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Off Topic / Re: What TV/Netflix show are you currently watching? (Megathread)

« on: April 11, 2024, 06:18:47 am »

Fallout - Binged through this and had a great time with it.  When it comes to adapting game properties, it is getting better, as we've seen with Super Mario Bros and Last of Us, but we also still have things like Halo and I was worried this would slip into that realm more, and as a fan of these games, that would've been disappointing, but I think they got it.  I think they nailed all the aesthetics, they embraced the period setting, and overall it feels like Fallout.  Story is very decent, all the actors in their roles do a good job, Goggins in particular is a standout, and I like that they didn't hold back on how messed up things are.  It's a bloody, violent, game, things can be kinda screwed up, while also being downright goofy at times, and that's all here.

I can't comment on how "accurate" it is lore wise, that sorta stuff doesn't bother me as much as long as they get the broadstrokes right.  It's possible they are retconning abit of New Vegas, but we won't know about that entirely till Season 2 I guess.  Highly recommend this show either way, whether you are a fun, or you just want a good post-apocalyptic scifi show.

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Modern Video Games / Re: SEGA declares this is the Year of Shadow

« on: April 10, 2024, 07:42:08 pm »

I was into Sonic before the whole Shadow thing, so I never cared too much about the character either, though him just being edgy Sonic was entertaining, especially with his PS2 game lol

I am looking forward to the Sonic x Shadow Generations game, Generations is kinda the only Sonic game I liked gameplay wise, as I thought it did 3D well while also getting me to like 2D Sonic gameplay because they pulled the camera back more.

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

« on: April 06, 2024, 12:03:50 am »

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End - Finally got to finishing this as I was waiting on the dub, and it's a really wonderful show.  It came around at a time where I was really wanting a proper fantasy show, because sword/magic anime these days is literally plagued with isekai based fantasy.  Everything with a fantasy setting has to involve a character being reincarnated in this world or transported into a game, and the majority of it is either bad or boring.  Wild that we got this and Dungeon Meshi back to back, of which I need to catch up with Dungeon Meshi.

This is a unique fantasy show, as it's actually more slice of life.  A story about a functionally immortal elf going through her life, after adventuring with her party, taking out the demon king, and then after that time has passed, having to come to terms with their loss and trying to better understand the time she spent with her party in the past, growing more emotionally because of it.  There is some action moments dotted throughout, but they aren't the focus.  It's definitely a show that tugs at the heartstrings, I choked up twice in the first two episodes lol It's more chill after that, but it's such a solid show with great character building interactions going on.

Really can't wait for the second season.  Hope they are able to get back to it soon.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Xbox decides to launch their second AAA exclusive of the gen at 30fps

« on: April 04, 2024, 11:45:53 pm »

Senua's Saga: Hellblade II is apparently 30fps as well. What was the point of the current gen again? PS4 Pro and One X already output 4K so it wasn't that.

I saw that the lead or one of the team was talking about "cinematic quality" or something to justify the framerate, which makes zero sense being that movies are at 24, not 30, and also doesn't work being that the PC version will run at a higher framerate.  Like I know they can't just come out to say the hardware isn't powerful enough to do the higher framerate for the game with how they prioritized visuals/resolution, but performance to me always matter more to me.  Anymore, I only deal with 30fps on Switch games, but it's a thing of expectations too, where I know Switch is lesser hardware and also I feel more cartoony graphics aren't as problematic when it comes to the lower FPS/resolution.  It only bothers me when the FPS tanks and it's like a Pokemon Scarlet/Violet situation where the game is both pretty ugly and has bad framerate problems.

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

« on: March 30, 2024, 09:32:01 pm »

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire - Liked this way more than I thought I would, especially since the MonsterVerse has been running on diminishing returns since its debut in 2014's Godzilla.  Does a much better job of balancing Kong and Godzilla through the whole picture than GvK did, and, unlike that film, it has a strong emotional throughline.

I still stand by what I said in 2019, however.  Introducing (and killing) King Ghidorah in Godzilla's second appearance was a terrible decision because now you're building up to what... just another giant ape?  Pleasantly surprised by the return of another Titan, though!

I'm hoping the next movie will be Godzilla focused again like King of the Monsters and they can delve into the alien side of things, because I feel like they've done a lot to deal with the Hollow Earth for a few things now really, and while there is plenty of room to explore that, make that the next King Kong movie, let Godzilla have something else.  I do sorta agree that going with Ghidorah so quickly, just to end it in the second movie was too soon, but I would love a new alien threat alongside someone like Gigan, who is another favorite of mine.  A possible alien invasion story will also give the humans something to deal with too.

