Messages

16

Off Topic / Re: Music thread

« on: October 01, 2024, 06:05:51 am »

If you want something to really bang your head to, Maximum the Hormone came out with a new version of their old song "Shimi", doing it with the pop group Atarashii Gakko! and it's great.  I love the original, but this is such a fun take that works perfectly with their usual mixing of styles.  I love in particular when a band re-records old stuff, especially if they are just as good, if not better than what they use to be and Maximum can still go hard.  Maximum is just an absolute favorite band of mine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teRgh01Xb1U

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Off Topic / Re: What Was The Last Movie/Anime You Watched?

« on: September 28, 2024, 03:19:39 am »

Rebel Ridge -  An easy way to get me on board with your movie to start it off with some good metal music and Iron Maiden is a great and unexpected choice nowadays lol That being said, I think it's just an alright movie.  It went in a direction I didn't expect, because while it does have that Reacher feel, it's a much less action heavy and more realistic take on that concept.  The slight problem is that it's like they are almost teasing it turning in the direction of a Reacher or Rambo, there's setup for doing that, but they never pull the trigger, so to speak.  I think the goal was to subvert expectations.  It's still a decent thriller, but kinda never quite becomes more than that for me.

18

Modern Video Games / Re: Playstation 5 Pro

« on: September 25, 2024, 04:26:11 pm »

I'm more happy for Metro Awakening VR now as it's been confirmed to be on PC also, not a PSVR2 only thing.  I'm hoping someday that the games trapped on PSVR show up on PC so I could have a chance to play the Resident Evil games in VR.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Playstation 5 Pro

« on: September 24, 2024, 05:05:22 pm »

As always with a State of Play, I'll want to see Bloodborne, but now my wild theory is that they need a big win  to run cover for things, and so along with maybe something new and exciting like a Wolverine teaser maybe, they'll hit the "Smash Glass In Case of Emergency" and reveal whatever is planned for Bloodborne lol It's unlikely, but they have to acknowledge the game someday beyond a brief appearance in Astro Bot lol

Hell is Us looks pretty sick, modern setting, but also fantasy possible souls-like.

A new Metro game is cool, too bad it's PSVR2, meaning no one is gonna play it unless a PC version will be coming.

I was only going to post about new stuff, but man, I'm so damn hyped for Monster Hunter Wilds, it looks amazing.  This has the potential to be just the best game.

Ghost of Yotei is neat, I like the first game enough so I'll check this out.  I think what I mostly wanted to see if it got a sequel was for them to expand on the Open World aspect itself, it was fine, but kinda bland in its execution, but was otherwise a solid game.

That State of Play is definitely not doing anything to change the conversation though lol

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Modern Video Games / Re: Playstation 5 Pro

« on: September 23, 2024, 07:43:06 pm »

Anybody want to bet on a price drop of the Pro?

There's no way they do that.  Usually what happens is they stick to their guns, put out the thing, it doesn't sell well, and then they price drop it not long after.  They are most likely banking on sales by the most hardcore types and scalpers at first, but once that dries up, then the price drop happens, probably within 6 months, if not faster, depending on the sales.

21

Modern Video Games / Re: Playstation 5 Pro

« on: September 23, 2024, 05:34:25 pm »

State of Play tomorrow.  I have to imagine that Sony is going to be trying to pull out all the stops to try and turn the negativity around after the recent disasters lol

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/09/state-of-play-set-for-september-24-featuring-updates-on-more-than-20-games

22

General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2024!!!!!

« on: September 21, 2024, 11:09:38 pm »

23 - Warhammer 40k: Space Marine (PC 2011) - BEAT - With the sequel out, I had sorta realized I never played the original fully, only a few hours back in the day for whatever reason, so figured why not, I'll pay through it first before I see about getting the sequel eventually.  I've always had a passing interesting in Warhammer 40k, the hardcore, edgy, grimdark, scifi with cool dudes and ladies in armor does a lot for me, but never a hobby I got into as it's a very costly and involved one lol

I think this game is totally fine.  At the time, it was made with the Gears of War trend in mind, big chunky men with big weaponry and violent melee action running into battle arenas and down corridors.  They thankfully were smart enough to not make it a cover shooter, because that's not the Space Marine's style, but it's functionally just Gears of War.  I think it's abit of a bland take on it thoug.  Aesthetically it gets most of what you need, but I don't know, something about the weaponry isn't as satisfying as I think it could've been, I think they also spend too much time on the grab kills, it's like Doom Eternal where you need to stun and then kill an enemy to get health back and some take forever.

I think it holds up well enough for being a nearly 13 year old game too.  I did mod it, but for only one single reason, I wanted a helmet on Titus lol It's the coolest part of the Space Marine's look and the whole squad goes without them, but there's an easy mod that just gives him one, even gets bloody like the rest of him, though there's no voice changer unfortunately, but it was like the one nitpick I had at the start.

