Shadows of Valentia had quite excellent voice acting ergo Glenn is wrong about voice acting. :V
Be it using your imagination to imagine a voice for a character or hearing someone else's performance on-screen, both can enhance immersion when properly used and neither method is superior to the other.
Be it using your imagination to imagine a voice for a character or hearing someone else's performance on-screen, both can enhance immersion when properly used and neither method is superior to the other.
This.
Honestly I would prefer features like voice acting and high-res graphics, that don't really add much to the gameplay but DO tend to take up a lot of disc space (and download time), to be things that are placed in optional DLCs. The DLC packs can be free, but the idea is that one doesn't have to download them in order to play the game.
Blizzard sorta does this already by, from my experience, allowing you to play Heroes of the Storm before it's fully downloaded, since they put the high-res graphics download last, but they still keep downloading them anyway.
Eh... I'm not really digging that idea because you know some companies will be scummy enough to charge for that "DLC" that really should've been in the base game to begin with. :/
Sometimes I sympathize a bit with AAA games that nickel and dime. Game price points are weirdly static and don't really change with inflation and such - $60 has been the base cost for years, long past what it should be, really, and costs to create a game are constantly increasing (for AAA studios).
So I kinda get it. But there's still a way to do it right without being an asshole to the player.
I find they're usually a simultaneous mix of over and under developed. Way too much time and resources spent on graphical fidelity and flash, and rushed out the door before the core mechanics were fully baked.
When one fucking dude can make a game like Dust in 4 years, I don't have a lot of sympathy for AAA companies that have multimillion dollar teams and multiple studios that end up putting out stuff like Andromeda. That's not to say AAAs don't make games worth $60 (they do -- about 30-50% of the time), but they're often subject to a lot of self-inflicted forces that make their games subpar despite the tremendous manpower, and most of it comes from above the actual devs (who I actually do have sympathy for).
I'd probably be more into modern games if I had (1) lots more free time, (2) lots more free time, and (3) more money which means a modern system on which i can run them. I don't object to modern games; I just live without them.
Modern AAA games from the last generation or few that I've been interested in include: Splatoon and Splatoon 2, Super Mario 3D World, XCOM 2, Tales of Berseria, Trails of Cold Steel, Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XV, Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends, and Ys VIII (pending them fixing the translation). Some older ones include: Mirror's Edge, Metroid Prime, Age of Empires, Trails in the Sky, Atelier Totori, and Valkyria Chronicles.
What's conspicuously missing are some high-profile games that people would generally associate with AAA gaming, especially on the PC, such as anything with the following names: Rocket League, Arma, Tom Clancy, Call of Duty, Max Payne, Saints Row, Grand Theft Auto, Uncharted, Total War, Killing Floor, Far Cry, and so on.
So what's actually happening is that I'm choosing my games based not on their being "indie" vs. "AAA", but rather, simply based on my tastes and based on their prices. Even amongst AAA games that I'm interested in, they're still heavily skewed toward JRPGs and platformers, and FPS and TPS games only rarely show up. It just so happens the AAA industry has largely abandoned 2D platformers or relegated that to handhelds, so that ground has been almost completely ceded to indie games at this point as far as PC games are concerned.
DIN is from the disorder caused by the monster OZO is a reference to tropospheric ozone, as in it's something that shouldn't be there. MB is a root referring to counting with one's fingers. This is to indicate that it has low intelligence. IE is a reference to Internet Explorer to suggest how overused the enemy concept is.
y'know i think part of the backlash that Undertale got has to do with people making videos about Undertale and really horridly overselling the content of those videos to try to promote their own channels
OMG multiplayer groups in Record Keeper are fucking terrible. We're fighting FFXV Titan.
The fight description exhaustively lays out that Titan does no magic damage, counters all black magic with a fucking AOE piercing ranged-physical interrupt, and resists all elements but thunder.