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

« on: March 28, 2024, 07:37:54 pm »

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire - As always, if a movie is gonna get me to the theater, it's going to be Godzilla.  Didn't see Dune 2 in theater, but I watched both Godzilla: Minus One and this one right there in Imax lol

I had a blast with this one, because it was exactly what I was expecting it to be.  I saw some folks kinda ragging on it beforehand, because Minus One came out, big favorite, lots of love, and then people see Godzilla running with Kong to punch another giant monkey and they scoff at that like it's beneath them.  Which to me just shows they aren't really that big of Godzilla fans, because Godzilla has been like the Monsterverse movies than they have been the serious allegorical/politically driven dramas like the original or Shin Godzilla.  This movie calls back to like the Heisei/Milleniumera of Godzilla, where it does get more over the top and crazy, but is fun.

I think my only real complaints is that they may be pushing the "spectacle" too far, they want crazy action visuals and sweeping camera shots and cool stylish stuff for the Titans to do, and it looks sick, but also it loses the size and impact of them when they move around so fast.  It was something that greatly hurt Pacific Rim: Uprising, because the first movie does so much to push the size of the Jaegers, but in Pacific Rim: Uprising, it's like watching the Transformers fight.  In this movie, it's similar, but they still do a lot of low shots looking up, so it's kind of an inbetween take on it.  It's not bad, but to me it's losing abit of what what sells their immense, terrifying, nature.  They need to tweak it abit with the next one for sure.

It's all good fun though, I would say I may prefer this one abit more to the last one, the overall story is more engaging, the human stuff is better, the only negative between how the action is portrayed abit like I brought up before.  I think King of the Monsters is still my favorite, but once this one comes out on home video, I'll give it all a rewatch to see how it all feels at this point. 

For a future one, if they get to continue the series, I'm hoping it's a proper Godzilla solo flick, PLEASE...I like these last two movies, but they are absolutely more Kong movies than they are Godzilla.  I understand Kong allows for them to have more of an emoting character along with his story of being without his kind, but I just want more of my giant stompy lizard beast lol They've done most of what they can with Kong at this point, so let Godzilla go wild again, maybe look into the alien stuff that has been teased with Ghidorah.  Would make me so happy to get a new Gigan or something.

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General / Re: New Low Poly Games?

« on: March 12, 2024, 01:59:28 pm »

Here's another great looking new game, "Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom".  A collectathon platformer, nice big open areas to explore as a windup taxi car, very wacky.  Alongside the N64 vibes, I also get like Katamari Damacy vibes abit, looks like fun though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I_OBp2EJUI

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Modern Video Games / Re: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed revealed!

« on: March 05, 2024, 11:20:42 pm »

The publisher being a brand mill is a red flag and the developer not having done anything I recognize is not a good sign, but I would love for it to be good, I'm just not gonna have any expectations that it will.  That's not usually a great pairing.

Slightly related to this, there is another TMNT game coming, TMNT Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants, it's an older game that uses the 2012 era turtles, your average sidescroller beat-em-up, but could be fun maybe, not sure, never played it and didn't even know it existed till they announced it.  It'll even have new content.  Honestly, I'm kinda expecting this to be the better game of the two, it was at least considered decent enough for them to bring back and invest money into adding new content and bringing back the VA for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIomr5vOVAk

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General / Re: What are you playing?

« on: March 05, 2024, 02:30:18 pm »

Finally was able to devote a bunch of time to FF7: Rebirth and I'm loving it, I'm enjoying the experience a lot more than I did FF16 last year, which is interesting to compare, as they have very similar aspects, FF7 was just the better realization of it in terms of what you do in the world, the general structure of things. It's so much more enjoyable compared to how boring it could be in FF16, which is a shame as I loved the story of that game.  I'm going to spend so much time trying to do everything I can in every area before progressing lol

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

« on: February 29, 2024, 12:48:55 am »

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - Another random choice, this time with a Tarantino flick.  This movie reminds me a lot of Inglorious Bastards, in that there are two stories going on, one is better than the other, and had they picked the one story and stuck with it, it would've been way better.  The story of an aging actor struggling to stay relevant alongside his friend and stuntman double is solid.  The Sharon Tate/Manson Family story is even less important than the Nazi hunter story in Inglorious Bastards.  Had they just stayed with a story involving Brad and Leonardo's characters, I probably would've liked this more.

That being said, I love all the end of the 60's era going on, Tarantino loves to over-indulge and he revels in showing off the era and that's great.  I loved the bits of DiCaprio appearing in actual movies and his original ones, the the filming of the one western as the villain, all that is good.  The radio stuff, the long shots of just showing off old Hollywood, Tarantino is all for it and it shows, it's the only points in the movie where he lingers too long that I'm fine with.  Cut the Manson Family stuff, cut out a half hour of the film or so, and there's a much better movie here, but I still generally liked it.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Nintendo Switch 2

« on: February 28, 2024, 03:19:26 am »

I think we get the summer announcement of the Switch 2 and then the March 2025 release, which makes the most sense, same time frame as the original Switch, and this would also lead to Pokemon Legends Z-A releasing on Switch and as a Switch 2 launch title.  They don't have anything of note announced for the Switch for later this year, though they could still have something planned to announce within the next few months to have ready for this holiday season, but that there's nothing announced makes me think that's a good sign of prepping for the next gen.