Overall, it's fine, I wouldn't say go out of the way to play it unless you are just a big W40k fan that someone never played it, the story probably doesn't matter much to the sequel other than a little element involving Captain Titus's unusual resistance to the Warp/Chaos, so other than that, the sequel is probably it's own thing otherwise especially since I think it takes place like 200 years after the original from something I saw lol

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Modern Video Games / Re: Concord - PlayStation's biggest flop?

« on: September 20, 2024, 11:24:59 pm »

It's  confirmed that Concord was in development for 8 years not 4.i'm also willing to believe that if the game was in such an unplayable state when Sony bought Concord that the budget would balloon in and attempt to get it playable when bringing on other devs.

The only thing that keeps me from thinking this real is why sell it for $40 and not $70?. At 400mil this is one of the most expensive budgets for games, hell no other Sony titles come that close. Looking at other media only 3 movies have had a budget of over 400mil (excluding the last 2 avengers as those were filmed back to back.)
Star wars the force awakens
Star wars rise of Skywalker
Jurassic world fallen kingdom

There's a lot to consider with this. Also that 400mil doesn't include the firewalk Studios acquisition. I'm willing to bet at some point there are going to be documentaries made about the failure of this game not just by some random youtube documentaruon too. I'm willing to say this game is one of the biggest flops in media, not just games at this point.

Firewalk Studios as a company has only existed since 2018, so it could only have been 6 at the most and from what I've read, the 8 years talk was like "We have an idea" sort of stuff, so it was a general concept for that long, but didn't really hit full proper development until the past 4 years.

Great point about the price tag though.  You don't have a game that costs that much that you sell for so little unless you have a pretty notable amount of post-release monetization behind it, which Concord didn't I believe as they were going to have all new characters and maps for free.  Helldivers 2 was likely not even half of the even estimated 200 million dollar number for Concord and they made it work at 40 because it was a co-op game, so it's more easy to get a couple buddies with you on a cheaper game at 40, which is less per person, but has potential for greater sales numbers than if it was sold at 60 or 70.  And they had a very reasonable bit of monetization by selling gear content passes on the regular.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Concord - PlayStation's biggest flop?

« on: September 20, 2024, 07:32:01 pm »

I wouldn't go all in on that number, the guy who is reporting on it sounds like a legit guy, but without real confirmation, it comes like someone could have been misinformed.  Some other industry type folks were talking about how the numbers don't make a sense, as it only had 4 years of development, a budget like that would be basically the same as Spider-Man 2 and Horizon 2 combined, but this a small scale multiplayer game, with a much smaller dev team than either of those.  They certainly blew a ton of money for sure no matter what though.

I think a lot of the other talk sounds a lot more reasonable and makes a lot of sense, because no matter what the budget really was, this game got such a weird amount of support for no real reason.  The idea that this will be a "future of Playstation" sort of game is insane for a game that was behind on the genre hype even when Sony bought them and such a bland art style for the game.  It's actually funny, because some of the concept art they had for the game that I've seen, at least for a character or two, look so much better than what they went with, like the one big woman with the green puffy armor looked cool and then they went and made the lamest choices for her finalized look and I've seen artist come in and do legit redesigns that look awesome while keeping reasonably true to the original character.

I had realized I never heard of Hermen Hulst before this really, but it's crazy that this guy who was the co-founder of Guerilla Games and was at the head of the studio for games like the Killzone series and Horizon, and then ended up making such disastrous decisions with this one game.  Wild.

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General / Re: What are you playing?

« on: September 20, 2024, 05:25:41 pm »

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine - With the new one out, I realized I never fully played the original, only a couple hours back in the day.  Definitely interesting to go back to, this game meant to be kinda in line with the feel of Gears of War, just without the cover combat.  Maybe I'm just spoiled by certain games nowadays, but this game does not have the same level of chunky action that I think even Gears had.  It's a close approximation for sure, but something about the audio and such isn't as punchy.  I think some of it from me playing about of that throwback styled W40k: Boltgun and how satisfying that game can be.

Also, this might just be and I know there are Space Marines that go around without a helmet, but all I want is for Titus to get a helmet.  The full suit of armor is exactly what I want to see lol It's a weird negative to have, but if you have cool armor, I want it worn as much as possible.  But should be a chill time, haven't done this sort of action shooter in a little bit.

*EDIT* Found out there's a mod that lets me slap a helmet on Titus, all is good lol

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General / Re: How did you choose between PS2 and Xbox (or PS3 and 360)?

« on: September 20, 2024, 04:32:20 pm »

PS2 released before the Xbox and I was much more interested to see what that system had over the Xbox.  I got an Xbox probably sometime in the next year after it launched, almost entirely because of Halo.  I did play other games on it, but that console, for most people really, was a Halo box lol PS2 had more of the actual games to play though overall.

