Vidya Games Thread

[Brosnan Pierce Brosnan]

Does no one remember PlayStation Home? You could go bowling with married mothers from the comfort of your living room in that

 

[Smelliest007]

Does no one remember PlayStation Home? You could go bowling with married mothers from the comfort of your living room in that

I had an Xbox. Well I did have a PS3 but I didn't pay for online.

 

[Brosnan Pierce Brosnan]

I had an Xbox. Well I did have a PS3 but I didn't pay for online.

The online was free for PS3

 

[Smelliest007]

The online was free for PS3

Really? I could have sworn there were PSN cards then?

 

[Brosnan Pierce Brosnan]

Really? I could have sworn their were PSN cards then?

The cards were to buy games. Later on they did debut their paid service but I couldn't tell you what it was for. PS4 was paid the entire time. Thanks Microsoft, another nice innovation

 

[God's Strongest Dragoon]

And then Paradox and the devs ruined Skylines 2, so we're back full circle waiting for a new SimCity/Skylines successor.

That was just more of a result of Paradox failing in general and Skylines 2 is just a casualty of that. Paradox as a whole has been going through some serious quality declines in the past 3 years.

Right? I remember the only competitor to The Sims 1 was a Playboy Mansion game. Fast forward to last year where Paradox had sacked their entire team they built two years prior to that with one of the original Sims devs because the game they showed was so shit. Every indie trying to compete is stuck in limbo or moving at a snail's pace. It took the Koreans to figure it out???

It's a very simple logistical answer. The Sims is a mega hit because it has hit the female population harder than crack hit the inner cities. You need to have a female point of view on the team to get that retarded woman autism about clothing and home decor, as that's part of the secret sauce. It worked for the Sims in the late 90s/early 2000s because a lot of the women on the game dev teams were likely competent at their job, so no harm in having them on the team. Fast forward to 2010s and now you have to sacrifice either the game's coding or the retarded woman autism, you can't have both. Koreans figured it out because Korean males are basically women.

The online was free for PS3

Free PSN outages

 

[Smelliest007]

The cards were to buy games. Later on they did debut their paid service but I couldn't tell you what it was for. PS4 was paid the entire time. Thanks Microsoft, another nice innovation

Sony launched an optional premium subscription service on top of the free PSN service in June 2010. Known as PlayStation Plus, the system provides access to exclusive content, complementary games, regular store discounts, and early access to forthcoming games.

Yeah, I got it mixed up with this, regardless I never touched Playstation home. I had one of those later model PS3s near the end of its life cycle and a few singleplayer games.

 

[Brosnan Pierce Brosnan]

Sony launched an optional premium subscription service on top of the free PSN service in June 2010. Known as PlayStation Plus, the system provides access to exclusive content, complementary games, regular store discounts, and early access to forthcoming games.

Around this time Games with Gold became a feature. Which in the end was still better for Xbox since the PS3s free selection was lacking. One of the paid things iirc was some sort of digital magazine thing that was kind of neat, like those old disc mags from the 90s except in HD. Think PlayStation underground. Granted that absolutely did not last at all so there was genuinely zero reason to pay for PS3 online

 

[Smelliest007]

Around this time Games with Gold became a feature. Which in the end was still better for Xbox since the PS3s free selection was lacking. One of the paid things iirc was some sort of digital magazine thing that was kind of neat, like those old disc mags from the 90s except in HD. Think PlayStation underground. Granted that absolutely did not last at all so there was genuinely zero reason to pay for PS3 online

Old PC Gamer magazines, how I miss you. I still have my Battlefield 2142 issue and demo disc sitting somewhere in the closet.

 

[Lurker McSpic]

Does no one remember PlayStation Home? You could go bowling with married mothers from the comfort of your living room in that

MY NIGGA
Ps Home had so much potential but I always felt it was made by interns because boy the gameplay was stiff and now that I think about it, it played similar to an unity game
I think it didn't help you had 3 versions of home and sometimes features would take a lot to come to the others. Man I'm fucking old.

 

[maeepicreal]

Does no one remember PlayStation Home? You could go bowling with married mothers from the comfort of your living room in that

i bought frogger for the arcade in my room... i will never be able to play frogger in a janky 3d world again... sad times

 

[God's Strongest Dragoon]

i bought frogger for the arcade in my room... i will never be able to play frogger in a janky 3d world again... sad times

I would be surprised if there isn't some VR game or something that lets you play in a VR arcade. I know there's a game that does that with old consoles.

 

[Banana Hammock]

I'm a big fan, but they're definitely not for everyone. Every game is closely tied together, all taking place on the same continent with many recurring characters and related events, lore, history, etc. Because of this, it's strongly recommended to play the games in order as the sequels expect you to know the events of previous games with some games even taking place at the same time as later games in the series. And because of this, it is a very big time sink if the series does grasp your interest.

Without sperging too hard (because I could go on for a while), I'm a big fan of how the world is presented, and how nearly every aspect of it, down to the individual NPCs, change as events in the world happen. I like the stories and characters a lot, even though there are some questionable decisions in the story and some annoying characters, like with most things. I also really like how some many events have a tangible effect on the various countries and people of those countries in the games that are set in those countries and how deep some of the geopolitics between the countries are.

