Games You Played Today VI (III in the west)

[smbhax]

WWF Wrestlemania Challenge NES

What a roster! Macho King Randy Savage, the Ultimate Warrior, Ravishing Rick Rude, Brutus Beefcake (okay I dunno if I’d heard of him), Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Big Boss Man, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan! Oh but you can only play them in one-off matches; if you want to play through a sort of arcade mode or whatever of multiple bouts, you have to play generic white dude “Yourself.” : P

The start up screen says “Hulk Hogan is a trademark of The Marvel Comics Group licensed exclusively to Titansports, Inc.” because in 1984 Marvel had made Hulk Hogan license the “Hulk” part of his nom de guerre for $100 a match and 0.9% royalties–plus, he was no longer allowed to use “Incredible” in his name, couldn’t print “Hulk” larger than “Hogan,” and couldn’t wrestle in green and purple. (See Wikipedia etc.)

Took me a bit to figure out some of the controls. Clean double-tap to jump in/out of ring; can also jump in/out from turnbuckle (that’s with A+B). Andre can’t(?) get back in. Select+A+B for partner assist in ring; Select+B (I think it was B) to have them go hit opponent’s partner. : P

Oh! I should have read a manual scan first instead of relying on a FAQ, because it turns out HOLDING A instead of just tapping does a secondary attack!! Headbutts, kicks, etc.

It didn’t feel like a very deep game at first but it started feeling deeper as I played, and gosh that secondary attack thing adds a whole new level I’ll have to try. Even without that though there’s recovering health by moving around, turnbuckle attacks, partner attacks in the tag modes, single-punch knockdowns after a hold from behind, and character-specific stuff like Andre not having a power move (A+B) except–according to the manual–when the opponent is “cornered.”

The 45-degree-rotated movement (Up moves you up-right, etc) drove me nuts at first and I tried rotating my arcade stick 45 degrees but that started making my wrist hurt trying to press the buttons ; P. So I gave up and got used to it after a few minutes or so.

I love how one person in the audience will sometimes have arms to wave expressively or cover their face.

This was Rare’s SECOND WWF game–their first was WWF Wrestlemania, in 1989. That one’s got pretty abysmal reviews.

[username]

Not for nothing but the Rude Awakening in this game is one of the most satisfying to hit moves in a wrestling game ever. Probably because it was unique and just looked so much damn cooler than every other move in the game, something you don’t really come across in most games anymore.

Also you technically can get back in the ring with Andre, but I’m not sure anyone ever figured out how to do it more than 5% of the time.

[notbov]

I think it’s important that people play Binf so everyone can see that video games are a mature enough medium to explore the deep and controversial subject of fucking your daughter

[Mokushka]

Got access to a closed beta for a neat game, they had testing hours last night and this one. It’s what I’ve settled on describing as a “Squad-based top-down battle royale with light MOBA mechanics”. They are still under tight NDA so I’m going to try and respect that and not spill all the juice. I frankly don’t even remember how I came across it, was months ago I signed up, and now there’s basically nothing public online I can find.

ANYWAYS, first night I got to play with one of the devs which is neat, and then today I ended up playing with one of the QA team members. Funny how that worked. Based on those two experiences, the team seems really cool. Looking forward to the game going public.

[hellojed]

Killed Kratos in Fortnite and right afterwards I said “now that’s what I call an Oedipus complex”

[skelephone]

Just completed Pill Baby, a sidescrolling brawler? RPG? about a young woman who moves from a poorer country to a much richer country (probably a suburb in the UK) for work. For her bizarre new job, she goes to a fancy office every day… then has to head out into the field to fight fleshy parasite monsters with a variety of combo moves, attack drones, crystalline fist weapons, etc.

This is visually an extremely creative and arresting game. I would recommend everyone play it purely on the strength of its visuals, and in particular the sixth level, which is a pretty stunning collage of different artstyles and visual tricks. I finished the game in a single sitting not because I was loving the combat (it’s better than I expected, but merely OK) but because I couldn’t take my eyes off this shit.

