What game are you playing?

[TedEH]

Already done with Stray. It did what it says on the box - it's a good short adventure where you do cat things as a cat. Looks pretty good in 4k. Some of the music I found kinda lacked polish - some sub notes made everything vibrate for no reason, and they had a crackly "noise" effect that was a little too true-to-life and made me think something was wrong with my speakers for a solid couple of minutes. A few under-developed ideas, but it accomplishes just about everything it sets out to do.

Re: the direct:
Felt like a lot of it was harvest moon type clones, and throwback JRPGs. Surprised to see Kirby. Glad the Bayonetta release date is set. Also glad BotW2 has a name and release date, but it's too far away and I am impatient.

 

[wankerness]

I am going to be playing at least two good games in 2023

What are you talking about? Zelda and Octopath Traveler 2? Pikmin 4 and Goldeneye?

The Goldeneye HD remaster with modern controls is actually the first game that has me contemplating an xbox. Switch gets the N64 port on their godawful emulation subscription service that doesn't even allow you to change button mappings, zzzz.

 

[StevenC]

What are you talking about? Zelda and Octopath Traveler 2? Pikmin 4 and Goldeneye?

The Goldeneye HD remaster with modern controls is actually the first game that has me contemplating an xbox. Switch gets the N64 port on their godawful emulation subscription service that doesn't even allow you to change button mappings, zzzz.

Zelda and Pikmin. I'll play Hexadecimalpath but who knows if it will be good or not.

 

[TedEH]

The Goldeneye HD remaster with modern controls is actually the first game that has me contemplating an xbox. Switch gets the N64 port on their godawful emulation subscription service that doesn't even allow you to change button mappings, zzzz.

Who needs either when you've got your original N64 cart.

 

[wankerness]

Who needs either when you've got your original N64 cart.

Um, people who like controls that aren't terrible and framerates that are higher than 15 and don't constantly dip whenever anything happens. I was a huge proponent of the 1.2 control style with that game (walk with C buttons, aim with stick) but the default controls were a gigantic joke where you had to walk forward/back with the stick, strafe right/left with the C buttons, look sideways with the stick, and look up/down by holding down the C buttons, with wonky acceleration based on the longer you held it down. You could also hold down R to bring up a targeting reticle and then use the stick to aim, basically meaning you could not react half as fast to anyone that knew how to play if you were using the default controls and they weren't straight in front of you. But, only having one left stick is still way worse than having dual sticks with proper controls. I am sure transferring the original control styles to stick without reprogramming the game would be awful, which is what I'm guessing the switch online version will do based on their other offerings.

The N64 one is probably preferable to the Switch Online version given how that service has been going so far. Although they claim it will be playable via online multiplayer - that said, Switch's online servers are notoriously terrible and the wifi cards in the system are so bad that you'd probably have to arrange special sessions with friends who all had LAN adapters for it to be worth it.

The perfect dark remaster on Xbox 360 is so infinitely superior to the N64 version it's not even funny. There's no reason at all to play the N64 one in comparison. It's much lower resolution, the controls are vastly inferior, and the framerate's a disaster, on top of the UI being cramped due to the small 4x3 resolution. I expect this Xbox Goldeneye remake to be the same deal.

 

[StevenC]

Um, people who like controls that aren't terrible and framerates that are higher than 15 and don't constantly dip whenever anything happens. I was a huge proponent of the 1.2 control style with that game (walk with C buttons, aim with stick) but the default controls were a gigantic joke where you had to walk forward/back with the stick, strafe right/left with the C buttons, look sideways with the stick, and look up/down by holding down the C buttons, with wonky acceleration based on the longer you held it down. You could also hold down R to bring up a targeting reticle and then use the stick to aim, basically meaning you could not react half as fast to anyone that knew how to play if you were using the default controls and they weren't straight in front of you. But, only having one left stick is still way worse than having dual sticks with proper controls. I am sure transferring the original control styles to stick without reprogramming the game would be awful, which is what I'm guessing the switch online version will do based on their other offerings.

The N64 one is probably preferable to the Switch Online version given how that service has been going so far. Although they claim it will be playable via online multiplayer - that said, Switch's online servers are notoriously terrible and the wifi cards in the system are so bad that you'd probably have to arrange special sessions with friends who all had LAN adapters for it to be worth it.

The perfect dark remaster on Xbox 360 is so infinitely superior to the N64 version it's not even funny. There's no reason at all to play the N64 one in comparison. It's much lower resolution, the controls are vastly inferior, and the framerate's a disaster, on top of the UI being cramped due to the small 4x3 resolution. I expect this Xbox Goldeneye remake to be the same deal.

FWIW, they've updated the N64 emulator and it doesn't suck anymore. The latency on Maio 64 is still enough that speedrunners can notice it, but generally it's fine.

It's annoying that Goldeneye had dual stick control as an option with two controllers, but it's not available on NSO.

 

[wankerness]

FWIW, they've updated the N64 emulator and it doesn't suck anymore. The latency on Maio 64 is still enough that speedrunners can notice it, but generally it's fine.

It's annoying that Goldeneye had dual stick control as an option with two controllers, but it's not available on NSO.

Did they add the button mapping functionality? That seemed like the worst problem, especially considering virtual console supported it.

 

[Isaiah04]

Replaying Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space. I'm really excited for the remake of Dead Space this coming year, from what I've seen its going to be a faithful remake with major graphical upgrades. Also wondering how the games audio design will be, I've always been a sucker for scary ambiance haha. And luckily right around the corner too is going to be the Resident Evil 4 remake which i'm honestly hoping is going to be fantastic.

