebirth and I'm enjoying it fine, but I'm still annoyed about the story changes and the traversal isn't great. There's too many bumps in the terrain that the characters have issues crossing even on Chocobo back and driving.

Wish it had 16's combat. What a banger the game would be.

 

[sethro109]

Wish it had 16's combat. What a banger the game would be.

The combat in 16 was really addictive. It's crazy that Square disbanded that team after the game was finished.

 

[The Merchant]

20 or so hours into Ishin and having a good time so far. The story is engaging and it's fun to see the previous roster of Yakuza and Like a Dragon characters playing roles set in feudal Japan. The gameplay loop isn't nearly as deep or engaging as LaD 1 or 2, but it's still a good time filled with the plethora of side quests, minigames and exploration you'd expect from a Yakuza game.

 

[Ceremony]

I won the cup with an expansion team. How many players do you recognise?

 

[The Merchant]

Feels like ages since I played a really good couch co-op game I think I finally found one in Nobody Saves the World. It has a fantastic, charming 2D art style with some surprisingly compelling and deep RPG mechanics for an action game. The gf and I are having a blast with it. Highly recommend

 

[henchman21]

Feels like ages since I played a really good couch co-op game I think I finally found one in Nobody Saves the World. It has a fantastic, charming 2D art style with some surprisingly compelling and deep RPG mechanics for an action game. The gf and I are having a blast with it. Highly recommend

I believed this post up until this point.

 

[The Merchant]

I believed this post up until this point.

 

[missionAvs]

I believed this post up until this point.

My wife and I started a playthrough of Terraria like a year ago and built a big house for all the NPCs and stuff to move into. I built a room inside the base that I told her was something for the both of us. While she wasn't playing, I filled the floor of that room with spikes which are sometimes hard to see in low lighting conditions. On the next play session, she went into the room and started taking damage. She freaked out until her character died. I laughed. She didn't talk to me for like a week. Cost me a nice dinner to make amends and even then, she says she doesn't trust me in video games anymore. I call that an OP success.