Video Game Discussion Thread vol. 2

Sonichuman · March 24

Sonichuman · March 24

This is pretty cool. You can actually be chilling in a village and it get attacked like this?

Camacho · March 25

Been playing DD2 a ton this weekend. Performance is less than stellar (playing on pc), but I'm having a blast with it nonetheless.

Sonichuman · March 25

MillionX · March 25

Whenever I get Dragon's Dogma 2, more than likely it's mystic spearhand for my character. Also from what I've seen of it----the Trickster looks like it sadly is lame... like there's such a great interesting concept there but there's also some questionable design choices that bring it down....won't surprise me if it ends up being the least-popular vocation in the game if they track those stats.

...back onto my beloved BG3 for a quick second.... It was either on facebook or the Baldur's Gate subreddit but I recently saw someone mention their gnome character being named "Shitler"; heh, that was a good one...might have to steal that idea for later.

A super-evil Dark Urge version of David the Gnome or Papa Smurf might be fun too.

Faltimar the Dark · March 25

On 3/23/2024 at 7:11 PM, Jion_Wansu said:

Do you guys play CVS2 and such on FightCade?

I checked it out today. Its actually pretty easy to setup and play. I played training mode for 5 minutes just fine.

https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/Capcom_vs_SNK_2/Emulation_and_Netplay

Hecatom · March 25

Sonichuman · March 25

Glossy ass demo coming March 29th

https://youtu.be/C3GLEPFrlhw?si=wy5xxLNWfgwBOxo5

^don't know why its not embedding

AriesWarlock · March 25

Darc_Requiem · March 25

39 minutes ago, Sonichuman said:

Glossy ass demo coming March 29th

😆😂🤣💀

MillionX · March 25

sheeeitttt, hopefully I can make time for it... the addiction to Baldur's Gate is so strong... and the same for Dragon's Dogma 2 once I get started in that. This is perfect timing though since the holiday (Good Friday) is coming up, and I have Thursday off as well. (should've taken Wednesday off too)

I also don't have much hdd space to work with on any of my systems at this point.

Edited March 25 by MillionX

Sonichuman · March 25

7 hours ago, Hecatom said:

I almost feel like Netherrealm/Ed may have to start thinking about seeing if there is some way they can either leverage their expertise in handling the MK franchise to their WBD overlords or start looking into finding some means of trying to go independent while taking the IP with them (SUPER UNLIKELY I KNOW). I'm pretty sure some of the recent decisions in the games have been shareholder/CEO appeasement shit and considering WBD's recent track record it has a good chance of getting worse before it gets better. I can only hope that they see some of the less recognition that MK1 has gotten in comparison to its peers (especially in SF) and they actually analyze why they're doing better in the spotlight where their game is usually a lock regardless of gameplay opinions.

purbeast · March 25

1 hour ago, Sonichuman said:

I almost feel like Netherrealm/Ed may have to start thinking about seeing if there is some way they can either leverage their expertise in handling the MK franchise to their WBD overlords or start looking into finding some means of trying to go independent while taking the IP with them (SUPER UNLIKELY I KNOW). I'm pretty sure some of the recent decisions in the games have been shareholder/CEO appeasement shit and considering WBD's recent track record it has a good chance of getting worse before it gets better. I can only hope that they see some of the less recognition that MK1 has gotten in comparison to its peers (especially in SF) and they actually analyze why they're doing better in the spotlight where their game is usually a lock regardless of gameplay opinions.

The thing is they are still raking in cash hand over fist, so they may not even care. The FGC for MK (in general) is a lot more niche than the casuals who buy the game for the story and single player stuff then go online to get raped because they aren't good and don't care about getting good.

Like I know Ed Boon hates hearing all of this feedback because of how passionate he is about MK, but he's still making a ton of money on MK, regardless of the vocal minority making videos such as the ones above.

I do agree with you though, that for the actual game, something like that would be better. I just don't see it happening because of $$$.

axeman61 · March 25

Yeah, no publisher is going to get rid of something making them that much money. They'll poison the well with micros as much as they can get away with before people start walking away (not happening anytime soon).

WB doesn't deserve every drop of blame for MK1's missteps; I'm sure some of those (like Invasions being a slog) are on the dev team. But we'll never know how much of this stuff is because of publisher mandate or not.

Hecatom · March 25

I will never understand this obsession of western devs of taking a real person to be tje model of a char and uglyfie her into oblivion.

By giving tjem a mans jaw and in this case, even an overbite.