The raid channel is full of healers with Shellga, lightning mages, and Sephiroth (dark damage) who OSB'd for less than 6000 damage and I'm pretty sure did less damage overall than my Mind-geared waller hitting Full Break for medal condition. And if you happen to have no Haste, expect at least two Y'shtolas spamming you with angry stamps when you can't put wall back up on the fifth turn, because nobody else brought breaks or Protectga so he can't use Wrath, and the idiots with fucking cat ear shaped brain parasites kept layering their goddamned cat bubbles and nulling all damage entirely when it was too light to be significant and could've been handled with abilities. Yes, let me pull SB gauge out of my ass for you -- oh wait I can't because I can't use Wrath.
Hollow Knight is a much bigger game than I had initially anticipated. ~7 hours in now, and I only just unlocked the Dream Nail.Reaching the resting grounds with the Sleepers cut scene threw me for a loop in a good way. I like how non-linear the game is; there are so many ways to move forward!
1: Once you get the King's Brand, check in the Ancient Basin for a new area that will give you a very useful new move
2: If you didn't find Bretta in Fungal Wastes your first time around, look up where she is, because she's a fun NPC
Oooh thanks. Gonna go find Bretta now. I think she's the character I saw when I grabbed the dashmaster trinket? I didn't see a way to get to her though.
I just found the howling cliffs today! I like how the game rewards going back to places you've been. I honestly thought I was wasting my time going back to the beginning area, but lo and behold... A whole new area :D
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Man, fuck EA.
I have a CD-ROM copy of SimCity 4 Deluxe. Its DRM doesn't work on Windows 10, and my laptop doesn't have a built in CD-ROM drive, so I contacted EA support to ask if they could add it to my account.
They asked me for the product code. I gave it to them. They asked me where I bought it. I said Target.
Then they asked for "proof of purchase", which to satisfy them, has to include a photo of the receipt.
I bought this freakin' thing over 10 years ago, man, I don't have the receipt anymore. Are you really so cheap that you won't give me a digital copy of this 13-year-old game because I can't prove I legitimately bought the disc that's sitting right in front of me?
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
I mean, at that point I can't say I'd feel much guilt about pirating it.
This.
It's a 2003 release. It's on Steam for $19.99, which is basically the base price floor for an old AAA game that's not outright retro-age. If they won't support their product, then you shouldn't have to support them.
I mean, at that point I can't say I'd feel much guilt about pirating it.
Yeaaaaah, I mean I'm usually pretty sympathetic to devs whose games get pirated, but it sounds like they're pretty clearly just trying to bully you into buying a second copy of a game you already own.
I've found emulators and VMs to be horrendously crash prone, unfortunately.
Honestly I wouldn't have the heart to outright pirate the game, and I have bought extra copies of stuff on Steam that I used to have years ago because thanks for porting it. But if they're going this far out of their way to be asshats, I'd just send them a photo of myself holding the goddamn CD and tell them I don't need to play it badly enough to humor their negligence in making DRM that isn't forward-compatible.
Maybe then attach photos of other uses for the CD, such as a coaster.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Re: SimCity 4 debacle: I went ahead and "pirated" the game.
"Pirated" in quotes because, while I'm sure EA would consider it piracy, I feel it fails to meet a common sense definition of piracy...since they already got my money when I bought a legitimate copy of the game as sold in stores. They're not entitled to be paid again just because the later version of my operating system make a change that broke backwards compatibility.
I'm playing Breath of the Wild. The game is beautiful on almost all counts.
But UGH Zelda is such a whiner. Like, yes, her life kind of sucks; but so does everyone else's and I can put up with their angst because they also have a spine, including the ones who are fucking dead. Maybe the spirits aren't answering you because they don't like listening to your interminable moaning.
It's even more jarring because the last Zelda I saw was Hyrule Warriors, whose life honestly might have sucked even worse (which is really saying something given the apocalypse), and she ended up just kicking everyone's ass across the countryside for literally the entire game.
I'm not sure how proud of myself I'm supposed to be for finishing Stranded on Eventide. Also known as Naked and Afraid: Zelda style.