As for why they never made waves, I couldn't really tell you as I'm not very good at speculation on the market, especially between the JP and Western markets. I will say Falcom, the creators, is an interesting company and some of their ways are probably a big part of the reason. As @chihirogumi stated, one of the most annoying things is how long it takes to get a Western release for their games. From what I remember, Falcom doesn't work with the localizers during the development of the game and only sends them the script after the game releases in Japan, so it usually takes at least a year for it to be released in the West. Falcom never really seemed like they wanted to try and elevate their series to the widest audience possible. They're probably one of the oldest video game companies still around, and yet they still have less than 100 employees working for them, and back when consoles were the popular thing in Japan, they were more focused on releasing games on PC for a long time. I have to kind of respect them for sticking to a smaller scale operation while putting out pretty quality games like this, but it does come with some problems.

Still, they are probably one of the most influential video game companies that many here in the West probably haven't heard of as they helped pioneer a lot that the biggest Japanese video game companies are known for today in the realm of JRPGs.

TL;DR: They are great games, but major time sinks. And while they are great games, the company that makes them, Falcom, hasn't done much to spread knowledge of the series in the West.

I've been wanting to play them, but I keep hearing how terrible the localization is, so I want to wait until after I get at least semi-fluent in Japanese. So, probably like five years from now.

 

[God's Strongest Dragoon]

Assassin's Creed: Black Fag

Fag flirting with Hori Hidermasa at 4:55
Romance with Lady Oichi/Nobunaga's sister at 50:40
Fag romance with Ibuki at 1:20:20

The part at 5:32 is the funniest shit, I'm fucking dying
THIS NIGGA ZESTY AS FUCK

 

[PleaseCheckYourReceipts]

CALLED THIS SHIT TWO YEARS AGO

I couldn't remember who said it here, sorry I didn't ping you about it. You were dead on.

To my knowledge, the Japanese almost never actually talked in attempt Haikus, unless they were basically doing a drinking/poetry party. Also, those lines needed to be badly redone.

I dug into the character creator beta last year, and not only is it customizable to the point where you can upload your own materials for clothing, but there is an in-game catalogue where users can upload, download, and rate other people's creations, with the more detailed + cosplay characters getting the most updoots

prepare for nuclear fallout

Those servers are going to melt.

I watched the trailer and it looks great. but I am more interested in knowing why it took 24 or so years for The Sims to have a viable, true competitor

The brand was already established and you'd have needed to find a Dev team that wanted to try. Second Life technically was that and everyone was already into MMOs/MMO-lite stuff and assumed that was the place to put the money. Turns out it didn't quite work out that way.

Everyone was afraid to release a competing game because of the stranglehold The Sims had on that niche in the market. Same thing happened with SimCity. No one wanted to challenge SimCity because it was known that even if your game was better, the SimCity brand was far too powerful and it would choke out your game. It wasn't until SimCity 2013 nuked itself that Paradox changed their minds and greenlit the development of Cities: Skyline.

I believe there has been competitors to The Sims but no one is willing to fund a project they believe will flop in the face of The Sims, so all the competitors ended up being inferior projects that are immediately forgotten.

Small market and everyone assumed Online was the way to go. The Sims kind of survived because it was first, still got development cycles for a very long time and survived the crash out of everyone funding MMOs. There were a couple of Clothing MMOs. Know a guy that actually made a stupid amount of money in one of them, but they'd kind of come & go pretty quickly. Then Facebook gaming hit the female gamer landscape.

 

[PleaseCheckYourReceipts]

Oh, they did put the Honno-ji Incident in the game with Yasuke there and Naoe as a primary cause. I don't think they'll expel the Canadian ambassador to Japan over this, but I absolutely could see that happening. This is going to be so damn hilarious.

---

The roach lord got early access, for some reason. It's not quite Starfield levels of loading, but, boy, is there are lot of transitions and hidden loading sections. We've also now been introduced to Koto Surf Music. It's at the 2h mark on the dot in a fight. What got me to update this post. The music director either used a Telecaster and put some effects to give it to the koto twang or ran a koto through a telecaster function. I don't need fight music to always be either rock or big orchestral bits, but, really, 1960s surf music?

The open world camera has no object phasing in a 3rd person game.

Ah, finally clicked. The facial structures aren't Japanese. Might be more of a bad facial lighting system, but the "PS3 graphics" people will throw out is about the faces.

 

[MrProcessor]

What are you guys getting this Steam sale? I think I'll pass tbh, got enough to do as it is.

Let's see, I got a few games let me see what they are:
Wanted: Dead $7.49
Slitterhead $29.98
Sunset Overdrive $4.99
Super Alice Dolls $6.39
Mugen Souls $3.99
Mugen Souls Z $3.99
MiSide - $14.24
YOU and ME and HER - $14.24 (It was bundled with MiSide).

I look forward to playing one of these games someday.