I've said this before, but it's really weird to have the richest guy in the world posting memes about CEOs getting assassinated, shit-talking vermintide, and tweeting about how he got kicked from a game.
"Is Stuart Little the guy that ages backwards, or is that Breaking Benjamin?"Rosemi Lovelock
Vidya Games Thread
- Thread starter Saturnus
- Start date
I've said this before, but it's really weird to have the richest guy in the world posting memes about CEOs getting assassinated, shit-talking vermintide, and tweeting about how he got kicked from a game.
hes also too dumb to know "too many actions" probably means he has some piece of shit software that is being interpreted as game commends.
I personally like to think he has malware installed and it's just feasting on his data.
It was really wild to see his Diablo 4 streams and he'd just be playing while he'd be on a phonecall with people at Tesla discussing the details of a rocket launch.
Marvel Rivals Stuff: feel free to skip.
Things i learned.
#1 turns off automatically choose attach point for webslingers like spiderman and venom.
Why? YOU CAN WEB ZIP in addition to the normal WEBSWING it's also far more controlled then the wonky ass normal version.
You can also Webdodge by zipping low to the ground pete will do a flip/cartwheel that does seem to make his hitbox a little smaller.
#2 Standing on the point contributes either nothing or VERY LITTLE to MVP i got the whole point by myself before the other team noticed and i still lost MVP to a luna snow with very similar stats (but her 5000 healing is more then my 0) so capping the point does not count toward it.
Things i learned.
#1 turns off automatically choose attach point for webslingers like spiderman and venom.
Why? YOU CAN WEB ZIP in addition to the normal WEBSWING it's also far more controlled then the wonky ass normal version.
You can also Webdodge by zipping low to the ground pete will do a flip/cartwheel that does seem to make his hitbox a little smaller.
#2 Standing on the point contributes either nothing or VERY LITTLE to MVP i got the whole point by myself before the other team noticed and i still lost MVP to a luna snow with very similar stats (but her 5000 healing is more then my 0) so capping the point does not count toward it.
Sure thing, Boss.
People read the descriptions of the game. Turns out, it's actually a survival game as you're stuck on the planet that the character is seen going to. It's going to be a bad knockoff of Returnal and The Last of Us. But, since they don't have TLOU1 to sucker people in, well, down the drain goes that money.
Spun-off from the Pippa thread, @thhrang put forth this:
The video:
And my response:
"I was barely one year old when this game came out"
Right off the bat, I want to die.
His first focus is on story, characters, and performances, putting these in the light that they are positive advancements for the game (and games in general). I contest the opposite: these things are why Half-Life 2 is lesser, and why the game has had a negative impact. What makes a game is the game - everything else is window-dressing. Window-dressing can be very welcome, and can add a lot to the feel and memorability, so long as they don't get in the way of the game. The level of injection that the new (and returning yet modified) characters brought in Half-Life 2 distracted from the game itself on average to a greater extent than any of the long-winded NPC expositions in the first one. This was not a positive advancement, but a negative one.
Makes good points on character design telling you about the characters themselves, along with the world around you. This is called environmental storytelling. It used to be the norm in any action game by necessity, with more extensive storytelling being resigned to games that better suited it - like Text Adventures and Japanese Role Playing Games. Now most action games seemingly must kneecap themselves by cementing your feet every five yards so they can do their "storytelling." Christ, it's bizarre as fuck to me that there's more of this today in First Person Shooters than there was in Dungeon Crawlers, isometric Role-Playing Games, or even Full Motion Video games. I'm not sure what route the Souls games took after Demon's Souls (still yet to get to even the first Dark Souls), but we were seeing this narrative creep come into action games by the mid-00s, and in 2009, Demon's Souls focus on environmental storytelling was a welcome return to the much more gameplay-focused style of, well, gaming.
Points out that Half-Life 2 had a larger and more involved world than Half-Life 1. This is partially due to improved technology and a large budget, but such more varied landscapes was still doable prior to that. The key question should be: is it a benefit to the game? Something tighter and more focused also ends up being more personal. It's why the better Superhero films are one that deal with more limited matter and on a personal level, while the more forgettable ones are larger and "must stop the world ending threat for the nth time." You could have globe-trotting in a medium, but usually that's just background scenery, while the particular storyline with the handful of characters being the focus (the better James Bond films for example). You go outside this, more often than not everything ends up with less weight to it, making things more shallow.