The spirit of arty flash games lives strongly in this one. The combat is full of wiggling little paperdoll enemies who path around weakly on small arena platforms. These rather basic combat zones are bookened with rotoscoped art, FMV sequences, surrealist nightmares with movement schemes and artstyles seen nowhere else in the game, and all sorts of other weird shit. The characters animate in a pretty basic way, but when someone is silently thrashing around on the ground, covering their face with wooden doll arms, it’s enough to communicate what they’re going through.

The protagonist, Anna, arrives in the country (always “this country”, never specified) unable to speak the local language. The player earns a certain amount of money every level, and there’s a constant tension between learning the language by paying for classes, or dumping money into combat upgrades and gear.

There’s some element of “immigration sim” here. Learning the language was so expensive that I put it off for a very long time, which limited my ability to interact with any other game systems. I spent all my downtime wandering lonely around this sad little mid-sized city, always turned away by NPCs… I was actually too worried about my lack of language skills to even engage with the side quest system, which mean that I was always too poor to buy any of the combat upgrades I wanted.

I flailed through the end of the game with the most basic skills I could afford, and didn’t realize until quite late how much richer and stronger I would have been if I’d been able to speak the language. It’s possible to charge into those quests blind, without reading the foreign-language quest description, but I chose not to. When I finally earned enough to unlock 100% language ability I was suddenly was able to perceive a lot more about how the unwelcoming environment and my inability to communicate had limited me throughout the game.

Plotwise, this story absolutely did not go the direction I expected. For a while, I wasn’t sure whether this game was pulling its punches or what. In the end I decided that it is simply a very low-key story with goofy fantasy plotting but, in the end, naturalistic emotional stuff. It turns out to be equally as interested in the character and her past as it is in making a big statement about immigration. I ended up appreciating that.

The game is by a dev team called Kayabros. I got it in the Humble Bundle earthquake relief bundle which has a bunch of games from Turkish developers. There’s a couple others in here that I really want to check out.

[RT-55J]

lest we forget

[Tegiminis]

Missed all the Destiny 2 talk but I’m showing up anyway.

The lore video people have done irreparable damage to Destiny discourse, and Lightfall really hammers it home for me. Let me explain.

The campaign, as people have mentioned, requires you chase this powerful macguffin that nobody knows much about, even the people currently using it. At first you focus on just preventing the big bad guy from getting it, and when that fails, you redirect your efforts (post-campaign) into figuring out what it is and how it is used.

The community is rip-snorting mad that they weren’t told exactly what this macguffin is in literalistic terms. We get lots of comparisons and theories, but no “the Veil is ”. Everywhere I look is some person complaining that the story doesn’t tell us enough, that the characters know more than we do (false!), and that “the campaign should be self-contained, and pose answers to all the questions it raises” (what? when has this ever been true of Destiny 2, besides maybe Red War?). Also they get this mad EVERY EXPANSION and then hindsight-retcon that actually no they liked it once they have a year of new context.

Meanwhile, if people only cared to look, the books and lore entries for exotics trailing back all the way to the original launch are full of prophecies related to what’s happening, gnostic interpretations scattered like medieval manuscripts on a catholic monk’s desk. The average Destiny player just wants to be told what to do and to think and which heads to click. They don’t want to speculate, they don’t want to feel curiosity or mystery. It drives me crazy because Destiny is clearly doing the classic MMO storytelling method of juggling 5-10 plot threads, and none of these fucking lore guys can see the forest for the trees. One of them even predicted “I bet you [extremely consequential character whose presence is gradually growing in the narrative] is never coming back” and oops this expansion is literally about him. HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE SO FUCKING STUPID?

