video-games

[dire condor]

Ok thx

[steady otter]

binding of isaac

[remote marsh]

among us

[steady otter]

plague inc

[dire condor]

ok

[remote marsh]

fortnite

[elder arrow]

terraria has so much stuff and when u play modded oh boy

im playing the calamity mod rn and there is so much stuff

it's perplexing

[dire condor]

I tried it but i could just never get into it for some reason

[elder arrow]

sad

[steady otter]

I just don't like it

[elder arrow]

😔

[remote marsh]

i havent played terraria in years

[steady otter]

I don't like the uhm.. art?

[remote marsh]

but i know that i love that game

[steady otter]

the way it's sideways

2d

[remote marsh]

i didnt really care about the new update, my character is so strong that i knew that it would destroy all the new bosses

[dire condor]

dead cells

[wraith cradle]

Lmao, the Far Cry 6 gameplay reveal

My highlight is the weapon that ||Throws CDs of Macarena while playing them||

[stable kindle]

the art style is actually what i liked about terraria when i picked it up in 2012 lol i think it's charming

[stable kindle]

mods. ofc the most well known one is calamity but it does have really wonky balancing, but there's quite a few mods that extend difficulty beyond terraria's endgame

[steady otter]

I think I'm just not a big fan of sidescrolling games in general

[stable kindle]

1.4 didn't really add much to bosses besides the hallow ones anyway? and they're like mid endgame, not endgame

[remote marsh]

i havent touched terraria in a while

i might try calamity

[stable kindle]

my fav bit about calamity is honestly the boss themes, theyre all really good

getting into hardmode calamity is a bit of a jump the first time though because there's so many unfamiliar items you need to learn

[wraith cradle]

https://www.gematsu.com/2021/05/bloodstained-ritual-of-the-night-sequel-in-development

nice

[junior crown]

nice

and

https://store.steampowered.com/app/424840/Little_Nightmares/

Steam

Little Nightmares

Immerse yourself in Little Nightmares, a dark whimsical tale that will confront you with your childhood fears! Help Six escape The Maw – a vast, mysterious vessel inhabited by corrupted souls looking for their next meal. As you progress on your journey, explore the most disturbing dollhouse offering a prison to escape from and a playground full ...

Price

$19.99

Recommendations

23527

Metacritic

81

▶ Play video

Little Nightmares is free for a grab!

[wraith cradle]

Thanks Wok

[steady otter]

yet another game I own, yet can't play

[scenic wigeon]

it's WHAT now?

[wraith cradle]

Well LN2 came out nothing ago

So this is probably to drum it

[junior crown]

free to take, and yeah that plays for it

ALTHOUGH

before LT2 release

you could pick it up too

from Bandai Namco website for free.

They are pretty generous with it

[fathom juniper]

folks!

https://twitter.com/BethesdaStoreEU/status/1398232591187202054?s=19

Bethesda Store EU (@BethesdaStoreEU)

❗ New in store alert ❗
Collectors rejoice—these @DOOM Eternal figurines are now available for pre-order! Which one is your favourite?
https://t.co/825oVxsOUz

Likes

212

Twitter · May 28, 2021, 11:00 AM

LOOK AT THAT CACO!

gib caco

[wraith cradle]

Lul

[fathom juniper]

i want it so bad

[steady otter]

Today in subnautica

I don’t know what to put in my cyclops.
Also, I suddenly have too many peepers

[lethal drift]

[dire condor]

yall i just got into dead cells

[scenic wigeon]

what do you think of it?

[wraith cradle]

During 3 weeks or so my life was Dead Cells

[dire condor]

its 9.5/10

the only thing that is bad abt it is suffering through bosses

i also found the upgrade system kinda weird at first

[fallen sky]

ugh i wanna play it so bad

[dire condor]

why cant you

[fallen sky]

because i'm weak and stuck with assignments

[wraith cradle]

You know I was rewatching A walkthrough of HZD to remember the entirety of the plot

And I had forgotten how uncanny valley was Aloy's child model

[woven breach]

Oh yea it is

Anyway I'm off to monster hunter

[steady otter]

I find most of the faces to be that.. just something about the way they move when they talk..

[dire condor]

dead cells is pain

[polar dragon]

it really is. i don't like it as much as other rogues

[dire condor]

i like it as a game but rn im playing through it

just like the enemies and stuff

[sleek quiver]

The amount of Dead Cells content over the years is a lot though

So much has been added to the game, that as we speak, there’s a new update being beta tested right now

[dire condor]

Maybe my perspective is incredibly skewed, but Dead Cells doesn't seem like it has that much content.

It's for the most part spectacularly well-design extreme difficulty with a lot of options, but the environments and enemies are not incredibly diverse.

[hybrid jetty]

there's been so little variety in the runs I've attempted to play that I got bored and never got particularly far

[fathom juniper]

so...
i just played some TABG for the first time

in 10 rounds i managed to hit someone...
twice, i think

didn't get a single kill

this is precisely why i don't play online shooters anymore

[polar dragon]

Tabg?

[woven breach]

Totally Accurate Battle Ground?

[fathom juniper]

yeah

i just wanted to have some dumb fun with googly eyed noodle people

but instead what i got were piles of tryhard people who don't even want to chat
and just dump entire mags into me before i can even pick up a single gun

[polar dragon]

Play coop online shooters

Ideally with friends

[fathom juniper]

yeah
kf2 is my fave online shooter at the moment precisely because of that

is it hard and challenging?
yes
is there at least some form of rivalry between players?
yes

but it's 90% co-op
so it's you against a set of systems
and you don't have to rely on some sort of matchmaking or just... the good heart of other players to even get a chance to learn them

i mean...
even if you're completely green and never played a shooter in your life
i'd say that an hour or two in kf2 is just enough to learn the basics and switch to hard mode

in competetive games?
it takes me an hour to get a single kill - and that's coming from someone that's been playing shooters for over 20 years

and with a playerbase this small most people that are still there are the type that can play this with their eyes closed
they have the muscle memory and experience to dab on new players

and i've been there before
back when i played competitive shooters i've seen my fave one just die precisely because of this reason
playerbase was small, only pros stayed around
and whenever someone new came along the old guard that's been there for years didn't give them a chance to even learn the basics

thank you for coming to my ted talk
online games need better matchmaking systems

[sleek quiver]

And I read all of that

Isn’t that how it always has been? Multiplayer games died without a good community

[polar dragon]

I personally just find that the entry level for games are getting higher and higher.

Competitive FPS seems unapproachable to me, the same way Starcraft 2 can be unapproachable to many.

[fathom juniper]

i mean
that's most of online games, basically

because there the difficulty isn't dictated by you, or the game
but a bunch of other, random people

who in most cases have way, way more experience than you

all of this makes me want to go back and give the ironman challenge in TNO another shot

good stuff

[junior crown]

I would agree that the ceiling for multiplayer games may seem like it's growing, but been playing some games I have noticed: no not really there are still a lot of people like me who are casually playing, while not being that good at the games and there is like 1% that does amazing at the game than anyone else.

[woven breach]

Multiplayer coop all the way

[fathom juniper]

well i was talking mostly about games with small communities

when a game is dying only the most die-hard fans will stick with it
which makes the skill floor required for entry even higher

[polar dragon]

I suppose that's true.
I guess the better way to put it is that the amount of smurfs increased to the point of annoyance for me.
Sure, most players are like me, average-ish. I can probably hang with them. But one smurf would instantly make the game unenjoyable for me.

[fathom juniper]

games that have big communities will naturally have more newbies
which will prod any matchmaking system to dump most of them in a single, fairly even and fair party

small games however?
eeh - not so much

[polar dragon]

it's a vicious circle.
smaller community = bad matchmaking.
new players gets matched with experienced ones and gets dumpstered.
they leave. the community doesn't grow.

[fathom juniper]

exactly

i will give it another shot
like... right now

i just wanna have fun in this dumb game about googly eyed noodle people

[polar dragon]

I mean people made Melee into this hyper competitive game, so being labeled casual or cutesy doesn't really help the game there.

[fathom juniper]

yeah

[polar dragon]

Also why isn't there a hide game button on Epic Launcher

All of my demos and trials are stuck there forever. No tagging system, either.

[fathom juniper]

[polar dragon]

I understand workshops and such are hard to implement. But come on, being able to hide and categorize your game should be a no brainer...