Oh holy shit, he's actually talking about gameplay now, halfway through. Makes actually good points here. Agree that the weapons, while more limited and less interesting, are better utilized in Half-Life 2. Half-Life 1 kinda felt like it was trying to lift off some of the fun of Duke Nukem 3D, but it didn't quite work out. Duke 3D was lightning in a bottle all over, so trying to emulate any aspect of that is going to result in a lot of hit and miss. HL2's weaponry had far better utility, and the Gravity Gun and how it was implemented does deserve a lot of praise - that is something that easily could've felt like a complete gimmick, but Valve managed to make it a real game asset.
Completely right about the grenades. They had their utility in HL1, and could be quite fun, but they were also frustrating more often than not. Looking back on it, it's strange considering how many games before then got grenades better than HL1. Guess it was low priority for Valve.
Ragdoll physics for the guns is fun, but not a true gameplay element. But yes, fun. Smile on face.
The thing he's alluding to, however, is something that would actually be a big debate, and more likely than not would boil down to an immeasurable perspective, and that is: set pieces. Half-Life 2, for me, had a lot more set pieces for levels than Half-Life 1, and Half-Life 1's flow was its true biggest strength.
Both games had set pieces, as most classic games do, just for variety's sake. How they're implemented, however, determines how much they feel like a natural progression of the game, or how much they feel like they're shoe-horned in, giving a stop-and-go feeling that takes you out of the game. With Half-Life 2, so many times it felt like, "here's this section now, for you to deal with this thing, that you obviously need to use this weapon for. All done? Okay, leaving this section now, back to using the other weapons you use more normally." It didn't bring about that more natural discovery of what works best in a scenario. In HL1, even in the most obvious of the set pieces, how you proceed with it was more emergent, and could fluctuate depending how what situation you find yourself in. This would be the crux of my problems with HL2 - it's less of a game than HL1 was.
Good points on the AI. HL1's was more dynamic and helped the world better. HL2's was relegated to pretty much the good CP and how they engage with you. I'm more partial to HL1's because it felt more alive, even though HL2's was technically better for the gameplay. However, I think it's a little overstated, as in practice the good CP AI wasn't all that much better than the Marines in HL1. Much better on paper, but you'll likely only run into a few more times when they act less stupid than the Marines. I don't think it makes up for the rest of the game, however.
Disagree on the Combine design. It's distinct, yes, but so were the particular Marines in HL1. They honestly feel more like they're from some 1970s future dystopia film. Take some police from one of those, slap on some clothing more suitable for winter, and bam. This was probably actually the thought process for their design. It's not bad, but they honestly look kinda goofy. Dudes in a poorly shaped gasmask.
Fully agree on the headcrab variety. As I recall, those in HL2 were intended for HL1, but had to be left out.
More stuff on lore. Lore is fluff. Can be fun fluff, but fluff nonetheless.
I agree that the game is far more than a tech demo. I think a lot of that view is because of the incredible tech in HL2, and how much of a jump it was. I called Max Payne a glorified tech demo on this forum before, and also had the unfortunate position of being hyped of for State of Emergency, which ended up being a tech demo that had to be worked into something resembling a game fifteen minutes before release. Hell, I remember vividly when id software was often disparaged about "creating engines, not games." I have to imagine such attitudes are derived from being let down or just underwhelmed, so the positive aspects in such views are made to be the dominant ones.
Agree on the episodic format. Never liked the idea when it was happening. You can imagine my opinion on how a lot of games have "seasons" now.
Mixing the world of Half-Life and Portal does seem like a mistake... on Half-Life's end. I thought it was a cute little thing in Portal, but it should've been left at that, and never brought up in Half-Life 2 episodes.
Correct on how they used the Vortigaunts as basically magic. Fuck that noise.
Ultimately, I'm in agreement with his final point: Half-Life 2 is a good game. I'm just coming from the position of someone playing first person shooters on computers before Half-Life 1 came out, playing HL1, waiting for HL2, then playing HL2. It's still a disappointment, but it's more like saying the steak I just ate wasn't as good as a particular one I had last week. The main disagreements I have are that some things he views as positives I view as negatives, and much of the impact HL2 has had in gaming has been a detriment.
The video:
And my response:
"I was barely one year old when this game came out"
Right off the bat, I want to die.
His first focus is on story, characters, and performances, putting these in the light that they are positive advancements for the game (and games in general). I contest the opposite: these things are why Half-Life 2 is lesser, and why the game has had a negative impact. What makes a game is the game - everything else is window-dressing. Window-dressing can be very welcome, and can add a lot to the feel and memorability, so long as they don't get in the way of the game. The level of injection that the new (and returning yet modified) characters brought in Half-Life 2 distracted from the game itself on average to a greater extent than any of the long-winded NPC expositions in the first one. This was not a positive advancement, but a negative one.