Darc_Requiem · March 25

1 hour ago, Hecatom said:

I will never understand this obsession of western devs of taking a real person to be tje model of a char and uglyfie her into oblivion.

By giving tjem a mans jaw and in this case, even an overbite.

Queue the, braindead, "Why does it matter" argument. Like if it didn't, they would not have went out of their way to change it. They pulled a reverse Netflix Witcher on her.

Edited March 25 by Darc_Requiem

Chadouken · March 25

Why does it matter?

Edit: Oh, fuck me in the balldick.

Edited March 25 by Chadouken

RSG3 · March 25

It really doesn't matter. Why cast Colin Ferrel and then cover him a fat suit and ton of make up and prosthetics? Why not just cast a fat guy? There's more to it then just being a model I'm sure.

Edited March 25 by RSG3

Chadouken · March 25

To be fair, I've seen the opposite happen as well- where the game character looks way better than the model. For example, I thought MJ was ugly as fuck in Spider-Man 2. But then I saw the actual person she was modeled after.

Edited March 25 by Chadouken

MillionX · March 25

It is indeed strange to me that they casted Colin Ferrel to be fatass Penguin... this reminded me of my annoyance over them casting John Leguizamo as the clown form of Violator for the Spawn movie. Seems like it would be easier to go with someone who already looks close enough to the character in the first place, then you would not have to waste time/money on a fatsuit and whatever else.

I am not familiar with that "Unknown" game from the picture but that character looks like she's been punched in the face so many times it just became permanently fucked up.

Faltimar the Dark · March 25

I mean, that chick isnt really all that good lookin' to begin with, imo, and the shots people always use to show she's ugly in game are just bad angle or whatever. I've seen other screenshots where she pretty much looks exactly like the model broad.

Edit - Also, I was gonna start Horizon 2 but when I watched the intro I realized I dont remember anything about the first game cept for the beginning part. So im gonna play the first one right now then the second. Anyhow, as I was playing I realized that the Aloy chick isnt really that good lookin'. She's got an ok lookin' body and pretty hair...but she's not really all that pretty...her face.

Edited March 25 by Faltimar the Dark

axeman61 · March 25

51 minutes ago, Darc_Requiem said:

Queue the, braindead, "Why does it matter" argument. Like if it didn't they went have went out of their way to change it. They pulled a reverse Netflix Witcher on her.

Still: why does it matter? Even if they changed her face for some dumb reason (and not a more valid/likely one like consistent facial animation and rendering), does that mean a single thing to gameplay? You think if the game is shit, a better face is changing anything?

This isn't someone's race/weight changing drastically between games, to where it would warrant a question. They scanned a face and most likely did shit to it so they could do other shit easier without having to drag the model out for everything.

Darc_Requiem · March 25

1 hour ago, RSG3 said:

It really doesn't matter. Why cast Colin Ferrel and then cover him a fat suit and ton of make up and prosthetics? Why not just cast a fat guy? There's more to it then just being a model I'm sure.

Not that this really has anything to do with the topic at hand, but I'll bite. You hire Colin Ferrel because you can't find another actor that gives the performance you'd like. However this isn't a movie. This is a video game. In the gaming scenario you hire a fat model, scan him into the game, and then hire Colin Ferrel for the voice and performance capture. You don't extra money for Colin's likeness. You don't spend extra development time/cost to modify his look into the fat guy. You just hire the fat guy with the look you like for cheaper.

I mean this is the way, they used to do things all the time. In gaming there isn't more to it than just being a model. That's literally all you need to have is the look. Capcom literally hires models for their RE games. Then they bring in professional voice actors and performance capture actors to give the performance they require.

Edited March 25 by Darc_Requiem

RSG3 · March 25

56 minutes ago, Darc_Requiem said:

Not that this really has anything to do with the topic at hand, but I'll bite. You hire Colin Ferrel because you can't find another actor that gives the performance you'd like. However this isn't a movie. This is a video game. In the gaming scenario you hire a fat model, scan him into the game, and then hire Colin Ferrel for the voice and performance capture. You don't extra money for Colin's likeness. You don't spend extra development time/cost to modify his look into the fat guy. You just hire the fat guy with the look you like for cheaper.

If thats what they want to do. Things change over development of any art project. I doubt it's anywhere as simple as youre making it sound. But even still I'm failing to see how it really matters.

56 minutes ago, Darc_Requiem said:

I mean this is the way, they used to do things all the time. In gaming there isn't more to it than just being a model. That's literally all you need to have is the look. Capcom literally hires models for their RE games. Then they bring in professional voice actors and performance capture actors to give the performance they require.