[fathom juniper]

dunno, duncare
i've got enough spyware on my laptop already, thank you very much

[polar dragon]

Just one more rant. If you right click the Option button in an uninstalled game in your library, you get one option: Go to the Store page... for a game you already own.

Instead of adding basic features, they decided to give you Among Us for free =.=

[fathom juniper]

epic games store is like...
what? 3 years old at this point?

in all this time i feel like everyone's been complaining about the lack of this sort of features

"why isn't there a search bar?" "why can't i do this and that"

i'm surprised they're still struggling with adding stuff like that

[polar dragon]

Here, take this free Among Us and shut up.

Stop being so sus smh

[fathom juniper]

[polar dragon]

there really is a pepe for everything

[dire condor]

Playing PMD ||and just Grovyle's sacrifice,the emotion and dialogue but also knowing that this is probably the last time you will see him just brought me to tears, I'm almost at the end but I really don't want it to end||

[fathom juniper]

indeed there is

[lusty pendant]

PMD is the good goods, music is great too

Also this might be spoilers even for you but ||temporal tower is nowhere near the end of the main story||

and if you're playing Sky, make sure to play the side story you unlock after temporal tower

[dire warren]

oh hello
i literally just loaded up PMD again this is a welcome topic to drop into

[fathom juniper]

pmd?

[stable kindle]

pokemon mystery dungeon

[hidden zephyr]

so may i ask, what other roguelike games can you recommend? I only played Rogue Legacy and Spelunky so far.

and Isaac.

[dire condor]

Dead Cells has a pretty brutal grind/difficulty curve but it's tremendously rewarding at the end of the metagame's development.

[hidden zephyr]

ok. noted.

[remote marsh]

ive heard great things about risk of rain 2

[steady otter]

Gungeon if you like bullet hell I guess

[hidden zephyr]

I tried Risk of Rain.... but i was just like "???"

so i returned it back.

[remote marsh]

yeah gungeon is also good

[junior crown]

Streets of Rogue, Dungeon of The Endless, Bad North, Going Under, Nuclear Throne, Robo Quest and maybe some others.

[steady otter]

Bad north gets pretty easy tho

[junior crown]

no it doesn't?

[steady otter]

Still fun

[junior crown]

not for me at least

Wildermyth and World of Horror are good too

[hidden zephyr]

Also, can someone recommend me an Action RPG? I tried Diablo, Torchlight, Titans Quest and another one. (can't remember the name) I love this Genre but there aren't so many Games that i know of.

[steady otter]

Bioshock

[hidden zephyr]

thanks for the suggestion Wok

[steady otter]

Though bioshock isn’t really rpg, it’s got some elements

[junior crown]

An action rpg hmm.

[steady otter]

And it’s just good game

[junior crown]

Grim Dawn is alright

[steady otter]

Skyrim

The classic

HZD

[wraith cradle]

Bioshock is a shooter with good plot

[hidden zephyr]

i tried Grim Dawn. But like Diablo it is very brutal i think....

[steady otter]

Witcher series I guess?

[steady otter]

Ye, it just popped in my head cuz of a “debate” with someone in here ages ago about “what is FPS & what is not FPS” and they said that bioshock wasn’t FPS, but rpg or smth

While I said it was FPS

[elder arrow]

hell yeah

gungeon was my first roguelike

good stuff

[steady otter]

Isaac was mine

Love Isaac

[elder arrow]

it's a good game

[steady otter]

It’s a great game

So many secrets

Forever unlocking new things

[hidden zephyr]

Gunfire Reborn is cool also. It is a shooter/roguelike.

[wraith cradle]

RPGs and fps are not mutually exclusive tho

Look fallout

[steady otter]

No, but the guy was arguing bioshock wasn’t FPS at all
because it was rpg

[wraith cradle]

That..... does not make any sense

No offence

[steady otter]

I wasn’t the one arguing it so none taken

I was equally confused

And in the end we just agreed to disagree

[bleak coral]

bioshock is a looter shooter

[stable kindle]

that reminds me of the person who said aliens was not horror, because the genre is sci-fi and horror cant be in space lmao people who think a piece of media (movies, games and so on) can't be multiple genre confuse me. its like some people try so hard to define something by one specific label

[bleak coral]

I see it as an fps with more numbers

[steady otter]

I remember that

Like wha

[stable kindle]

surprise! things can be multiple genre AND multiple pieces of media can exist within a genre [side eyes the entire section of gamers that calls things ripoffs]

[fathom juniper]

as an FPS connaisseur let me just say that...
as an FPS... bioshock's gunplay is stiff and clunky
and as an RPG... it's rpg mechanics are simple and lackluster

but games are more than just a sum of their parts
and as a whole experience bioshock is pretty gppb

so yeah - it's an fps rpg, i guess

i guess this is why i seem to be one of the few people that actually really like bioshock infinite

while it's RPG side is... more anemic than ever
at least it tired to improve the combat
and it was pretty fun

[steady otter]

The reason I don’t like infinite has nothing to do with gameplay & everything to do with it not being under water

It’s just more boring up in the air

[fathom juniper]

i had fun throwing people off columbia hearing their screams slowly fading out

[steady otter]

I don’t feel the same urge to return to the world as I did with bioshock & bioshock 2

[fathom juniper]

and shooting everything with a gun in one hand while zipping around on those rails with the other

[steady otter]

I wanna listen to big daddies & the ambience of being in a building underwater

[bleak coral]

oh wait yall said bioshock?

[fathom juniper]

i like both worlds equally

[bleak coral]

i wasnt paying attention

I thought it was borderlands LMAO

[fathom juniper]

borderlands 1 > borderlands 2
fite me

[steady otter]

I’ve never played borderlands

[fathom juniper]

you're not missing out much

it's alright, but...

[steady otter]

I’m not a big fan of FPS in general

[fathom juniper]

none of them are perfect - far from it
they're all deeply flawed

[steady otter]

Me no likey guns

[fathom juniper]

well then - borderlands 2 might be actually more of your thing
sure - it has a bazylion gazylion of randomly generated guns (kinda... i don't want to get into that right now)

but there are classes that... rarely (if ever) have to use them

[bleak coral]

I think fps gameplay is really satisfying

[fathom juniper]

[steady otter]

Eh, I don’t really like the borderlands art either so I don’t think I’ll check it out

[silk jacinth]

You dont like the comic style?

[steady otter]

Ye

[fathom juniper]

https://tenor.com/view/understandable-have-nice-day-have-a-great-day-have-a-good-day-nice-gif-20850110

[steady otter]

I’m not a big fan of comic book art style

[silk jacinth]

Fair enough i mean all the borderlands game is just randomly generated mayhem

[fathom juniper]

not really?

[silk jacinth]

Thatd why i love it

[silk jacinth]

I mean yh excpet from the story

[fathom juniper]

besides random loot drops everything else is pre planned

and even those random drops can be played to your favor with some farming

[silk jacinth]

Yknow what i mean

Its just mayhem the whole game series is mayhem

Tbh

The bl3 story is awful

[fathom juniper]

same with bl2 and the presequel

bl1 wasn't any better, but...
it had potential

back in bl1 i wanted to know more about this universe and those characters and i really liked the fact that you weren't any sort of chosen one or a hero

this is my main gripe with the series as a whole - ever since bl2 every character calls you "the vault hunter" like it's some sort of prestige title
and they all always treat your like you're some sort of hero

you're the only one who can stop jack! and all that

while in bl1...
you were A vault hunter - there wasn't any sort of noble goal or anything
you were there just to get to that vault, yoink what's inside and then sell it for

you were just like all those other bandits
the only difference being - you had enough cash to afford better hardware and the new-u stations

there was some grit to this universe back in bl1, some texture
but ever since bl2 all that grit made way for awful memes and even worse jokes

[steady otter]

It’s always fun being a villain

[fathom juniper]

it was actually refreshing

[silk jacinth]

Lol

[fathom juniper]

like - here's bl1
it has a rough, cartoon artstyle, loud, aggresive music, set on a harsh, uncaring planet
it's really hard to find a "good" person - almost everyone is there for their personal gain

[silk jacinth]