Makes good points on character design telling you about the characters themselves, along with the world around you. This is called environmental storytelling. It used to be the norm in any action game by necessity, with more extensive storytelling being resigned to games that better suited it - like Text Adventures and Japanese Role Playing Games. Now most action games seemingly must kneecap themselves by cementing your feet every five yards so they can do their "storytelling." Christ, it's bizarre as fuck to me that there's more of this today in First Person Shooters than there was in Dungeon Crawlers, isometric Role-Playing Games, or even Full Motion Video games. I'm not sure what route the Souls games took after Demon's Souls (still yet to get to even the first Dark Souls), but we were seeing this narrative creep come into action games by the mid-00s, and in 2009, Demon's Souls focus on environmental storytelling was a welcome return to the much more gameplay-focused style of, well, gaming.
Points out that Half-Life 2 had a larger and more involved world than Half-Life 1. This is partially due to improved technology and a large budget, but such more varied landscapes was still doable prior to that. The key question should be: is it a benefit to the game? Something tighter and more focused also ends up being more personal. It's why the better Superhero films are one that deal with more limited matter and on a personal level, while the more forgettable ones are larger and "must stop the world ending threat for the nth time." You could have globe-trotting in a medium, but usually that's just background scenery, while the particular storyline with the handful of characters being the focus (the better James Bond films for example). You go outside this, more often than not everything ends up with less weight to it, making things more shallow.
Oh holy shit, he's actually talking about gameplay now, halfway through. Makes actually good points here. Agree that the weapons, while more limited and less interesting, are better utilized in Half-Life 2. Half-Life 1 kinda felt like it was trying to lift off some of the fun of Duke Nukem 3D, but it didn't quite work out. Duke 3D was lightning in a bottle all over, so trying to emulate any aspect of that is going to result in a lot of hit and miss. HL2's weaponry had far better utility, and the Gravity Gun and how it was implemented does deserve a lot of praise - that is something that easily could've felt like a complete gimmick, but Valve managed to make it a real game asset.
Completely right about the grenades. They had their utility in HL1, and could be quite fun, but they were also frustrating more often than not. Looking back on it, it's strange considering how many games before then got grenades better than HL1. Guess it was low priority for Valve.
Ragdoll physics for the guns is fun, but not a true gameplay element. But yes, fun. Smile on face.
The thing he's alluding to, however, is something that would actually be a big debate, and more likely than not would boil down to an immeasurable perspective, and that is: set pieces. Half-Life 2, for me, had a lot more set pieces for levels than Half-Life 1, and Half-Life 1's flow was its true biggest strength.
Both games had set pieces, as most classic games do, just for variety's sake. How they're implemented, however, determines how much they feel like a natural progression of the game, or how much they feel like they're shoe-horned in, giving a stop-and-go feeling that takes you out of the game. With Half-Life 2, so many times it felt like, "here's this section now, for you to deal with this thing, that you obviously need to use this weapon for. All done? Okay, leaving this section now, back to using the other weapons you use more normally." It didn't bring about that more natural discovery of what works best in a scenario. In HL1, even in the most obvious of the set pieces, how you proceed with it was more emergent, and could fluctuate depending how what situation you find yourself in. This would be the crux of my problems with HL2 - it's less of a game than HL1 was.
Good points on the AI. HL1's was more dynamic and helped the world better. HL2's was relegated to pretty much the good CP and how they engage with you. I'm more partial to HL1's because it felt more alive, even though HL2's was technically better for the gameplay. However, I think it's a little overstated, as in practice the good CP AI wasn't all that much better than the Marines in HL1. Much better on paper, but you'll likely only run into a few more times when they act less stupid than the Marines. I don't think it makes up for the rest of the game, however.
Disagree on the Combine design. It's distinct, yes, but so were the particular Marines in HL1. They honestly feel more like they're from some 1970s future dystopia film. Take some police from one of those, slap on some clothing more suitable for winter, and bam. This was probably actually the thought process for their design. It's not bad, but they honestly look kinda goofy. Dudes in a poorly shaped gasmask.
Fully agree on the headcrab variety. As I recall, those in HL2 were intended for HL1, but had to be left out.
More stuff on lore. Lore is fluff. Can be fun fluff, but fluff nonetheless.
