It’s fun knowing that From were originally a business software company where everyone liked playing video games and saw them as creatively (and financially) worth pursuing*, i think thats largely what charms me about KF1 its not super distinguished on its own but it demonstrates surprising chops for their first effort. And 2 came out what a year later? Like they had to be bursting with ideas for it before 1 was even released. there’s a generative quality to it, like it was their warmup
imo the most consistent KF meme is “you open a chest behind a hidden wall that contains a lousy leather shield and then a skeleton murders you” to the point that the did the gag twice in KF3, repeating it wholesale in the part of KF1’s dungeon you revisit
i wish Elden Ring had brought back treasure chests with skeletons hiding inside of them
*ironically more wholesome than Nintendo’s extremely Yakuza’d up gambling roots lol
Are there any examples floating around of their business software? Even on their official site’s timeline, they just skip over this part until they start naming games.
Foamstars is really uplifting and is built around making sure you know that everyone is just having a good time, none of this is serious, it’s all just fun, and you’re awesome just for being a part of it.
DIDN’T find the game too grindy/monotonous this time, then again I was nonstop babbling silly theories of why Capcom (and Technos Japan, who made the Double Dragon series that inspired Final Fight) never really went this big on an original IP beat em up in the arcade again.
Saw a new game on the Steam new release list with solid pixel art, a price of free and the word “short” in its name, so I figured what the heck.
Apparently it can be free because it was made or sponsored by some people working for a music label or youtube channel or something about. While the dev in an interview said “Sheepy: A Short Adventure explores narratives and themes prevalent within and beyond the music of MrSuicideSheep over the years” which… yeah, regardless I still found it to be a pretty nice little thing. I know on SB in some corners there is a bit of a stigma on “good pixel art, mid game design” but I am more than willing to walk and jump and do some basic to moderately tricky platforming over the course of 50 or so minutes while taking in pretty images, decent tunes and general moodiness and this was very much that.
I think my favorite moment is after you get the dash power-up which has you running until you choose to stop or something makes you. You use it initially mainly to get past a “ceiling rapidly collapses” death trap, but once you reach the end of it you burst out into the open and have a good minute straight of running outdoors with the wind blowing and tiny creatures running alongside you as you can do some low stakes impossible to fail platforming until you reach the next location. It’s a swell intermission that takes advantage of the new mechanic you were just given while it still feels new to do something that feels different.
Also on the short loading screens where your sheep person runs across the screen you can make them jump with the press of a button, which I always appreciate.
this is like the other day where i learned that Falcom was originally a computer and software shop in Japan that sold Apple products before becoming a game software company. Yuzo Koshiro replied to the tweet saying he used to go there to buy games.
been playing Persona 3 Reload and enjoying it. i haven’t really ever touched any of the post-P2 Persona games since their original releases, and so it’s kind of interesting coming back to this one after 5 and seeing how compact everything feels. there was something about the original that felt almost overwhelming in terms of time management, but also that was the first game of its kind (life sim) that i’d ever played, and that probably is part of it.
anyway, i never actually beat P3 and can’t remember how far i got in the original - so far, i don’t remember much! so it’s basically like playing it for the first time.
it looks very nice and the song updates and new tracks are a nice touch. nothing really to say other than it plays like P5 but with P3 everything else. hoping to finish it before FF7Re comes out
With my usual crude 60 fps cell phone footage method, compared input delay in Darkstalkers 3 (PS1) running on a PS2, on a PS3 as a PS1 Classic, and as a rip in the five renderers of the PS1 emulator duckstation on PC.
On my set-up, duckstation’s OpenGL renderer matched the game running on PS2 hardware in terms of responsiveness, with just 2 frames of input lag. The emulated PS1 Classics version on PS3 had 4 frames of delay, as did duckstation’s D3D-based renderers; duckstation’s Vulkan (successor to OpenGL) and Software renderers had 3 frames of delay.
So from here on I’ll just rip my PS1 games and play 'em in duckstation. : D I used ImgBurn for ripping, and CHDMAN to compress the rips by about half.
Ripping anecdote! Yesterday was my first attempt at ripping PS1/2 games. Dug out my old lappy–my new one doesn’t have a DVD drive. Test-ripped two Taito Memories JP PS2 games successfully, and thought woo got this down–although I did notice the drive was a fussy about recognizing the discs at first. Later in the day I tried Darkstalkers 3 (PS1)–and only got the drive to show the disc contents once, for about five seconds; then it just whirred and blipped and I could barely get it to eject the darn thing. Same with every game & dvd I tried after that.
That drive had always felt a bit fragile–only laptop optical drive I’ve used though so I don’t know–so I thought maybe it’s had it, even though I never used it much before. Spent a stupid amount of time ordering an external DVD drive from Amazon (jeez they’re only $20-$34.99! = o (Just below Amazon’s new free shipping price hmm) I thought they’d be ~$120). Then thought wait maybe the lens got dirty somehow; got the lappy back out, ejected the drive, blew on it with my slobbery breath–worked perfectly. Canceled the order, wey-hey!