Tbh i only like the games for the chaos

[fathom juniper]

and the gameplay fit that perfectly - since all you were doing was just killing stuff and stealing stuff
just so that you could sell that stuff, buy more powerfull stuff just to kill even more stuff

but then bl2 came around and it was like "yo we capitan planet now" and you're the hero of this story and you're gonna saaaaave us all and get the villain and you're gonna start the revolution and i was like

" am i? i'm just here to kill and get some cool toys for that"

[silk jacinth]

Yes

U r

[junior crown]

borderlands 1 is simply the worst due to simply one thing - it had fall damage 😤

[silk jacinth]

Has anyone here played rdr2

[silk jacinth]

Me and my homies hate fall damage

[fathom juniper]

despite the fact that everyone calls you "the vault hunter" which was the same name you had back in bl1 - and it had a completely different meaning back then

[steady otter]

Change your mentality - obviously you conned these people into believing you the hero so it’ll be easier to get the moneys & good stuff

You’re just the greatest conman

You could sell sand in the desert

[fathom juniper]

not really
cause the whole economy in those games is super borked

[steady otter]

If you wanna be the villain then stay the villain is my point

[fathom juniper]

but the story forces you to act goody two shoes
despite the fact that the gameplay... basically fits BL1's writing more

it's completely disjointed

[steady otter]

Well you have to pretend so they’ll keep believing you

[fathom juniper]

my point is...
borderlands - as a series - is a massive waste of potential
and even though the gameplay evolved between each game, i still prefer 1 due to it being more coherent

and that's coming from someone tho has way over a 1000 hours between three games

[junior crown]

I usually zone out from the story so can't really feel the same. Although in Borderlands 3 it was always harder to zone out, which kind of sucks it had the best gameplay evolution imo.

[fathom juniper]

yeah... i agree
even in bl2 - it's really hard to zone out when everyone's so annoying
everyone's screaming at you on the radio thinking they're funny
constantly

i mean - here's a great example on how bl1 differs from the rest
and her name is Patricia Tannis

you meet her in bl1 for the first time and she's got this quirky, socially awkward scientist archetype going on
it's kinda funny, but it's not annoying
but then you find her audiologs which explain what made her that way
turns out she was send by her company on an expedition here on pandora, doing some archeology stuff, until one night her camp was attacked and she survived only because she managed to hide for days under a pile of her dead collegues, watching as the rest gets eaten alive
that's... pretty morbid, and it fits this rough, uncaring universe really well

and then bl2 comes along and it's like "yeah no screw that - she's in a relationship with her office chair now. and let's make her throw up from stress of just... talking to someone"

she went from quirky to dumb
and it's all shoved right in your face
any semblance of actual weight and grit of this universe got completely erased in favor of "oh that's just so random and funny!"
and that's this whole series in a nutshell

ok i'm done
thank you for coming to my ted talk

[junior crown]

so in my opinion due to all things considering we all can agree that pre-sequel is the best due to best game to zone out from since it's not that big of a deal there and the best gameplay due to moon wacky stuff. And even better with the tweak mods.

[fathom juniper]

||i actually think presequel is the worst of the bunch but shhhhhhh||

i don't wanna go down that road
not again

and while we're at it...
GEARBOX!
RANDYYYYYYYYYYY!

bring back the revolver class

i want my revolver spec back, god damn it!
make revolvers a separate category again!

because so far (up to the pre-sequel), BL1 is the only one that lets me be a mad max space cowboy
because revolvers there are their own, separate class of weapons i can train in, instead of being bunched up with everything else as "pistols"

also bl1 had better music and that's a fact

[dire warren]

today i'm thinking about an old game i have called digimon world 4
it is, by all accounts, terrible, but i find it interesting

it's pretty much an unintentional semi-roguelite in that you keep gear and all xp after you die and the way you progress is by repeatedly throwing yourself at enemies until you get enough loot and levels to be strong enough to live

there's different weapon classes you can earn skill points in and i choose katana and guns. the former i have natural skill in, the latter is fun.

and there's element skills and mp and stuff but i still only have one attack. i have yet to figure out how to get more. there's like 40 elves that tell you mechanics, i didn't catch a word any of them said

[polar dragon]

XCOM is a roguelite.

[fathom juniper]

u wot

no it's not

[wraith cradle]

Oh, I have DW4

I honestly loved it when I was little

Although even at that age I got frustated by the loading times

[polar dragon]

It is though.

[fathom juniper]

the only thing in common those two have together is a little bit of randomness - that's it

it's not perma death (it's an optional toggle), finishing a single full run in one sitting is basically impossible, there's no meta on top of it - once you're done - that's it and so forth

it is a turn based strategy with an optional ironman mode - that's it

[wraith cradle]

Life is a Roguelike

[fathom juniper]

looking at the steam store page - there isn't a single tag that even implies it's a roguelite
looking at the wikipedia definition of the genre - there's little to none common points between the two

if anything - i'd be closer to being a "classic" roguelike
but - that's one of the very few genres that have very strict characteristics
which xcom doesn't meet

so... sorry but no

[fathom juniper]

it's a roguelite cause it's not turn based!

boi
i truly am an agitated skeleton today

time for slep

[steady otter]

[fathom juniper]

[polar dragon]

Life is turn based. There are just a lot of turns.

[acoustic jacinth]

life surely can’t be a roguelike or roguelite unless you belive in reincarnation?

[steady otter]

it's just set to hardcore

[polar dragon]

Lifr is hardcore roguelite because perma death does mean perma death

[lethal drift]

We get reincarnated into pebbles

[wraith cradle]

You can get a good CPR roll check and get to continue the run, tho

[steady otter]

so you might have a DD or SD

you just never know if it'll trigger or not

like guppys collar!

[dire condor]

So as I was about to defeat primal dialga in pmd the game card slightly loosened inside and made me lose all my progress

[steady otter]

[dire condor]

I really should’ve quicksaved before the final fight

[rancid token]

If Invisible Inc. can be billed as a roguelite, XCOM on hardcore can as well

[dire condor]

So I finished PMD ( the main story)and It hurt me emotionally but It was so good

I cannot recommend it enough

[lusty pendant]

Congrats!

[lethal drift]

[lusty pendant]

It might have been better that you didn't quicksave - if a quicksave gets corrupted you lose all your items

Also do play the last side story - iirc it unlocks after the next story mission and has really good music

[dire condor]

Oh I def will but I'm playing Explorers of darkness so is it on that version too or only in sky?

[steady otter]

I wish I had the continued interest to play PMD

I have a few of the games, but I always lose interest in them part-way through

[lusty pendant]

ack that's sky only

worth watching an LP of it though. It's the conclusion of ||Grovyle and Dusknoir's story after they get back to the future||

[dire condor]

Yeah sadly I couldn't get sky cause literally everywhere I went people were selling it for like more than 100 dollars so I had to settle for darkness

But I'll def check it out

maybe I'll get sky someday though since I enjoyed pmd so much

[bleak coral]

sky is really good

[wraith cradle]

Company of Heroes 2 free on steam

[dire warren]

honestly i'd replay sky if it wasn't for the chances of a remake and that i have a lot of endgame stuff i don't wanna get again.

...i was lucky when i got my pmd games. both rescue team and super i got at the time they came out at normal price, explorers and gates i picked up at the local preowned games shop for no more than 20 quid apiece.