I agree that the game is far more than a tech demo. I think a lot of that view is because of the incredible tech in HL2, and how much of a jump it was. I called Max Payne a glorified tech demo on this forum before, and also had the unfortunate position of being hyped of for State of Emergency, which ended up being a tech demo that had to be worked into something resembling a game fifteen minutes before release. Hell, I remember vividly when id software was often disparaged about "creating engines, not games." I have to imagine such attitudes are derived from being let down or just underwhelmed, so the positive aspects in such views are made to be the dominant ones.
Agree on the episodic format. Never liked the idea when it was happening. You can imagine my opinion on how a lot of games have "seasons" now.
Mixing the world of Half-Life and Portal does seem like a mistake... on Half-Life's end. I thought it was a cute little thing in Portal, but it should've been left at that, and never brought up in Half-Life 2 episodes.
Correct on how they used the Vortigaunts as basically magic. Fuck that noise.
Ultimately, I'm in agreement with his final point: Half-Life 2 is a good game. I'm just coming from the position of someone playing first person shooters on computers before Half-Life 1 came out, playing HL1, waiting for HL2, then playing HL2. It's still a disappointment, but it's more like saying the steak I just ate wasn't as good as a particular one I had last week. The main disagreements I have are that some things he views as positives I view as negatives, and much of the impact HL2 has had in gaming has been a detriment.
I still remember when quite a few people in Lumi's chat were saying that Halo was better than Doom because "it has a better story".
I'm going to contend that the likes of Quake, Doom and even Quake 2 have aged better than their peers because of the focus on pure gameplay.
As much as I like Half Life 1 and 2 I don't feel like either have aged nearly as well as those. Could it be the focus on the story? Maybe. Like I know on replays of 2 I get bored as fuck waiting for the scripted talking sequences to end, which is something I don't feel when playing a JRPG or CRPG. I don't really know what it is about it.
FEAR also does this but I don't get bored. Now FEAR doesn't linger like HL2 does. And HL2 does have a ton of game content. I don't know. Maybe it's a combination of the shooting not being as satisfying as those older games combined with the scripted sequences dragging.
Both Half Life 1 and 2 use to be among my favorite games but I just don't feel it anymore. Shit I had more fun playing Timesplitters and that game has no story and is pure action. It's also only a hour long which would cover about half of the boat sequence (I jest ... Or do I).
As much as I like Half Life 1 and 2 I don't feel like either have aged nearly as well as those. Could it be the focus on the story? Maybe. Like I know on replays of 2 I get bored as fuck waiting for the scripted talking sequences to end, which is something I don't feel when playing a JRPG or CRPG. I don't really know what it is about it.
FEAR also does this but I don't get bored. Now FEAR doesn't linger like HL2 does. And HL2 does have a ton of game content. I don't know. Maybe it's a combination of the shooting not being as satisfying as those older games combined with the scripted sequences dragging.
Both Half Life 1 and 2 use to be among my favorite games but I just don't feel it anymore. Shit I had more fun playing Timesplitters and that game has no story and is pure action. It's also only a hour long which would cover about half of the boat sequence (I jest ... Or do I).
>barely played any DOOM and Wolfentstein growing up, haven't touched the rebooted games of either series
>never played Quake, Unreal Tournament, or Counter-Strike
>thoroughly enjoyed the Halo trilogy
>enjoyed all the CoD games up to Modern Warfare 3/Black Ops (I stopped playing after this)
>enjoyed BF Bad Company 2 and BF3
>never played HL1
>played HL2, thought it had some neat concepts like the gravity gun and geometry/physics but never cared to finish it
>thought Left 4 Dead 1 was peak, got really bored of Left 4 Dead 2 really fast
>never played any of the STALKER games
>never played FEAR because I heard it was a horror game and I just don't bother with horror games
>had fun with Team Fortress 2 but felt it got stale after a while and it had shit balance
>enjoyed Borderlands 1 but thought Borderlands 2 was incredibly boring and never finished it
>had fun with Bioshock but felt it dragged halfway through, only other Bioshock I played Infinite and I felt it was REALLY shit and only had cool environment aesthetics
>enjoyed Titanfall 2
You may now all anti me.
>never played Quake, Unreal Tournament, or Counter-Strike
>thoroughly enjoyed the Halo trilogy
>enjoyed all the CoD games up to Modern Warfare 3/Black Ops (I stopped playing after this)
>enjoyed BF Bad Company 2 and BF3
>never played HL1
>played HL2, thought it had some neat concepts like the gravity gun and geometry/physics but never cared to finish it
>thought Left 4 Dead 1 was peak, got really bored of Left 4 Dead 2 really fast
>never played any of the STALKER games
>never played FEAR because I heard it was a horror game and I just don't bother with horror games
>had fun with Team Fortress 2 but felt it got stale after a while and it had shit balance
>enjoyed Borderlands 1 but thought Borderlands 2 was incredibly boring and never finished it
>had fun with Bioshock but felt it dragged halfway through, only other Bioshock I played Infinite and I felt it was REALLY shit and only had cool environment aesthetics
>enjoyed Titanfall 2
You may now all anti me.