Yea and they don't always look like their models. Lady Demotresque's (however it's spelled) model doesn't look like that. She was the base they built upon. Dantes DMCV model doesn't look like that, doesn't have silver hair why didn't they just hire someone with silver hair? Like we could do that aaaaallll day.

Dante not looking like his real-life model doesn't matter, DMCV is still awesome. Clair didn't look exactly like her model in RE2R and the game was still awesome. God Hand is one of the butt ugliest fucking games I've ever played and it's fucking awesome

So again how does it matter?

Edited March 25 by RSG3

Faltimar the Dark · March 25

He didnt have anything to say about it "mattering". He was just informing you how things work, I think.

Ender Magnolia out today. First game was fun.

Chadouken · March 26

5 hours ago, Faltimar the Dark said:

Edit - Also, I was gonna start Horizon 2 but when I watched the intro I realized I dont remember anything about the first game cept for the beginning part. So im gonna play the first one right now then the second. Anyhow, as I was playing I realized that the Aloy chick isnt really that good lookin'. She's got an ok lookin' body and pretty hair...but she's not really all that pretty...her face.

I played through HZD again before Forbidden West, and I think I actually enjoyed it more the second time. Mostly because it was 60 FPS on PS5, but I'm glad to have gone through the story again too. They're both fun games.

axeman61 · March 26

They're both good/fun, but they have the worst luck with releases. It's still crazy to think that the first one dropped against Zelda Wind Waker and then the second one dropped against Elden Ring and God of War Ragnarok. Much as I like the second one, it didn't have a chance when it comes to awards/accolades.

Also, the hand-to-hand combat sucked from what I remember.

AriesWarlock · March 26

Faltimar the Dark · March 26

21 minutes ago, Chadouken said:

I played through HZD again before Forbidden West, and I think I actually enjoyed it more the second time. Mostly because it was 60 FPS on PS5, but I'm glad to have gone through the story again too. They're both fun games.

I only played it like a year ago but I did it fast and skipped story stuff a lot. It's a really pretty game and I'm having more fun this time I think. Im not even that far into it yet either.

This game is 78GB I think and the second game is 130gb.

Edited March 26 by Faltimar the Dark

iStu X · March 26

I can’t play Horizon cause Aloy is ugly. 😤

I only play games with hottest of digital bitches

Lantis · March 26

I've played both Horizon games, and my hot take is that I would play those over the most recent 2 Zelda games

AriesWarlock · March 26

From the Sega leaker.

Edited March 26 by AriesWarlock

DoctaMario · March 26

Just a PSA for any of the Bloodborne bros here, Return To Yharnam is this week so there will be a lot more people playing, so more chances for co-op, duels, etc.

Sonichuman · March 26

1 hour ago, Lantis said:

I've played both Horizon games, and my hot take is that I would play those over the most recent 2 Zelda games

It's not really a hot take. Both Horizon Games are amazing and the combat is subjectively better than BotW or TotK in terms of attacks and how you go about taking pieces off of the enemies. But for me the exploration aspect is just subjectively better in Zelda than Horizon. I need to go back and finish HZD at some point it's just playing BotW and then not being able to go anywhere I wanted really dampened my experience. From what I've seen and heard 2nd game improves on that aspect.

Sonichuman · March 26

These Sonic Heroes remake rumors popping off are weird....That's definitely not a game that would be at the top of the list that I'd think remake out of Sonic's 3D efforts at the moment.

extra

Edit:

IGN interview article with Wes Ball about his plans for the Zelda movie

https://www.ign.com/articles/zelda-live-action-movie-director-aiming-to-make-serious-adaptation-feels-real

Edited March 26 by Sonichuman

Camacho · March 26

5 hours ago, Sonichuman said:

It's not really a hot take. Both Horizon Games are amazing and the combat is subjectively better than BotW or TotK in terms of attacks and how you go about taking pieces off of the enemies. But for me the exploration aspect is just subjectively better in Zelda than Horizon. I need to go back and finish HZD at some point it's just playing BotW and then not being able to go anywhere I wanted really dampened my experience. From what I've seen and heard 2nd game improves on that aspect.

One of the best things about HZD was the story that you unravel, and this is coming from someone who generally doesn't care about story in games. The "present day" characters were very uninteresting, but the backstory of the HZD world was abnormally great.

MillionX · March 26

Baldur's Gate adventures...