[fathom juniper]

henlo!
i'm back, well rested and ready to screeeech at the AAA industry again

just kidding
i just wanna play some shooty-bang-bang games

[woven breach]

Bulletstorm

[fathom juniper]

been there, played it to death, learned a lot of new swear words

it's a good game
though this main theme always made me go
https://youtu.be/TUxx0X25sF0

[woven breach]

Replayed it a few months ago

I just realized how weird their mouth movements are

All the models look like fish gasping for air when talking

[fathom juniper]

it's a great theme, don't get me wrong
but it sounds like something from a superman movie or something
doesn't really fit a game where you get extra points for shooting mutants in their... sensitive parts and then kicking them in the head for mercy before yeeting them into outer space with a rocket drill while all their limbs fly off in random directions

yo this game is weird
and it's weirdly... paranoid, in a way

[fathom juniper]

it was made by PCF btw - the Painkiller guys
but this time around they had epic on board too - back in the days before fortnite and epic games store when gears of war was their main thing

and boi - does it show
there's a lot of ideas coming from both sides there that clash in the middle

[woven breach]

Well the models from first gears are better

At least when they talk

[fathom juniper]

YEAH ABOUT THAT

all those characters in bulletstorm look like they're straight out of GOW

and that starter rifle looks like an unused asset from GOW2 or something
only polished up

and then there's restrictive setpieces and QTEs and that patented "press A to look at the thing" stuff that's just straight up GOW2

[woven breach]

Well same people

Prob same artist

[fathom juniper]

yeah i just wish there was more PCF in this PCF-branded game, you know?

i don't really like GOW

still - all in all
bulletstorm ain't all that bad

and it's got a few great jokes here and there

not to mention - it runs on unreal engine 3 which is epic's tech
and i literally just googled this whole thing and yeah
https://www.giantbomb.com/bulletstorm/3030-30088/forums/is-this-game-just-one-big-gow-advertisement-why-485644/
looks like i'm not the only one feeling this way

and then Dandy Randy somehow managed to get his hands on this game, re-released it with little to no improvements at a premium price
and somehow managed to drag poor Jon St. John into this mess
god damn it, Randyyyyyyyyyy!

also @woven breach - remember that "duty calls" thing they did to market bulletstorm?

i wish more devs did that sort of stuff

[woven breach]

Nope

I played bulletstorm without seeing any ads

I was internet caveman

[fathom juniper]

well then
buckle up cause this is gonna get wild

so - bulletstorm came out in 2011, right?
at the peak of the brown and bloom military shooters popularity, two years before throwback FPSs started popping up (or 5 before they really took off)
and since bulletstorm's raunchy attitude could be summed up with a middle finger emoji...
some bright minds at EA thought that... this would be a good way to market their new game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbTtsezso4Q

they released this really janky cod parody that's like... 5 minutes long, tops
and then it just goes straight to a bulletstorm trailer once you finish it

was 2011 the last year EA was cool with new and creative things like that?
was that the last year of their new wave of cool IPs?

i might be onto something here
dead space 2 came out in 2011, dead space 3 was in 2013
and we all know how that went...
huh was there some change in management at EA around that time?

[woven breach]

Ok, I've seen and played duty calls

....after bulletstorm

Kek

[woven breach]

Yea, Mass Effect 3 was from 2012

It started going downhill from there

[fathom juniper]

yeah it checks out with the wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts#2007–2013:_John_Riccitiello_era

2013 is when andrew wilson stepped in

and ever since it's all been

just... sad

[woven breach]

Anthem, ME: Andromeda

[fathom juniper]

CATALYST!

[woven breach]

My friend said andromeda is fine

But idk

[fathom juniper]

dear god the sheer existence of this game raises my sugar levels

and blood pressure

[woven breach]

Well

Don't think about it

[fathom juniper]

https://youtu.be/vcHm-108bOI

screw it - i'm downloading it again
time for my like... 100th playthrough

seriously though - i have a deeply personal connection to this game
ME (along with HL2) kinda-sorta made me who i am today
they helped me discover what i want to do in life, helped me pick up two different hobbies and were a key in me picking an IT-profiled highschool (which then led to moving out for uni)

and with that in mind...
seeing what happened to mirror's edge catalyst is... well it's hard for me to ignore

this game turns 13 this year, would you believe it?

[woven breach]

I believe so

Cause I counted

Hmmm

Now that I think about it

I don't really have any games that "change" my life

Well

Other than Nier Automata

That game is a masterpiece

[fathom juniper]

doom

cause i've spent 90% of my free time in the last 5 years modding it and making maps

[woven breach]

I can easily point which anime that changed me so to speak but games?

Hmmmmm

Ok

Found it

Kingdom Hearts 2 and DMC3

cause I was an edgy boi

But honestly they were pretty big part of my kid life

I didn't get why I have personal feelings for KH2 until I replayed it again on PS4

while ignoring at least 80% of what's going on in the plot as a whole

And DMC3 well

I beat it at least 8 times

As a kid

I dk how I did it

Cause I gasped for air when I replayed it on the same difficulty

[fathom juniper]

Rose are red
Chocolate is delectable
You died at Vergil 1
Easy mode is now selectable

[woven breach]

Lmao it did happen but I pushed through

Kid me was better at games than I do rn

At least

Kid me was better with action games

I play rhythm games nowadays

[fathom juniper]

fun fact

did you know they brought that "easy mode is now selectable" thing in dmc5?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2DOmc0tTZ8

[woven breach]

Oh yea

That's hilarious

[fathom juniper]

better yet - my hands down favorite doom 2 mod - demonsteele (which is basically... DMC3 in doom on bath salts) displays some random quotes when you die

and it has that too - you go and the game goes "easy mode is now selectable"

which doesn't really make sense in a game with quicksaves but
whatever
i'm glad it's there

[fathom juniper]

oh hell yeah, buoi!

new DF Retro episode!

[polar dragon]

no idea what that is

[fathom juniper]

digital foundry

they main shtick is doing deep dives into video game tech

this is going to be a good one
https://youtu.be/0KxRXZhQuY8

it's basically a full feature length document

[twin yarrow]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/775583829649129495/848621876850065418/4WFyP2r-Ob4.png?width=568&height=675

[fathom juniper]

oh you wanna do that now?
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/638031423340806185/848624433219239977/6c3.png

[remote marsh]

cute

[lusty turret]

Cod warzone is really 175 GB ?

[remote marsh]

probably

i dont know the exact number

but i know its a lot

[lusty turret]

Christ on a bike. 175 GB is an entire partition

175 for 1 game

[steady otter]

Today in subnautica..

Why am I always out of titanium?!
Also, my fishy friends are as cute as ever

[remote marsh]

just stop running out of titanium smh

[steady otter]

I tried

But then I ran out of it

[remote marsh]

turn on creative mode

grab all the titanium you need

or you can just grab the things that you are trying to build

ez win

[fathom juniper]

yup

and that's after compression

i remember it being way bigger than that

[steady otter]

No

It’s no fun if it’s on creative

[sonic berry]

Both Valheim's 1 GB and Warzone's 175 GB are impressive in their own way

But I can't decide which is more impressive overall

[fathom juniper]

tapg is around 700mb

still - this reminds me of that time some absolute mad lads made a full on proper FPS in like... 2004 (with all the cool stuff from that time like dynamic lighting and shadows and shaders and post processing and what not)

and they managed to sqeeze that in...
under 100KB

yes - less than a 100 kilobytes

[sonic berry]

Did it look a bit like OG Deus Ex?

It's from 2000, but needs 150 MB

[fathom juniper]

oh trust me - i know what deus ex is

but nah

it looked... like this, actually
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLb839wPeIs

keep in mind - this game takes 96KB

[polar dragon]

technically the library they used are a lot more than that.

[fathom juniper]

well yeah

but still
that's super impressive

[polar dragon]

it's impressive for sure, but a bit loopholey

[sonic berry]

It does look like DX. Reminds me of the tutorial

[fathom juniper]

but then again - we're on even ground here
as in - basically all games require some external libraries - no matter if it's directX stuff or openGL or GLUT or whatever

here's a great video about it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD1wWY1YD-M

[dire condor]

I subscribe to exactly one bona fide conspiracy theory: Storage Wars.

The idea is that ATVI and other companies are deliberately bloating the size of their games to force players to uninstall other games to fit their games.

If you play CoD 3+ times a week at least, and you're dealing with standard American ISPs, you're not gonna be able to spare the room for Horizon or Destiny or Nioh.

[sonic berry]

On-the-fence players would also drift towards not installing the bloated game. Don't know how the math works out

But it would ensure that 'commited' players don't go trying out other games. Maybe that's the bigger effect

[acoustic jacinth]

it that’s true that’s awful. huge file sizes keep me from downloading games

[dire condor]

Well, let's all remember that after Black Ops 4 broke records but didn't break them by large enough margins, ATVI fired more than 800 people right after New Year 2019.

I basically assume most corporations period (video games, banking, skin care, record label) are going to do literally everything they legally can and everything illegal they think they can get away with to move money to the "owners."

[sonic berry]

Don't need to make space for HZD if I can't run it

Yet another reason to play indies and old games

[dire condor]

HZD was under 50 if I'm remembering correctly.

[sonic berry]

What. Steam page suggests 100 GB IIRC

[dire condor]

Hang on.

Ooohh.

Okay, those suggestions are always overkill so you've got space.

Possibly for saves?

Install tooltip says 67.22.