I never cared much for FPS games, especially not their campaign modes. The only games I really played much of the campaigns of were Halo and COD, and Halo was only because it was fun as a couch co-op game with friends. In-person, multiplayer death matches were always more fun to me than campaigns or online play.
The characters and setting in 2 were shit compared to 1. No Mercy was also the peak campaign that they never topped.
BL1 being developed as something totally different than what the end product ended up being helped it greatly. BL2's humor was fucking terrible and too obnoxious to sit through.
I only played a bit of Bioshock 1, but beat Infinite. Holy shit, is Infinite fucking terrible. The story was dumb as fuck and the gameplay and level designs were especially horrible.
Yeah, the layout and aesthetics of LFD2 were awful. Blood Harvest was an awful campaign in the first 1 and they decided to just copy that design for a bunch of the LFD2 campaigns.
BL2's humor was so forced and felt like it was trying way too hard to be funny while failing at it.
Bioshock 1 started to drag halfway through as the Sander Cohen section was kino and then it's all downhill from there. Bioshock Infinite was just a shitshow pretending it was some enlightened writing. I'm fully convinced Levine was sniffing his own farts while writing it.
I will die on the hill that Left 4 Dead 1 was better than 2. Left 4 Dead 2 almost feels like Dynasty Warriors with its melee emphasis
Why? this is objectively correct though i suggest at least giving doom Quake and Wolfenstein a try
Unreal has basically been replaced by Team Fortress since it at least still lives and CS:GO still exists though no one expects you to play either.
CoD was good up to about maybe 4 if I'm being nice the issue was it was roughly the same game every year even back then which annoyed people. then the real rot set in.
BF is a good series even with some of the modern games being subpar.
HL get's more respect for it's story then anything else and you dont need to play it to get it (and freemans mind was better told anyway) and nearly everyone ive met agrees the worst parts are the second half of the games Zen specifically
L4D2 is L4D1 tho? this is probably the only weird take here.
Bioshock 2 and even its DLC is worth playing compared to anything related to Infinite. Its a good enough successor to 1
Basically stayed pretty close to Demon's, at least in the whole not rooting your feet down to watch a mandatory cutscene/npc yap. There is npc dialogue, but the worst of it is equal to or less egregious as the mandatory talk to the Monumental in Demons. Unfortunately the environmental storytelling suffered in the later games, DS1 still does rather well in a lot of places with it, but DS2 and beyond are a mixed bag for that aspect. Most of the "storytelling" is the lore blurbs from item descriptions.
yeah i have a hunch they got so high off everyone loving the item descriptions they forgot to do any environmental stuff or just scrapped environmental for item text becuase of how popular it was.
Armored Core proves they can still do it to some degree.
I can't tell if L4D2 was better or worse than the first, as I played the living hell out of L4D1 that when L4D2 came out, I was pretty much burned out and it just felt like an expansion pack.
BL1 had solid writing. BL2's writing was all over the god damn place. Had better gunplay than the first, but not by a whole lot, and neither were particularly great. Thought of as a first person shooter Diablo, they're alright in that regard.
BioShock Infinite is my most hated game of all time. Nothing gets me angrier. It's fucking bizarre that it's from the same studio headed up by Ken Levine that made my most favorite game of all time, System Shock 2.
Anyways, @God's Strongest Dragoon: Doom, Quake, and Quake II are all easily accessible in their new KEX-engine format - and on sale at GOG! Additionally, Half-Life 1 is almost always super cheap on Steam, and Epic has released Unreal 1 and Unreal Tournament for free. FEAR is a fine game, and its "horror" aspect is rather pathetic, and the worst thing I can say about it is that it's insultingly dumb in its attempt at being a "horror movie."
It's weird because the Enix half of SE didn't make this retarded mistake with Dragon Quest and that game is still a sales chart topper. I'm guessing they don't want to compete with themselves by making two blockbuster turn-based JRPGS? It's still retarded logic since the FF name isn't as household as it used to be. Right now, it's just clinging onto the legacy of FFVII by milking that cow dry. Nobody cared about XVI.
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