Four days into daily attempts at credit feeding through Mobile Light Force 2 (Castle Shikigami) on easy via PCSX 2 and all have ended on either the final boss or the one right before it. Today is the first day I feel a bit irked by it as I ate several hits well after I hit the bomb button, I’m not sure if it is some in-game lag or an emulation issue but given I’d have theoretically had those hits left for the game ending “dodge waves of bullets for 70-80 seconds” finale but it felt like a significant kick to the teeth.
Nobody told me these new Zeldos are just stealth Ubisoft games. I ascended a tower to reveal a section of the map and I was like “ah there’s the familiar hit of dopamine”.
Actually I have to say all jokes aside the vibe is quite a bit like what I remember feeling in the early going playing Far Cry 2. Very vulnerable, trying my best to avoid detection or inadvertently setting myself on fire when I start a strategic brushfire.
I’m surprisingly invested in gathering crafting/cooking materials.
I guess the abilities you get early on (and to me it’s shocking how quickly you get so many, compared to classic games in the series) basically take the place of all your hookshots and other gadgets.
Anyway I’m hooked, trying to squeeze in an hour here and there and it’s so far been consistently rewarding sessions.
partisans 1941 is both a decent real time tactics game and such blatant anti-fascist propaganda it owns. your fellas lose morale for stealing supplies from civilians, all the collaborators say incredibly pathetic shit like “I wish I could feel a woman’s touch right now” “I wish I had german blood” “I’ve got my eye on a HOT BIMBO” “I love eating and getting drunk and never having to work!” like they’re just the fuckin worst piece of shit traitors ever, it’s so funny, constantly muttering to themselves about their base desires while all the friendly NPCs are working fields as slaves and talking about how the fascists killed their entire families. When you show up and brutally murder nazis in front of the local people they start calling you people’s heroes and cheering you on, it’s amazing.
One of the first party members you get is a 14 year old boy who’s good at blending in and making the soldiers think he’s a dumb kid, so I started using him as a scout to plan ambushes and watch patrols while the adult soldiers did all the killing. Every time you go to camp the commander tries to instill positive values in him so I’ve been trying to avoid having him do murder as little as possible
Luckily you save some gunslinger lawyer gal from getting hung and she’s way cooler so Sanek mostly gets to hang out in my camp fishing and being helpful in more productive ways now, like participating in the world map missions where you liberate prisoners or intercept germans before they can fuck with villages, etc.
When you finish that mission you corner the village elder, who’s been brutalizing the local populace for the commandant… Fetisov is like let’s shoot this piece of shit, Belozerova is like nah let’s hang the fucker using the noose he tied for me, there’s like a 5 second discussion after this where everyone agrees that death by firing squad is the legal, ethical solution before the dialogue ends and your entire squad automatically just unloads on his nazi ass which sends him flying like 25 feet
The mission after this is straight up called DEATH SQUAD and involves you trying to save civilians from the commandant’s PUNISHERS, and the first thing that happens is you meet a kazakh medic gal who decided it was time to start sniping motherfuckers after the SS lit the hospital on fire for no reason and her special ability is being able to shoot any man perfectly in the head or chloroform them. Just casually dropping one of the most perfect ww2 sniper party members in a game ever I guess, jesus fuckin christ, I thought Zinaida from Silent Storm was a hero but this gal can do everything. This game is so fucking sick I almost regret not buying it.
i think it’s denial on the parts of people who like zelda and don’t want to admit to playing a far cry. the comparison was something i thought about too when i briefly tried it years ago
i appreciate that they designed the control scheme as if it was the early aughts again when you were expected to learn a new way to relate to a controller any time you touched a cool game.
it’s annoying and a delight that i have to think about the buttons
there’s now like a 30% chance the game will crash when saving. collected a nice crescent weapon, three elemental stones for the tower or whatever, a fireball spell from royal dude, various treasures and leveled up and explored a good chunk TWICE and lost it all TWICE. maybe POPstarter ain’t it after all fuck!!
I played the tutorial for Helldivers 2. Seems decent!
It looks and feels like a budget game and I guess it’s got mixed reviews for connectivity issues and limited scope, but I appreciate that it recognizes the DualSense and the gyro aiming options are right there in the menu.
Half of the challenge of combat for me is screwing up inputs when I’m frantically trying to switch from my sword to a bow and then strap a bomb to the arrow etc. Probably about as much as I’d fumble trying to do it for real! Oops, I panicked and threw my sword!
This game also really highlights that I have never internalized the R/ZR L/ZL trigger layout of the Switch.
There are two wolves inside me, one wants to horde my best shit for when I need it, the other wants to use my best shit so I can stop getting bullied by moblins (which means I need it but that feels so weak lol)
ive played about 60 hours of infinite wealth. probaly have about 10 hours left doing main quests but i will spend a long time in post-game preparing for ng+. bought golden underwear for nanba.