 

[TedEH]

The perfect dark remaster on Xbox 360 is so infinitely superior to the N64 version it's not even funny. There's no reason at all to play the N64 one in comparison

I mostly kid about using the old carts, but I'm a sucker for the nostalgia, so I'm that old guy who will still plays the original carts sometimes. It's hard to argue that the Rare Replay version isn't fantastic, because it is. It did just enough. The same treatment for Goldeneye sounds pretty great.

 

[wankerness]

I did think of one reason to play the original Perfect Dark - the name "N-Bomb" was pretty funny. They (probably rightly) renamed them in the remaster. I don't know if N-Bomb just didn't have a mainstream meaning at the time of the original release, or if whoever released the remaster didn't like the joke.

 

[Ralyks]

Great game unless you try to take on the final challenge tower, in which case you're going to be grinding things like running circles around in the park to collect insects for hours and killing the same enemies in the sewers hundreds and hundreds of times to max all your characters out.

I swear, I AM going to go back to that game for the platinum. If I only do it for one Yakuza game, it's going to be Like a Dragon.

And speaking of Yakuza, the PS Direct announced a remake of Like a Dragon: Ishin. Sounds awesome..... Right? Someone tell me if this is a good thing, because the only thing I k ow about the original is it's basically the Yakuza characters but in a feudal Japan setting.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

And speaking of Yakuza, the PS Direct announced a remake of Like a Dragon: Ishin. Sounds awesome..... Right? Someone tell me if this is a good thing, because the only thing I k ow about the original is it's basically the Yakuza characters but in a feudal Japan setting.

While it is indeed just another Yakuza game, localising Ishin is great for 2 reasons:

1: Ishin was made during the same time as Yakuza 0, and uses the same engine before switching to Dragon in 6. And it goes all out as much as 0 did. By many accounts, it's one of the series highlights, up there with the 0 and 5 as the best Kiryu led games.

2: Localising anything is always a good thing. For some games, it's considered a miracle.

 

[Ralyks]

Ishin was made during the same time as Yakuza 0, and uses the same engine before switching to Dragon in 6. And it goes all out as much as 0 did.

Did they confirm if it's the same engine as 0? Because this game looks like a ground up Kiwami style remake.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

Did they confirm if it's the same engine as 0? Because this game looks like a ground up Kiwami style remake.

Just looked it up, looks like they're using Unreal Engine 4.

 

[Bloody_Inferno]

While we're on the subject of Yakuza, to the bemoaning of everyone who's sick of me talking about the franchise...

Yakuza 8 has been announced for 2024, but also this:



RGG Studios have quite the momentum. And they're really pushing the original name of the franchise to the west.

 

[gabito]

Yay.

True to God of War's tradition, the new game seems to be more or less the same game as the last one (which I'm OK with). So, this time we don't get to have 7 or so of almost-the-same-game, because this one will be the last one... but who knows, maybe Kratos will move to the Middle East later and fight Jesus and the apostles or something.

 

[TedEH]

I think I'd be down for GoW iterations that keep the general idea of the last one but take on different mythologies.

I'm kinda in a weird "what game do I play next limbo" where I keep starting new things but don't stick with them for much more than maybe an hour. I know my gamepass is going to run out in January, so I want to "use up" the stuff I want to play there, which means mostly trying to wrap up the Halo games - but I might just skip to Infinite and call it good, since I don't reaaaally care about the story. Also slowly poking at Skyward Sword HD whenever I'm not at home.

I also started a file in the new Last of Us remake, since I got a free copy of that one. This one might stick. I'm still caught in the novelty of having a PS5, so this keeps that momentum going.

I ended up getting a PS+ subscription through work, and there's a bunch of the souls-like type games on there, so there's also an urge to dive into some of those to see what the hype is all about.

 

[wankerness]

How did you get a free copy of the last of us remake?

What souls games are on there? I thought only Demon's Souls was. That's probably the least accessible but still infinitely preferable to any third party ones that would run a high risk of turning you off to the subgenre. Bloodborne is a decent entry point. If Dark Souls 3 was on there that's what I'd recommend but I didn't think any of the three dark souls or sekiro were.

 

[wankerness]

While we're on the subject of Yakuza, to the bemoaning of everyone who's sick of me talking about the franchise...

Yakuza 8 has been announced for 2024, but also this:



RGG Studios have quite the momentum. And they're really pushing the original name of the franchise to the west.

Nice. That looks vastly more appealing to me than the damn Judgement games, and I do have a lot of fondness for the beat-em-up style over the RPG style so I didn't want ALL Yakuza games to be turn-based going forward.

Beyond Judgement just went on sale for 27 bucks so maybe I'll finally pick it up, despite strongly disliking the first.

 

[TedEH]

How did you get a free copy of the last of us remake?

I work for (a company owned by) Sony.

infinitely preferable to any third party ones that would run a high risk of turning you off to the subgenre

Hm..... Demon's Souls in on there for sure, and Bloodborne I think as well. I have access to a PS3 copy of DS1 and 2, but that means busting out the PS3. There's some stuff that I thiiiiiiiiink is in the genre, but kinda tangentially maybe? Like Ghost of Tsushima is there. If Eldin Ring was on there, I'd be grabbing that, but no dice - which is part of what draws me to the genre - there's so much hype for that one, and it's good looking in screenshots, so I figure if I dip my toes into the genre a bit, maybe it's worth a purchase later.