I am going to say that it'll be backwards compatible, I think unless Nintendo is planning to do a drastically different method of physical media, something I don't even know what that could be, they'll keep the same media setup, so it can play Switch games, or play what will be higher storage Switch 2 carts.  Honestly, I'm gonna be pretty disappointed if it's not backwards compatible, that's kinda the only feature I care about with this.  I think for launch alongside Pokemon Legends, we would need to see something pretty impactful that is like THE Switch 2 launch release, and I think something like Metroid Prime 4 could be that.  That's been a game in development hell for so long, but that would be a big deal to have right out of the gate.

That's all of what I'd say for a launch window, to hard to guess what kind of games they will go for, though my one hope would be a new top down Zelda, not a remake, not in that lame Link's Awakening style, and actually letting a third party company handle it, like Capcom did in the past, or Cadence of Hyrule more recently, so we get a Zelda with some fresh eyes on the series.  That would honestly be something to get me super excited that's out of left field.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Where do you draw the line? New Game Prices

« on: February 27, 2024, 09:45:13 pm »

That doesn't even seem like a feasible thing to do.  GTA6 doesn't need to sell their games at some crazy price to make their money back, even if the 2 billion development cost rumor is true.  GTA5 did a billion dollars in sales in its first three days and has gone on to make over 8 billion dollars by 2023.  GTA6 is going to sell even faster and at a 70 dollar price tag, or even a pushed 80 dollar price tag, it'll probably do a billion dollars in sales in the first day easy.  It'll then do great for awhile, then have another huge surge once the PC version is released.  It's going to sell like crazy.

As for my limit, that's hard to say.  Depends on a lot of things.  Like I don't think Nintendo prices are particularly great for a lot of their games as is, so if they raise prices on the Switch 2, that's going to make more games a harder sell.  I'll pay 60 to 70 bucks for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Zelda, but Animal Crossing at 60 bucks was insane, and that most of the Pokemon games are at 60 is just as crazy, let alone if they end up raising prices.

I'm more open to big budget PS5 stuff, I can see and feel where the budget is going, but I also get around the pricing by buying God of War or Last of Us, playing it, beating it, and then trading it in because I'm not gonna replay it, and I can put that money into another big new game.  I did that with the Spider-Man games I had, I really didn't think I would go back to them any time soon, so I traded them in to pay for my copy of Final Fantasy 7 this week, though that would be a game I'd buy at full price, because I know I'm going to invest a lot of time into it.  I would pay 80 or 90 dollars for Monster Hunter Wilds coming up, because I know that I'll dump hundreds of hours into that game.  Hell, I'm probably going to spend that much anyways on whatever the bonus content version is going to be lol

I'm sure there's a point where I'd be like "That's getting ridiculous", but it doesn't mean I wouldn't get it, I'd just play less at launch and wait for sales or secondhand copies.  It's how I do a lot of my PC gaming, waiting on sales for stuff unless it's a game I know I really want.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Pokemon Presents 02/27/24

« on: February 27, 2024, 08:04:33 pm »

Hopefully they are not so deep in development already there isn't time left to steal a few of PalWorld's good ideas! It already kind of feels like an improved Legends: Arceus in style and stuff like the good animations and having Pals actually have work to do is something I could see fitting in with the theme of urbanizing Lumiose. Besides, turnabout is fair play and if Palworld "took inspiration" from Pokemon designs, no reason Pokemon can't "take inspiration" from some of Palworld's best game systems!

Eh, Pokemon doesn't really need to take anything from Palworld.  Most of Pokemon's issues come down to needing to pump out multiple games on the regular, which leads to rushed development, probably tight budgets, and not enough people to work on the games.  Plus, most of Palworld is just ripped off other games to begin with.  It's only standout gimmick is "cute creatures with guns", and that's kinda it.  That it plays and looks better is mostly by nature of the engine it's on and that it's running on a PC.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Pokemon Presents 02/27/24

« on: February 27, 2024, 02:53:33 pm »

I kinda doubt it's going to be set within just the city though.

The city is going to be the main focus or just the hubworld sure, but I highly doubt it's going to be just that.

Unless they mispoke, they very specifically said on at least twitter, "...a new adventure set entirely within Lumiose City...".  It's possible they could have some stuff just outside the city, but doing such a specific area could be very samey unless there's something to mix it up.

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Modern Video Games / Re: Pokemon Presents 02/27/24

« on: February 27, 2024, 12:57:12 pm »

Well that was shockingly less than I was expecting to see lol A new Legends isn't bad though and that it'll be next year is good.  I feel like them having no games coming out this year is maybe giving credence to the Switch 2 March 2025 talk, because a new Pokemon game in the launch window would be notable.

Apparently the new Legends is set entirely within a city, I know very little about X and Y, but...This seems like they are maybe going to try for a smaller open world setting perhaps? I don't know, I feel like that would only work if they really densely packed in what you can do there, otherwise it'll get very samey and kinda boring.  I saw some people jokingly call it "GTA, but Pokemon", but again, I have very low expectations for this.  We'll see I guess.