Which isn't great.

But there's also a lot in HZD.

[wraith cradle]

I guess you download the program and THEN install it, then you delete the first downloaded data

[sonic berry]

Didn't know about install tooltip.
Welp. Now I can wonder how I'll be able to run it

[dire condor]

So, as I was playing GTA 4, the fps was pretty crappy. I wonder if there might be a solution to this

[acoustic jacinth]

pillars of eternity 2 was the biggest thing i ran on my laptop. 42GB, ran well but at something like 30 or 40 fps. now with the expansions, i’m not reinstalling it

[polar dragon]

How beefy is your computer?

[acoustic jacinth]

lol it’s a 2017 macbook pro 😂

[polar dragon]

Oof. 42GB must have been a lot.

[acoustic jacinth]

had a fun time playing even though i knew it was a bad idea.

[rancid token]

I think GTA4 is pretty notorious for bad performance too

[warm star]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feqwZxy0-7Y

from the last time i played foxhole

[wraith cradle]

Ah yeah logistics Simulator

[sleek quiver]

When you’re downloading games on your switch and you can’t do anything else on it because that will stop the downloads

Ugh

What am I to do now then?

[scenic wigeon]

you can play games that don't require an internet connection

but you can't play single-player modes in games that have online, like Mario Kart

[sleek quiver]

The only game I have that isn’t online like that is the YGO game

And I’m sick of it atm lmao

[scenic wigeon]

the what game

[sleek quiver]

YuGiOh

[scenic wigeon]

oh, right

yeah that does kinda blow

[wraith magnet]

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

can't wait

[woven breach]

They look pretty and adorable

[fresh crag]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/585992835572957216/818301382590595093/FumoReimu.png

[twin yarrow]

did anybody force me to watch FNF vid on yt? no, nobody.

then why have i done it, now all the recommendations are overloaded by it

[woven breach]

Sometimes

Boredom defines us

[steady otter]

I keep forgetting to play that!

I just buy more & more card packs in it

Then again - I do that w most YGO games

[dire warren]

i have decided to start achievement farming in monster hunter rise

...some of these are horrible

[winter mica]

yeah, mh can be pretty tough, right?

[dire warren]

it's not just tough

like, one is 'fight 1000 large monsters'

[steady otter]

the grind is on

[dire warren]

'gather 1000 spiribugs'
'register every rare-size monster'

[steady otter]

doesn't sound much like monster hunter
more like monster exterminator

[dire warren]

there was nothing at all stopping them not giving us the crown farm awards
nothing at all

[woven breach]

Crown farm is hell

[winter mica]

oof that's brutal

[sleek quiver]

I’m at the point where I need to be playing less of that game

It is actually my most played game on the switch right now, at 250h, slightly more than Hades

The card pack grind is real

[steady otter]

lol

I don’t have nearly as many hours

I’m like.. barely a few hours in

Cuz while I do buy card packs, I play story with actual story decks

And I don’t get how Joey wins anything

I hate his deck

[sleek quiver]

Like a real YGO weeb, oh yeah

[steady otter]

You go through childhood seeing those packs being used so OFC you wanna use them too!!

They’re epic!

Except for Joey

He’s rng

[sleek quiver]

My collection is almost done now, once I got all packs to perfect, I’ll probably stop playing

[steady otter]

Today in subnautica

Nuclear reactors make lots of power

[hidden zephyr]

so who played Dead Cells? Is it really that difficult?

[polar dragon]

Yes and no. The first clear was relatively easy for me.

Subsequent clears with BC (a system kinda similar to heat in Hades) have a relatively steep difficulty curve, however.
I like the game, but eventually the whole ordeal just boils down to "Don't get hit" mentality which rubs me the wrong way.

So is it difficult? No until it is.

[hidden zephyr]

Are you a very good player?

[polar dragon]

I think I'm average at these kind of games?

But that's a subjective question imo.

[hidden zephyr]

What is a feel good game? I loved Stardew Valley (and i hated slime rancher)

[polar dragon]

Have you heard of Don't Starve/Don't Starve Together?

[steady otter]

Rune factory 4~
But it’s not on pc

[hidden zephyr]

Yes, i own Don't Starve but it is pretty grim.

[steady otter]

It’s 3ds/switch

[sleek quiver]

Just like Fox said, the base difficulty isn’t that hard, at least if we’re comparing to Hades. It’s the usual stuffs, of course you’ll gonna die a lot at first, but after you got used to enemy patterns and weapon meta, it becomes easy

Higher difficulty, of course, gets harder, and the curve is rather steep as being said above

Dead Cells doesn’t handle difficulty as easy-going as Hades is, Hades difficulty system is very unique as you can fine tune it to the point it isn’t that much difficult even at “higher” difficulty

Dead Cells is pretty linear difficulty, enemies hits harder, have more hp, that kind of curve

[steady otter]

also today in subnautica

my friendly neighbour the gasopod might not be so friendly after all since he exploded a hole in my base & caused my first flooding.
It was easy enough to fix however & the culprit has fled the scene

maybe he's against nuclear power

[polar dragon]

Yeah. I think it's unfair to compare any game to Hades Heat system, really. And DC came out before Hades so even more unfair there.
I just find it unsatisfying when I can play so well for 99% of the stage, get hit once and lose basically every bonus on that stage. It really turns me off.

[stable kindle]

i wanted to like dead cells bc it's genuinely really pretty to look at but it's definitely aimed more at skilled players than casual players so i dropped it </3 i don't have that kind of time or patience anymore

[sleek quiver]

Yeah, when playing Dead Cells, you probably would have to turn on coffee mode

[junior crown]

I really wish there were some assist options for people unable to get past the first difficulty spike.

[sleek quiver]

Losing your 60 killstreak doesn’t end a run, but it does feel bad

[steady otter]

I wish I was interested in DC, but the style just is not one I enjoy playing

cuz it's pretty

[sleek quiver]

Style? Platforming? Pixel art?

[steady otter]

the side platform

I don't mind pixel art - pixel art is pretty

it's the whole being sideways I don't enjoy

[junior crown]

oh yeah that can be a bit of annoyance. I think I don't like the platform sections in Dead Cells.

[sleek quiver]

I can deal with Dead Cells platforming most of the time, it’s a lot easier than real platformer games

[steady otter]

I'm not a big fan of platform games in general

[sleek quiver]

That excluding the actual challenge rooms

[polar dragon]

I just yolo the challenge rooms lol

[sleek quiver]

The challenge rooms are those hard platforming challenges

[polar dragon]

If I die, I die. And I often do.

[sleek quiver]

Trying to yolo it on higher BC means death, that’s how I lost 2 charges of the potions lol

[polar dragon]

Yup. I know I'm better off not entering a challenge room.

But if you see it, you smash it.

It's the law.

[wraith cradle]

When you realize death is not that big of a deal. You get bolder and better for it

Anyone here played Death's Gambit? One of my fav soulslike

[polar dragon]

should soulslike be a genre?

[wraith cradle]

That reminds me to a saying I heard in the music world.

'If one group imitates you, they are unoriginal, if one hundred groups do it, you created a genre.'

[polar dragon]

one death is a tragedy, one million death is a statistics

[wraith cradle]

Whoever is interested

Celestian Tales is 2 euros rn.

If you're into RPGs by turns you may like it.

[fallen sky]

this was mentioned in the tv/movies channel but I think inside is the best game i've ever played

sometimes i'll think about it and will be overcome by how much I loved it

[fathom juniper]

30 hours into children of morta

boi this game is gppb

[dire condor]

The only truly unique/trend-setting thing Souls did was droppable expericash.

So if you've got a dating sim with droppable expericash, you've got a Soulslike.

[fathom juniper]

have you heard of diablo by any chance @dire condor ?

[dire condor]

Yes.

[fathom juniper]

diablo 2 came out in 2000 and it just so happens had this mechanic

dark souls wasn't the first game to feature corpse runs

[dire condor]

Then Soulslike isn't a real thing.

They're just action RPGs.

[fathom juniper]

they are a certain, easily recognisable flavor of RPGs

like... if you wanna talk about individual mechanics and design choices on their own... there's not that much actually unique about the souls series

the secret is in how they come together

and how the game uses them

[dire condor]

Yeah, and they're all missing gameplay except Bloodborne.

[fathom juniper]

what?