And so the Warlock Alastor and his crew of degenerates was 8th level. The powers are so good at this point; the normal stuff + *spoiler* powers, of course. I was happy to reload an older save in this final part of Act 2 because it turned out I was about to miss 2 good encounters worth lots of exp....one fight was a bit rough but "Banishment" spell took the most problematic enemy out of the fight for a while as we killed another one....then a scroll of "Cloudkill" spell and some other things finally got that last one.... also found a room of freshly-turned mindflayers! I took the easy route here with a certain option your character has that can instantly wipe them all out; tried fighting them earlier and the results were horrible. Fortunately, there's some illithid device in the area that was for "rejuvenation", similar to when you're on the ship...and I noticed this fully restores everything, just like your group took a "long rest". We've now arrived at the place where the grand finale of Act 2 will happen... figured that was a good cliffhanger to end things for the night.

Darc_Requiem · March 26

16 hours ago, RSG3 said:

If thats what they want to do. Things change over development of any art project. I doubt it's anywhere as simple as youre making it sound. But even still I'm failing to see how it really matters.

Yea and they don't always look like their models. Lady Demotresque's (however it's spelled) model doesn't look like that. She was the base they built upon. Dantes DMCV model doesn't look like that, doesn't have silver hair why didn't they just hire someone with silver hair? Like we could do that aaaaallll day.

Dante not looking like his real-life model doesn't matter, DMCV is still awesome. Clair didn't look exactly like her model in RE2R and the game was still awesome. God Hand is one of the butt ugliest fucking games I've ever played and it's fucking awesome

So again how does it matter?

In an industry where publishers are complaining about ballooning development costs. Anything that brings additional cost matters. B-List actors cost far more money to use than no name models. So to fork over that extra cash only to spend more money to make that likeness look nothing like the person. Is the epitome of stupidity. The entire point of face scanning a "famous" person over a run of the mill model is garner more attention to your game and gain more sales. The bet is the additional cost will be more than covered by the boost in sales. Now if the person looks fuck all like their actual likeness. How does that make a lick of sense? It doesn't. It defeats the purpose of stunt casting in the first place.

11 hours ago, Chadouken said:

I played through HZD again before Forbidden West, and I think I actually enjoyed it more the second time. Mostly because it was 60 FPS on PS5, but I'm glad to have gone through the story again too. They're both fun games.

It's been a little while since I play HZD. I did go back an play it when it got the 60FPS patch. Honestly the only thing that I can point to as showing it's age is the facial animation. It's not bad by any means but after playing newer games it stuck out to me. In my initial play through that wasn't the case. I agree with the take you guys have of the combat being better than Zelda but Zelda having the better exploration. I can't speak to Tears of The Kingdom but based on Breath of the Wild I'd have to agree.

Sonichuman · March 26

4 hours ago, Camacho said:

One of the best things about HZD was the story that you unravel, and this is coming from someone who generally doesn't care about story in games. The "present day" characters were very uninteresting, but the backstory of the HZD world was abnormally great.

Oh most def agree on this. The story as you unravel it is also pretty fascinating from what I uncovered thus far.

AriesWarlock · March 26

Edited March 26 by AriesWarlock

axeman61 · March 26

14 minutes ago, Darc_Requiem said:

In an industry where publishers are complaining about ballooning development costs. Anything that brings additional cost matters. B-List actors cost far more money to use than no name models. So to fork over that extra cash only to spend more money to make that likeness look nothing like the person. Is the epitome of stupidity. The entire point of face scanning a "famous" person over a run of the mill model is garner more attention to your game and gain more sales. The bet is the additional cost will be more than covered by the boost in sales. Now if the person looks fuck all like their actual likeness. How does that make a lick of sense? It doesn't. It defeats the purpose of stunt casting in the first place.

1.) How many instances are there of B-List actors being used for appearance and it not looking like them? Besides Kratos/Chris Judge (kinda)? All the instances of whine we've seen over this matter in recent months were over models you wouldn't know by name. Does anyone know Mary Jane's from Spider-Man 2's model's name off the top? How about Tanya from MK1? How about this latest game, Unknown9? On the other hand, I can clearly see that Nitara from MK1 is Megan Fox, the Death Stranding guy is Donal Logue, Sylens is Lance Reddick, and so on. People are yet again crying over shit that affects nothing.

2.) Publishers like to say the costs of game development are going up and up, and maybe that's true. But they're mostly saying that to justify microtransactions. This is a tangent, but yet another thing in the million I hate about micros. Publishers like to hold up development costs and the devs themselves as a shield, but the money from microtransactions doesn't really go back to the team or back to production. I doubt the devs get any kind of bonus when COD does a billion in sales and microtransactions, no matter how much it costs to make.