Things after that flipped, as it was the Xbox 360 that interested me and not the PS3.  Xbox was starting to have the games I want, Halo 3, Dead Rising, etc..., I didn't see a lot with the PS3 that interested me and the PS3 had that super high cost.  I never even got a PS3 till I got the slim as a gift and that was maybe a year or so before the PS4 launched.  I was glad I made the choice as the PS3 did not have a lot for me outside of a couple games.

Things THEN flipped again, where Xbox went full stupid on the Xbox One, had zero interest in anything they were doing, while the PS4 seemed super decent and was absolutely the right choice.

Now the PS5 isn't super great, but it's fine, and Xbox might as well not exist for me because everything is coming to PC right away anyways.  Sony is bringing stuff to PC also, but it's usually a good year or so after release, but there is starting to become less reasons to own a console if owning a PC, other than a Nintendo system. 

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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2024!!!!!

« on: September 19, 2024, 11:32:47 pm »

22 - Dead Rising Deluxe Remastered (PC 2024) - BEAT - Wasn't planning to get this so soon, but my impatience for a zombie game, even one I played in the past got the better of me.  Overall I thought this was a decent time, I can't outright compare everything to the original, I haven't played it in years, but this is a proper remaster, it's basically the same story and content, but with overhauled visuals, new and more voice acting, and improved gameplay.  Everything has been polished up, survivors got a huge improvement, while still very much being a product of that 7th gen gaming era.  That's a "for better or worse" sorta deal really, because I think the game could've benefited from the Resident Evil remake treatment more than just a straight, prettier, remaster.  Have the mall be seamless, improve the gameplay, overhaul the boss fights, and more features and content...but that's also a much more expensive game and I'm guessing the idea was to do something relatively lower budget to kinda bring back Dead Rising in a smaller way, test the waters again.

One thing I forgot was how bad the games final act is lol It's a big swerve to action with bullet sponge enemies and while you do get generally proper aim controls, you still hold still to shoot which is a little obnoxious.  A few bugs that could be looked at have to do with zombie/cultist spawns feeling very clumpy at times, it feels like zombies grab you more often when they shouldn't, zombies will sometimes just de-spawn, like if there was a group behind you and you go into certain stores, you can turned and see nothing there, just de-rendering entirely.  Something that could be overhauled abit is difficulty, because the original at times could be very frustrating, a lot of that due to how clunky of a game it could be, but now you level fast, you get so much PP and it's a little much.  Not that you can't die from bosses or get hurt, but they could have slowed that down abit.

I had a good time, I even didn't mind the timer this time, which was a general annoyance for me back in the day as I don't like being pushed to accomplish goals, I want to explore and do things at my own pace.  I might do some infinity mode for abit, but I wouldn't mind them doing this to Dead Rising 2, perhaps remaster that, maybe do abit more with it, and then maybe that could lead to a new DR game, like ignore DR3 and DR4 and do something more in the style of DR2.  I think that would be cool.

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General / Re: What are you playing?

« on: September 18, 2024, 10:54:26 pm »

Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster - Wasn't planning to jump into this out of the game, but my zombie love and nostalgia for this goofy old game got the better of me.  So far it's been great in the first two hours, I guess some people on PC are having some optimization issues, but my new PC is relatively high end and it's running way better than I expected honestly with how some games can be these days. 

I think this balances things between a standard remaster with some upscaled textures and a full on remake like Resident Evil 4, where the visuals are a huge upgrade while keeping the art style in tact (Everyone is just a little cartoonish in proportions and such), but it's functionally the same game in terms of content and story.  I probably would've overall preferred a proper remake, seamless map, new content, etc, but this is also very decent.  It is a little weird to go back to due to where the sequels go, particularly the weapon combining feature, but it's still a quality zombie action game.  Gonna have some fun with this for sure.

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General / Re: What are you playing?

« on: September 15, 2024, 06:15:59 pm »

Played a short bit of Gigabash and can't say I liked it a whole lot.  It's not a bad game in the slightest, but despite being about giant monsters and Godzilla, it's kinda basic and doesn't do a lot for me.  I think I just want something more like the PS2 era Godzilla games, camera is brought in some more, more chunkiness to the monsters, that sort of thing than these more top down arena battlers.  I'm sure this game is fine if you got some folks for couch play, but not something I want to put the time into solo, which is a bummer.  I think some of my issue is that the health pools are pretty small, so you can kinda get melted or take out enemies fairly fast, feeling like you were barely in the match.  Oh well, I'll get a new Godzilla game someday (Only 10 years and counting right now lol)

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Modern Video Games / Re: Playstation 5 Pro

« on: September 15, 2024, 05:24:58 pm »

Basically what I thought.  Most stuff will run at 60, but with slightly better picture quality, so barely an upgrade from what most people can do right now and all for an extra 300 bucks.  Wild.