[dire condor]

I've put 30 hours across 1 and 2 and can't stand playing them.

I admit I haven't tried DS3 or the Demons' Souls remake, but I did put a few minutes into the PS3 release and didn't care for it in 2011, either.

[fathom juniper]

well that just sounds like more of your thing
your personal preference

[scenic wigeon]

I've heard you're not missing much
the gameplay is just kinda the same

[fathom juniper]

like - i don't like RTSs but i cannot say that they lack gameplay

come on now

[scenic wigeon]

in the Demon remake

the Demake?

[dire condor]

Well, I do like action RPGs, and Demons' Souls and Dark Souls 1 and 2 handle like garbage.

[fathom juniper]

i think they control just fine considering what those games are going for

[dire condor]

I don't like RTS either, but I can still differentiate between a good and bad title in the genre.

[fathom juniper]

and you think dark souls is bad?

[dire condor]

Not entirely.

The music is generally strong, the story is great once you finally piece it together, and they almost always look good.

[fathom juniper]

but...?

i can feel a "but" coming

[scenic wigeon]

calling it now
"but the gameplay..."

[dire condor]

I already said what I thought of the gameplay, I didn't realize I needed to restate it.

If you enjoy whatever Dark Souls does, sure, they're fantastic action RPGs.

[fathom juniper]

i mean - yeah i get that you think they feel clunky or whatever
i just wanted to hear some more details

what really makes you go

[dire condor]

Dark Souls 1 took the trial-and-error too far.

I understand that difficult games get that eventually, just because they eventually want you to react efficiently against certain enemies.

[fathom juniper]

huh
that's actually... interesting

cause after completing both games i think bloodborne has more trial and error

don't get me wrong - i love bloodborne

but it does have some cheap bits here and there

[dire condor]

Every corner has an enemy you have to know is there, every enemy has obfuscating animations requiring you to encounter something first before you can effectively fight it.

Maybe Dark Souls gets a lot better about it later, then.

[fathom juniper]

i disagree on the first one

the second?
sure - whatever

everyone has fairly slow and heavy animations there - including the player

[dire condor]

It's not that they're slow and heavy.

[fathom juniper]

which fits the game, i suppose

[dire condor]

I kept seeing skeletons spasm and freeze in the middle of their swings.

Hitboxes land at unintuitive places in the animation.

[fathom juniper]

ok yeah i agree with this one - DS1 has some pretty jank hitboxes sometimes
but i don't feel like it detracts from the game, ultimately

because any jank i've seen in that regard has been insignificant
and for every janky skeleton or spin the wheeeeeelll in DS1 i could point to a similar thing in bloodborne
like command grabs on those insight sucking things in BB or AOEs on some attacks (oh hi there, BSB )

like...
mate - i'm not here to argue

[dire condor]

I think you are.

[fathom juniper]

i get that dark souls might not be your cup of tea
but saying they "handle like garbage" or that "they're all missing gameplay except for bloodborne"

nah mate

naaaaah

[dire condor]

Agree to disagree, then.

[fathom juniper]

sheesh, okay then

[wraith magnet]

[lusty pendant]

Im at the miscellaneous grind section of nier replicant hshdjehd

Trying to get all the words

[twin yarrow]

soulslike isn't a real thing
they're all missing gameplay except bb
me:

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/775583829649129495/849095781804802068/unknown.png?width=828&height=665

[polar dragon]

DC is a soulslike

It's the Dark Souls of the Metroidvania genre

[dire condor]

No it's not, you can't pick up your dropped experience/cash.

Anyway, I had a revelation earlier: Dark Souls is a turn-based RPG, and it's one of the best ever made.

[polar dragon]

I am kidding :D

[polar dragon]

That's true. Every game is turn based.

[dire condor]

Well, there's a coil sword in the Promenade of the Condemned, and I'm still offended.

Nah.

[polar dragon]

Most of games are also RPG.

[dire condor]

In the you-directly-control-character-progression flavor, then.

[polar dragon]

Yup

Now, is Tetris a turn based RPG?

[dire condor]

Only if you were going to play extremely loosely with definitions.

[dire condor]

I don't fear your haypeg.

[polar dragon]

It's pronounced hay-peg. The J is actually an H.

[twin yarrow]

I thought J is Y

Like, yay-peg

[dire condor]

Agree to disagree.

[polar dragon]

Why peg?

[stable kindle]

squints in here

[dire condor]

Don't worry about it.

[polar dragon]

Chrono Trigger is great. Go play it.

[stable kindle]

one of these days

i mean, i have played it and completed multiple times on snes/ds but. stares at steam

[polar dragon]

wait so you did finish it?

[stable kindle]

steam? no lol https://gyazo.com/28fabcd288c2f6a6ff81c8363d089929

[polar dragon]

well on SNES/DS

the game is just charming and feels suprisingly modern with its many mechanics

[stable kindle]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/357344472880644118/849112930665365504/20210531_213116.jpg

[polar dragon]

dang <3

I just finished my first playthrough yesterday and will probably do a NG+ run soon.

This time ||I'll try to save Lara lol||

[stable kindle]

have fun collecting endings!

did you take ||magus||

[polar dragon]

yeah. I didn't know you couldn't, actually lol

[stable kindle]

its been like nearly a decade at this point since i last played through to completion but iirc yeah you can turn him down

ive been wanting to revisit it on steam, its just ): idk mood isnt there, the start of jrpgs is a bit of a slog for me to get through anymore, i dropped my replay of tales of symphonia for the same reason lol kid me had a better attention span for it

[polar dragon]

yeah. though I love how him and ||frog|| just kinda chill together.

[stable kindle]

reluctantly! but he isnt all that bad really, just a victim of tragedy and forced into a cruel situation to survive

one thing that always gets me is when ||you visit the village after the fall of zeal with magus in your party, his childhood cat alfador follows him around||

[polar dragon]

i did not notice that

that's p good

[stable kindle]

time to look at that in ng+ 👀

[polar dragon]

yep

[rustic falcon]

Good luck! That can be really difficult since some of them are missable if kainé or emil kill the shades instead of you and they have a pretty low drop rate as well. I decided to do everything except for collect all of the words

I did all sidequests and upgraded all weapons, which was enough for me, because these two things actually give you lore. The weapon upgrade grind took a looong time as well as gardening for a certain sidequest which took probably over a week

[vivid mesa]

I need to go back to FE: Three Houses 🤔

[lethal drift]

I beat it once

and it wasn't my copy

it was my cousins

[lusty pendant]

same, still have church and GD to go

[vivid mesa]

I got halfway through the BL, and I stopped just before the time skip. Which was the whole point of that playthrough 😅

Punished Snake Dmitri is awesome

[lusty pendant]

thanks! I have a guide open so I know where to go. Word collecting is more fun in CN/JP since the words are, well, actual words

Dimitri is totally broken lol

90+ crit with the right setup

[rustic falcon]

Oh they’re actual words? That is interesting. Oh well, at least the English words are... fun to say? Lol

[vivid mesa]

to be honest I might just do NG+ with the Eagles and go with the anti-hero way

[lusty pendant]

Eagles is my favorite path gameplay wise

Wyvern Edelgard.

[lusty pendant]

yeah they're short phrases that form a sentence when equipped, it's quite cool

[lethal drift]

ver cool

[fathom juniper]

mornin

who's ready to be wrong about videogames today?

[tall hornet]

How am I supposed to trust a matchmaking algorithm to find me a partner when it can't even find 11 other players of vaguely the same skill as me

[fathom juniper]

it's infuriating, isn't it?

it not only hampers your experience, but also makes it harder for you to learn the game more to even stand a chance with those higher up players

been there few days ago (again) and it sucked just as much
we had a convo about it here and the general concencus was that...
multiplayer games need better matchmaking

[polar dragon]

They need better players.