For those who don't know, when you make landfall an asshole voice steals literally all your gear until you fetch quest three glowing balls. One of them is guarded by a black moblin, one of the deadliest enemies in the game who can damn near oneshot you even when you're not buck-ass naked. Another is worn by a Hinox (world boss), and supposedly you can land on his stomach while he's asleep and just yoink it off, but it didn't work because he wakes up as soon as I touch him, and it's tied to his necklace anyway. (Also you can't shoot the necklace rope like you can most other ropes -- that was my second try).
Oh, and the island is actually pretty large with its own weapon progression path, and takes a solid half hour to hour to even attempt. If/when you get insta-killed, you have to start the whole thing over because you can't save until you get your shit back.
So yeah, it was pretty awesome just flawlessing those assholes with the bare minimum gear, but I kind of want those three hours of my life back.
Comments
if you want a really solid, frenetic action game about committing a lot of war crimes for a lot of money i strongly recommend brigador
Be it using your imagination to imagine a voice for a character or hearing someone else's performance on-screen, both can enhance immersion when properly used and neither method is superior to the other.
Honestly I would prefer features like voice acting and high-res graphics, that don't really add much to the gameplay but DO tend to take up a lot of disc space (and download time), to be things that are placed in optional DLCs. The DLC packs can be free, but the idea is that one doesn't have to download them in order to play the game.
Blizzard sorta does this already by, from my experience, allowing you to play Heroes of the Storm before it's fully downloaded, since they put the high-res graphics download last, but they still keep downloading them anyway.
So I kinda get it. But there's still a way to do it right without being an asshole to the player.
Modern AAA games from the last generation or few that I've been interested in include: Splatoon and Splatoon 2, Super Mario 3D World, XCOM 2, Tales of Berseria, Trails of Cold Steel, Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy XV, Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends, and Ys VIII (pending them fixing the translation). Some older ones include: Mirror's Edge, Metroid Prime, Age of Empires, Trails in the Sky, Atelier Totori, and Valkyria Chronicles.
What's conspicuously missing are some high-profile games that people would generally associate with AAA gaming, especially on the PC, such as anything with the following names: Rocket League, Arma, Tom Clancy, Call of Duty, Max Payne, Saints Row, Grand Theft Auto, Uncharted, Total War, Killing Floor, Far Cry, and so on.
So what's actually happening is that I'm choosing my games based not on their being "indie" vs. "AAA", but rather, simply based on my tastes and based on their prices. Even amongst AAA games that I'm interested in, they're still heavily skewed toward JRPGs and platformers, and FPS and TPS games only rarely show up. It just so happens the AAA industry has largely abandoned 2D platformers or relegated that to handhelds, so that ground has been almost completely ceded to indie games at this point as far as PC games are concerned.
And yeah, corporate powers that be can really fuck up a game (See: MvCi. Yes, I bought and still play it. Shut up.).
1. One guy can make great games?
2. Pirate everything?
3. Never eat raspberries?
I hope that the game can be reverted to this translation for fun later on.
Edit: Game isn't being sold on PC at all right now, so no. Sadly.
OZO is a reference to tropospheric ozone, as in it's something that shouldn't be there.
MB is a root referring to counting with one's fingers. This is to indicate that it has low intelligence.
IE is a reference to Internet Explorer to suggest how overused the enemy concept is.
That's a lot of stuff to explain.
y'know i think part of the backlash that Undertale got has to do with people making videos about Undertale and really horridly overselling the content of those videos to try to promote their own channels
I just found the howling cliffs today! I like how the game rewards going back to places you've been. I honestly thought I was wasting my time going back to the beginning area, but lo and behold... A whole new area :D
"Curl your opponent to the asphalt level!"
Free for another day and change. Steam key only.
It's a 2003 release. It's on Steam for $19.99, which is basically the base price floor for an old AAA game that's not outright retro-age. If they won't support their product, then you shouldn't have to support them.
or this is why you emulate windows
since it's a Sim City game
build a model of a city in meatspace
then use the CD to pose it as a flying saucer beaming down destruction on the city