To be clear I only feel this way about the new content. I think that Destiny throwing out a whole year of storytelling every year because John Bungie thinks it’s cool when you play content and then it goes away (literally! that’s the given reason!) is the height of insanity. There’s a lot in each year that’s directly relevant to the current story and the world state - like new friendships and all sorts of great story and character moments - that you simply have to watch lore videos to catch up on, and those lore guys are both 1. ridiculously bone-headed, like seriously outside of rehashing Hive stuff they basically don’t know shit about shit and 2. terrible at presenting the lore in coherent chunks.

I’m fairly sure they also do it because there’s so much VO in the game that every major update is like 80gb so we can get Mara Sov telling us “kill those bastards” in twelve languages. Oops! We built our live service game with no effective narrative delivery except people talking over the radio!

@parker

what does bother me is in the new expansion you come to a door that looks like any normal dead end door in the game but you have to shoot it to destroy it to continue through. when you think you’ve seen it all, right out of nowhere some of the most Illegal Game Design there is

GODDDDDD I WAS STUCK ON THIS PART FOR AN EMBARRASSINGLY LONG TIME illegal game design is absolutely right

---

Anyway I’m enjoying Lightfall when I’m not being subjected to people’s opinions about storytelling. New content and sandbox is good, story is good and getting weirder by the hour, and I simply enjoy Destiny. Wish it was possible to ever recommend to somebody and for them to play it lol. Feels like the only people who play Destiny anymore are people who have already played it for this long.

[parker]

spent all morning in ground branch trying to decide if I like the optic mounted forward or to the rear. I think I prefer it mounted back for more field of view through the optic window. which do you prefer?

and I think as far as the red dot selection goes you’d want to go with the trijicon mro over the aimpoint t2. it’s real life issues don’t translate to the game so you just get the benefit of the larger tube to look through, though it does have the giant turret on top the housing.

they finally have both of the lpvo’s that are supposed to be the hot shit ones, the vortex 1-6 hd razor, and the nightforce atacr 1-8. modern lpvo’s are supposed to be good because 1) they have red dots bright enough for daytime, and 2) on 1x they are true 1x with no magnification, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in the game, there’s visible magnification on 1x. I don’t have one in real life so I wonder if that’s an issue with the game, or if that quality of theirs is just exaggerated.

I’m also sticking everything on risers in an attempt to emulate the taller 2.26” unity mounts
and also to try to clear the peq-15 from the optic window view but in some cases had to just move it to the side of the rail

They also have quad tube nvgs now and a choice between green or white phosphor

cuba complained once the gun selection is like 80 percent ARs but about the only thing left I wish they had was a knights armament sr15 with urx4 rail. and now that you can put red dots on handguns a deltapoint pro.

[Tony]

Am I the only one who could never finish The Last of Us?
I felt it was cool but then, before half of the game, I started freling bored by the “missions” (the action set ups), they seemed repetitive to me and eventually I could not see myself continuing.

[wourme]

The amusing thread on SB1 about Bioshock Infinite convinced me to play the game eventually after it became very cheap, when I otherwise probably never would have.

(I had played the first game because of course I’m going to play the sequel to Atlas Shrugged, but it ultimately didn’t have as much hamfisted commentary as I would like to have seen after getting off to a good start in showing someone who had been executed for trying to smuggle in the Bible.)

[loki]

metal gear ghost babel and (the hudson soft version of) klax are such perfect game boy games.

[reffi]

for all the pizza tower hype around these parts im surprised i haven’t seen (may have missed) any talk of how much its soundtrack straight up fucking bumps!!! bonus points for accommodating my own bizarre fetish, megaman x2/3 soundfonts (i’m sure i’m not the only pervert with this affliction, we can all be honest with each other)