[modest hollow]

this is one of the biggest reasons I dont play FPS games anymore

[fathom juniper]

well
singleplayer FPSs are a plenty

and most of them aged just

[modest hollow]

yea but online FPS kinda suck

[fathom juniper]

i don't think the games themselves suck

it's just... the sad reality of all of them having to rely on janky matchmaking nowadays

cause i don't remember having any of those problems i outlined a while ago back in the days when all we've had was a master server and a simple browser

it was more like...
"oh i'm getting my butt kicked on this server - i guess i better look for a slightly easier server"
and then you go on that one and practise for a few days and move on to harder stuff

[modest hollow]

also they get old really fast

[fathom juniper]

again - that's not entirely the game's fault but it's community and the kid of support it gets
which is a part of the overall experience, sure, but still...

like - if the gameplay is solid then i'm more than willing to dump 200 or 500 hours into a game
still playing the same map rotation and what not

[modest hollow]

also I feel like most online FPS games follow the same general formula and it kinda ends up all feeling the same

[fathom juniper]

on the other hand - while i still prefer singleplayer games over multiplayer
i can't recall a single SP game that took more than a 100 hours of my time

[fathom juniper]

oh this is where i have to strongly disagree

there's a lot of variety if you know where to look for

however - if you're looking at the top 5 or 10 on steam or whatever

[modest hollow]

Im not saying theres 0 variety

[fathom juniper]

yeah those spots tend to follow trends

[modest hollow]

Im just saying a lot of them feel the same or similar

like titanfall to me feels like cod with mechs

and overwatch feels like better TF2 (hot take ik)

[fathom juniper]

eeeeh
i guess it stems more from general genre conventions more than anything
as in - it's a first person shooter - you're gonna be shooting stuff from a first person perspective
but there's a lot of variation in that convention - it can be a completely different artstyle or different gameplay and system and so on

i'd be like saying that racing games follow the same formula and end up feeling the same

well yeah - that's the whole genre - you're gonna be racing cars most of the time
but again - there's a lot of different things going in that genre - it can be a cartoony arcade racer or a sim or anything in between and so on

[modest hollow]

also online FPS games arent really my thing and I havent played em in forever

[fathom juniper]

yeah i kinda guessed the first one

[modest hollow]

singleplayer FPS is good tho

heck one of my favorite games ever (Terraria) could technically be considered a shooter

[fathom juniper]

terraria?
a shooter?

[remote marsh]

i mean

there are guns

but

definitely not a shooter

[fathom juniper]

there are guns in necrodancer too

hell - there are guns in The Walking Dead made by telltale

it doesn't make it a shooter

[modest hollow]

I didnt say it WAS a shooter

I was just saying it could technically be considered one

if you reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally stretch the definition

[fathom juniper]

no it could not be considered a shooter
because it's not a shooter

come on, now

if you do stretch this definition then you'd have to apply the same logic to other games

[modest hollow]

yea

itd be stretching it by a lot

but also I have played some good single player games that are legitimate shooters

[fathom juniper]

well then at this point why even have genres?
at this point i could say that TWD is a shooter because it happens to have a "press A to shoot" QTE in a few points

transistor could technically be considered a racing game
cause there's a bike in it

[modest hollow]

like Red Dead Redemption 2 is an absolutely amazing game and its considered a shooter

[fathom juniper]

is it really now?

it's not your main gameplay feature

[polar dragon]

I mean just be clear what you meant by shooter.
Twin stick shooter and FPS are both shooters. They are wildly different.

[fathom juniper]

you do a lot of shooting there, sure

but come on now
it's an open world sanbox

[polar dragon]

Isaac is a Far Cry from CS GO

Haha get it

[fathom juniper]

as far as the gameplay is considered it's grand theft horse
it's good - don't get me wrong

[modest hollow]

Far Cry is a good series

[fathom juniper]

oh yeah

[modest hollow]

the main combat is centered around Guns, therefore it could be considered a shooter

and Im also not saying ALL online shooters are bad I just dont like the ones that use the standard COD-like formula

[fathom juniper]

neither do i

but consider this

[polar dragon]

I like CoD ngl

[fathom juniper]

how much time you spend actually shooting in RDR vs. everything else?

not that much

[polar dragon]

Granted I played a single CoD game

[fathom juniper]

especially in rdr2

[modest hollow]

eh?

You do a lot of shooting in RDR2

[fathom juniper]

christ almighty

[polar dragon]

I think RDR leans more toward action RPG than TPS

[fathom juniper]

yeah

[modest hollow]

yea

[fathom juniper]

so what tf are we even talking about here?

just fire up the wikipedia and literally read the first sentence

[modest hollow]

yes

anyway gamers Imma go e a t

later

[polar dragon]

That stretching a definition is fine as long you we are clear about it.

For example, XCOM can be treated as a roguelite as long as we are lenient about the definition.

[fathom juniper]

but there's gotta be a line somewhere

i'd be like calling new vegas an FPS

why even have genres at this point?

what is an RPG anyway?

[polar dragon]

If you'd like you can do so.

[fathom juniper]

you know
i think wolfenstein: the new order is a racing game

[polar dragon]

Sure.

[fathom juniper]

cause there's a brief 10 seconds long section where you get to drive a car

i'm done

[polar dragon]

GTA is a driving sim.

It's not very useful to say things like that, but you can.

[fathom juniper]

It's not very useful to say things like thatIt's not very useful to say things like that
yeah exactly

[winter mica]

anything with a couple in it is a dating sim

[woven breach]

just because you pelican, doesn't mean you pelishould

sorry

[winter mica]

dw i enjoyed that

[polar dragon]

No! I'm a garbage can, not garbage cannot.

I do what I want

[junior crown]

I think genre is still a thing since we got to label games a bit somehow to find the one you would prefer to play no matter how loose the meaning can get, since there can be quite a lot of games on the store and that is sure a way to filter out stuff.

But past that yeah genres don't have much place in talks I think. Because once you state their intended or approximately loose genre it does help communicate and establishing what kind of game it is, what gameplay and systems it will have.

[polar dragon]

On Steam, there are TWO roguelike genre, Action RL and RPG RL.

Both feature the exact same games.

Lmao

[fathom juniper]

well yeah - we have genres for a reason
if i'm looking for an FPS on steam... i want a flipping FPS on steam
not a 2d sandbox game because it happens to have a gun
not an adventure game because it happens to have a QTEs featuring a gun
i'm looking for a game which main focus is the one described by it's genre

[junior crown]

Does remind me how recently Roblox rebranded Games into Experiences.

[fathom juniper]

videogame genres are already convoluted enough and we shouldn't screw up with them any more
because it leads to confusion like the one we literally see right here right now

i literally went through this issue two weeks ago when i was looking for 2d roguelites to play with my friend
some of you might remember this cause after a while i gave up and just asked you all straight up for recommendations here

but before that i went on steam and found a curators list that was just that - it focused on co-op roguelites
"great" i thought, until i realised that a big chunk of games on this list didn't feature co-op
so why are they on that list then?

on some other games i clicked on them and went to the store page and there wasn't co-op in the tags
but then the description mentions co-op
so which one is it then?

we have those tags and genres for a reason - it's to make clear what any game is and what it isn't

[dire saffron]

I think that’s less genre is screwy and just tags are messy

[fathom juniper]

both of those issues are related, to an extend

[dire saffron]

Since I’m not too sure what even goes through to check tags since the time travel chess is labeled as psych horror iirc lol

[junior crown]

Yeah filters are sadly not perfect on Steam (since it is community driven mostly) but they do help out somewhat. Though I do feel ya. My brother asked for games like The Stanley Parable one, but couldn't find many games like that or just can't recommend him many atm lol, they would go over his head (Not to say TSP is not complex, but it's meta narrative is understandable enough for many).

[fathom juniper]

and then lead to the same thing - confusion about what this game is
i can only imagine how many people got and bought the wrong thing
or ultimately got dissappointed by a probably solid game because this mess made them expect something different

[dire saffron]

Well genre is meant to be a generalization, a heavy one at that, however some are more specific. Like when you hear isometric you know what to expect, just something as broad as an action rpg, you have a very slight generalization

Tags are meant to help fix this, but they aren’t always the most accurate

This is also why you should do more than base purchase on tags

[polar dragon]

I felt like Bastion fit that meta narrative.
Darkest Dungeon, too, to some extent.
Of course the main gameplay mechanics are very different, but they both have that element.

[dire saffron]

I like to at least look up gameplay trailers and whatnot before I buy anything

[junior crown]

Oh I mean as in walking games in which you can't die in

[polar dragon]

Yup

[fathom juniper]

this is exactly my point
as flawed as some of those names are, we shouldn't add to confusion by bending them to our will just so that our favorite game could fit a different genre just because we like it

[junior crown]

Like also Bugsnax for example

[fathom juniper]

am i talking crazy here?

am i just old?