AriesWarlock · March 26

seems Isthereanydeal finds better deals than g2a

https://isthereanydeal.com/game/dragons-dogma-2/info/

https://www.g2a.com/best-deals/dragons-dogma-2?banner=sliderC1

AriesWarlock · March 26

Quote

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Quote

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RSG3 · March 26

1 hour ago, Darc_Requiem said:

IN an industry where publishers are complaining about ballooning development costs. Anything that brings additional cost matters. B-List actors cost far more money to use than no name models. So to fork over that extra cash only to spend more money to make that likeness look nothing like the person. Is the epitome of stupidity. The entire point of face scanning a "famous" person over a run of the mill model is garner more attention to your game and gain more sales. The bet is the additional cost will be more than covered by the boost in sales. Now if the person looks fuck all like their actual likeness. How does that make a lick of sense? It doesn't. It defeats the purpose of stunt casting in the first place.

Yea I don't believe them when they cite ballooning costs. Not in 2024 where everything's expensive as fuck from very very clear greedflation. Not real inflation, greedy parasitic board members who take more then they have ever contributed to basically anything of worth. While I understand this isn't something i can prove, I just don't trust CEOs and businesses for fuck anymore when they say shits expensive. They are lying lol.

Also none of of these models are famous what are you talking about? These are no name faces. No one know who any of these models are. Like I looked up Stephanie Tyler she's barely been in anything and almost all of it is uncredited back round shit. Her biggest role is MJ and it's not even a role, she's just the model for they used as their base. That's it.

Adam Cowie, Dantes model is literally a model. He's not an actor, he's not famous outside of modeling circles. Frankly he's almost a nobody. No one in gaming would give 1 single fuck who he is if he wasn't the body model for Dante.

When they want someone famous and someone you'll actually recognize they hire someone actually famous who you will recognize and have them actually play the role. They don't hire a model no one knows and then cast someone else to actually do the work. The model was hired because it's the model they wanted to use, not because the face is famous, it's not lol. No one knows who David Cowie is lol.

I just don't buy any of this. I dunno why you would trust corporations about costs and revenue when they've been lying to your face about cost and revenue for the last 10 years at least to justify MXTs and shitty DLC expansions and Lootboxes and all the other goofy shit they shove into our games citijg ballooning costs. Dragons Dogma totally needs a buyable with real money 2 follar Port Crystal right, cuz Budgets are just so high now? I personally don't believe it. It's just an easy scape goat.

And I still fail to see why any of it really matters. Studios that mismanagement their budgets will go uunder and studios that don't will continue to exist. I'm failing to see the problem.

Edited March 26 by RSG3

Faltimar the Dark · March 26

2 hours ago, Darc_Requiem said:

It's been a little while since I play HZD. I did go back an play it when it got the 60FPS patch. Honestly the only thing that I can point to as showing it's age is the facial animation.

I noticed this the first time I played it. Part of the reason I didnt pay much attention to the story stuffs. Now I just try to look at other stuff while they talk...

Edited March 26 by Faltimar the Dark

RSG3 · March 26

I think the facial animations in Zero Dawn where always a little jank. They're like really close to being on point but just off enough to be really distracting. Characters eyes also seem to be looking through people instead of at them. Not sure how else to explain and 0 clue how to fix it, but eyes just kinda seem like they don't actually focus on the person they are talking to.

Edited March 26 by RSG3

axeman61 · March 26

Yeah they did a hell of a lot better in the sequel. I didn't care much about it in the first, because the story was still good enough to pull me in, but it was noticeable.

purbeast · March 26

Tried to play HZD twice and got bored as hell like 4-5 hours in each time. Thought the voice acting was just laughable as well, and the facial animations as mentioned. When you had stuff like God of War, Uncharted, and TLOU setting the bar for that stuff, it was hard to overlook.

I don't know what game is more boring - HZD or TotK. That is a toss up.

/hottake

Camacho · March 26

48 minutes ago, purbeast said:

Tried to play HZD twice and got bored as hell like 4-5 hours in each time. Thought the voice acting was just laughable as well, and the facial animations as mentioned. When you had stuff like God of War, Uncharted, and TLOU setting the bar for that stuff, it was hard to overlook.

I don't know what game is more boring - HZD or TotK. That is a toss up.

/hottake

The best part of HZD's gameplay was the way you could target weak points and blow up/rip parts off of enemies. Human combat was terribly lame. The story gets interesting later.