ALSO LATE RE: DESTINY: as an outsider, just dropping onto an absolute iceberg of years of emergent iteration sounds sublime, like being born into another truly organically grown world, something the most carefully written games emulate but are not The Real Deal, an incredibly potentially compelling aspect of mmos. yet having been maybe way too deep into a few mmos in my time (dark age of camelot, anarchy online, ragnarok online, and wow to name a few nonexhaustively) it is also my experience that it rarely works out to feel this way, especially with later games like wow (anarchy online was by far the closest until its first expansion backtracked this off the face of the earth)

i’m sure there are a million answers to “why”, most of which are longwinded anagrams of CAPITALISM, but i’m finding myself wondering what would be necessary to turn what’s seen as largely bad in destiny (in my layman’s assessment here “years of iterative development begetting a thematically, mechanically, and narratively confusing experience”) into the opposite greatness i think it could be (an organically developed world full of nooks, crannies and in-jokes you may only ever experience through their varying effects on player culture and player-reactive development history), even on its well lubricated content delivery slip 'n slide, and if this is feasible while Delivering Shareholder Value

feel like the original .hack series (not GU) might hold some interesting things to say about this topic

[hellojed]

I like the idea of Misadventures of Tron Bonne but the game is…a grind lmao. The Servbot stuff is so complicated that I feel like i’m gonna need to level every single one of these guys up. I don’t find the levels particularly deep. I think I was expecting Mega Man Legends levels of bot customization, when the levels are really Mega Men Legends Lite™. The art is cute and the writing is cute, and the music is good, and the gameplay is varied where if I get bored with something there’s 2 other radically different games I could play to progress. I think I don’t like that it’s mostly menu driven, probably a minimal criticism but it bugs me anyway!

But really appreciating, like, the commitment to the vision.

[iguferon]

i usually put my sights back for the FOV. one of the nice things about the razor is I think it’s one of the only sights in the game where you can mount a docter or rmr on top with their flat rail versions so I’ve been doing that as well

also i couldn’t tell if the 1x magnification thing was from the games stupid picture in picture sights (I hate when games use this) or if they accidentally messed up

the “too many guns” thing isn’t actually in the variety it’s the way they spend so much time reworking old assets of guns that look completely fine. this update (which is 1 or 2 years late I think) is the 4th or 5th time they’ve reworked the M16 model. this game has been in dev off and on since 2007 i wonder if it’ll come out in the next 16 years

[COINTELBRO]

trying to postulate the thought processes behind the creation of this massive media product monument is honestly frightening

the environment that would have to exist around a man for him to answer the question, “how can we possibly top the twist in bioshock?” with this, the ultimate cliche, the story every writer has written at age 14, a glimpse into a barely-pubescent, women-othering mind, incestuously lumping lovers and daughters and their interdimensional vaginal wormholes

ahh, that’s the stuff. videogame criticism

[Broco]

There’s a lull in the midgame in TLoU1 where it starts to feel like the same crap over and over. The university is the nadir (not by coincidence, that part is really short and action-free in the TV show). Right after that low point, it gets fun again when control switches to Ellie.

[GherkinForce]

I kinda started feeling this way in the second game. Repetition is just a natural fact of video games, but i think the attempt at a consistent cinematic presentation really calls attention to it a lot more than it would otherwise. Eventually the constant situations where the characters are like “give me a boost” , “it’s locked, we have to find another way around” and the 100th clicker encounter being treated with the same urgency as the first start to get a bit tiresome

[username]

For the Last of Us? No. For the twice as long sequel? God yes.

BTW every time Pizza Tower comes up I get confused as around the same time a random game inspired by Wario Ware popped up on Steam, so I click on the store page expecting to see a bunch of minigames and instead I end up with this truly hideous looking 2d platformer. I assume some people grew up when this was the big cartoon art style (mostly flash, some others as well) and feel nostalgia for it but oof, I assume the game itself is probably good but wish it looked like literally anything else.

[ellaguro]

played that one for jurying briefly a year or two ago but it was too jank to consider it for anything. looked unique though, so glad to hear there’s more going on with it. i bought that creator’s previous game Soul Searching years ago on a random recommendation, and have been meaning to try it eventually.