[dire saffron]

I see where you’re coming from but I don’t think that every genre is flawed, but you also have to think we don’t want to recite the alphabet to describe a platform we

So we need to keep them simple

Some more than others sadly

But with just about everything something is gonna be screwy

[polar dragon]

I think we need a genre alignment chart

Like this

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/802615525141643265/849302644194541618/RDT_20210601_1105186445020127294500718.jpg

[dire saffron]

And with society being so used to these tags and genres there won’t be much change

[dire saffron]

I have major issues with stuff like this too. Ik it’s a joke but still. Things can have elements but not be under the genre. I like to think of genre as the sphere of major influence you pull from that impacts the entire game, not things so small that don’t really make the genre like tile movement

Take rogue like/lite

[fathom juniper]

exactly

[dire saffron]

When I hear that I think play, die, restart

Not the smaller things like how you move

Also why I think isometric shouldn’t be a genre

It’s a goddamn camera angle

[fathom juniper]

i mean - it's a nice tag that explains the perspective

you can slap it there
but it alone doesn't make a genre

[dire saffron]

Yea a game can fall under several genres, but only several for a reason, because one game cannot entirely be a FPS racing cooking dating sym

Yes there can be bits influenced but it’s not the whole game

And genre tags are meant to be the whole game

[fathom juniper]

i swear to god if someone unironically calls mirror's edge an FPS ||just because you can shoot stuff there|| i'm gonna lose my marbles

[dire saffron]

Lol

Yea Imo it’s not the genre that’s the issue, it’s how people are labeling it

[polar dragon]

Mirror's Edge is an FPS because you can shoot stuff in first person view.

[dire saffron]

can but that isn’t the entire game

[fathom juniper]

it's not even the point of the damn game!
it's actively discouraged even

[polar dragon]

First person? ✅
Shoot? ✅

[junior crown]

I will say something even more outrageous. Pathologic is an FPS.

[dire saffron]

And this leads to an issue of interpretation and how broad these generalizations can become

[fathom juniper]

any time you open your objective screen there's a thing there that tracks if you ever even shot a single person
using guns hampers your main mode of interaction in this game - running, jumping, platforming

[polar dragon]

Welcome to the relativist world

[fathom juniper]

guns are an easy mode
a little helper for parts that give you trouble

[polar dragon]

First person platforming doesn't have the same vibe

[junior crown]

Genres definitely should loose up First Person and FPS more in the store pages.

[polar dragon]

Most things are grouped into Action games anyhow

[fathom juniper]

the entire point of this game is that runners don't fight
they can defend themselves, sure - but that's all

[dire saffron]

Well then some people experience it as an FPS mostly so are they wrong to interpret it as such??

[modest hollow]

time travel chess will break you

[fathom juniper]

well there's a difference between FPP - first person perspective (which can house a lot of different games and styles), and FPS - a first person shooter (where shooting is your main style of gameplay)

[dire saffron]

if it seems like I’m being contradictory it’s because I am, a lot of this is circular and changes depending on the person and experience

Genres are generalizations. Taking mirrors edge, labeled as a first person action platformer works, but that action part can become more specific albeit maybe not the best overall description

So it depends on the person

[fathom juniper]

first person platformer?

how about that

it even ends in a P

||this whole goddamn convo makes me wanna P||

[dire saffron]

Ok but what about action, there’s action is there not?

So to get the general idea across you need to label it as such

[fathom juniper]

there is
but if you're refering to combat - it's nowhere near the main point of the game

it's sporadic and most of the times - optional

[dire saffron]

And a game dev could think “oh I could label it as shooter to entice that group as well as giving a bit more specification”

Tags are as well advertisements

[fathom juniper]

and that is exactly the same problem DICE had
and many other devs with any other games

but that's a topic for a completely different conversation that i don't even want to have

[polar dragon]

I genuinely experienced XCOM as a Roguelite.
Randomized maps? :white_check_mark:
Randomized growths? :white_check_mark:
Soldier perma deaths? :white_check_mark:
Turn based tile based combats? :white_check_mark:
XCOM2 is a roguelite, it's just a lot more story driven than others. As in, it has a start and an end with a final boss instead of infinite loop.

[fathom juniper]

it is not a roguelite

cross out that permadeath - there are quicksaves you can always go back to

[dire saffron]

But they experienced it as such and that’s the point here

[rancid token]

If Invisible Inc can be billed as a roguelite, so can XCOM

[fathom juniper]

turn based combat doesn't make it one either

[polar dragon]

Yup.

[dire saffron]

Genres are also interpretation

[fathom juniper]

it's a turn based strategy game

[dire saffron]

General interpretation is what genre is, and that will change per person

Yes there is a more obviously right answer but the specifics will change

[polar dragon]

If someone asks me for a turn based roguelite experience and they already played through some purist rogue, I would recommend XCOM.

[dire saffron]

And this is also why reviews are different per person since everyone experiences the game differently

[rancid token]

I think more than any other genre, games can have modes that turn them into roguelites

[polar dragon]

Yeah but Rogue is literally a turn based strategy game.

[fathom juniper]

we literally had this argument two days ago

[polar dragon]

I wasn't part of it, I think

Or I wasn't paying attention

[dire saffron]

Well now we’re framing this as an argument instead of talking about game design :<

[fathom juniper]

going by your definition - xcom should've been closer to a proper roguelike, not roguelite
and it sure as ... ain't that

[rancid token]

What makes it not one, out of curiosity?

[fathom juniper]

it's a turn based strategy
it's simple as that

[rancid token]

Or rather, what makes playing XCOM on Ironman not one?

[polar dragon]

But XCOM snd Civ plays wildly differently.

[dire saffron]

But interpretation is what adds specifications and variety for every person

[fathom juniper]

go on wikipedia and look on the right side and point me to a single line that even mentions a roguewhatever

there's none

[dire saffron]

Ok so moving off of games for a second for the sake of example

Let’s look at horror movies or literature

[polar dragon]

Wikipedia are made by people mostly like you and me, the same as Steam category.

[fathom juniper]

oh yeah so everybody is wrong here but you?

yeah sure xcom is a roguelite

i'm done

[dire saffron]

It’s labeled as horror because it’s meant to instill… well… horror, but what scares people is different per person

And so some will see it as such and some won’t

It changes per person

No one is wrong here

[rancid token]

I've had similar discussions on whether Subnautica is a horror game

[dire saffron]

We are all right in our interpretations of the game

[polar dragon]

Maybe. The thing is, you are right, too. We can be both right.
It's a relativist view. Who gives a crap.

[fathom juniper]

oh yeah sure
we're all right in our own little bubbles and no one is wrong

[polar dragon]

Like I said, if someone wants an Rogue turn based experience, it's not bad to recommend XCOM

[fathom juniper]

genres are what we make them up to be

everything is made up

[polar dragon]

Which is what genre is mostly used for anyways

[fathom juniper]

see you never

[rancid token]

Yeesh

[polar dragon]

It's fine to be relativist sometimes.

[woven breach]

It's an underwater, scuba diving simulator that just so happen to set in an alien world, that just so happen to have monsters that scare me

[polar dragon]

I don't mean it everywhere and everything I do.

[rancid token]

That was my thought, like

[dire saffron]

This went from a cool discussion about the application of genre in games to whatever the hell it became ;-;

[rancid token]

Subnautica is horrific to me because I have thalassophobia but I wouldn't consider it horror

In the same vein that The Forest is intended to be survivial horror

[dire saffron]

also could draw to food, someone with more spice tolerance could say the food isn’t spicy, but to you it is

It’s how we taste the game in a metaphorical way

[rancid token]

I think defining something as a genre sort of relies on intent

[polar dragon]

I mean it's simple to me.
Genre is used to find similar games.
Some games that aren't in the same genre can be similar.
You can recommend games outside of a genre.

If you want strategy turn based roguelite experience, maybe XCOM is a good choice.

[rancid token]

That about tracks, I totally agree with the sentiment of recommending XCOM to someone who enjoys roguelite experiences

[polar dragon]

If you don't, that's totally fine, too.

[dire saffron]

If I may go back to the xcom example and compare it to hades. Hades features an endless loop with permanent progression, what is generally seen as a rogue like, but in a way xcom has the same just applied differently. The progression is levels, the progress lost is permadeath, and the loop is the combat loop