Games You Played Today VIII: Journey of the Cursed Poster

[dogs]

finally got over the hump of the first couple missions in armoured core 4A and am a little surprised at how much I’m enjoying myself. I guess I shouldn’t be, given my monhun history but dude I like hangin out in a menu for ages before a big fight, tweaking numbers an shit. also this game is a visual marvel; not the graphics themselves so much as the presentation and graphic design throughout. I love how many logos there are and all the different shaders that are applied to the ui during mission briefings.
the actual 1v1 strategy does seem to boil down to who came better prepared and most fights degenerate into Italian civil war standoffs where it’s just a race to see whose health runs out first, but I don’t really care. it’s fun to press every face button and watch the frame rate drop to single digits.
there’s still heaps of shit I don’t understand I’m sure, but at least I’m having fun.

oh yeah I’m also playing ff9, monhun stories 1, and that monhun phone game (which is actually kind of okay) but I’ll talk abt those some other time.

[lonelyfrontier]

i hate to say it, folks, but that new wizardry remake fucking sucks. aside from the fact that it looks really bad and doesn’t let you switch to wireframe graphics like every port of this game released since the fucking nes days, it has so many problems.

one, and i don’t know how this is possible, but digital eclipse found a way to have bad controls in a dungeon crawler; you can used wasd to move around the dungeon, but you can’t use wasd in menus. shift is your key to set up camp, and z is to cancel everything, except for when it’s used to confirm things. you use the alt keys to switch between characters in that menu, with q and e being used to switch between spells and equipment, instead of using q and e for characters, and the arrows for tabs like in literally every other dungeon crawler on pc released in the last 10+ years. oh, and it’s missing all of the hotkeys present in the original apple ][ release.

the map is bugged. it tells you that there are walls where there are no walls. doors and stairs move around on the map, despite being stationary in-game. trying to navigate a dungeon i’ve cleared multiple times in other ports is much more difficult.

the combat is sluggish, unbalanced, and not fun at all. it does the final fantasy “attack ineffective” if you go to attack an enemy that’s already dead, except you can’t select the specific enemy you want to attack, just the group that they’re in. so if you’re fighting three orcs, and one of them is killed, you don’t simply attack the next one in line, you all stand around like idiots for several seconds until the game resets the turns. which is great, because it’s not i need those extra hits, what with every encounter never having less than five enemies in a party at a time that love to one-shot my priest. of course, of all the “quality of life” changes made here, it leaves out the one where thieves can attack from the back row, meaning that they are once again nothing more than a human key until you can turn them into a ninja.

there are things missing from the original, like being able to swap or inspect equipment anywhere besides the dungeon. the ui is all fucked up and likes to keep information tucked away in the corner, rather than front and center where you can read it. there is nothing here that hasn’t already been surpassed by the super famicom port all the way back in 1999. i don’t know how digital eclipse took a game that’s 40 years old and made it more antiquated.

[VastleCania]

kind of impressive in a way. not a good way though.

[Mikey]

I sampled a bunch of unremarkable mobile games again and I don’t feel like writing about them!

[bib]

yeah i was pretty bewildered to hear that a remake of wizardry was something that needed an early access release

[iguferon]

I am playing battletech advanced 3062 again. It was a lot funnier to name my company “gay bashers” 2 years ago so now they are the COCKPIT CRUSHERS which is both still funny and doesnt evoke a problem i have to deal with! Daphny named them this.

all our robots look like this

i made them a logo based off of indigo team from ACZ, using god’s perfect font, jokerman (the text isn’t visible in the game because it looks bad at lower resolution)

to explain their motto I actually need to explain the battletech universe because it’s making fun of a specific thing so excuse me!!!

Most power is concentrated in a big circle 500 light years around earth. Outside of that sphere are some bordering territories called the periphery, past that is the DEEP PERIPHERY where like the Hanseatic League from the 1300s still exists for some reason, and outside of that is who the fuck knows. There was a period called the AGE OF WAR in the 2400s where the earthnoid alliance broke down and everyone started killing each other, and after like 100 years of that a guy ends everyones wars by getting them to agree to join his fancy new earth un called the star league, so everyones tied together and is forced to cooperate. However the sphereoids, as they will come to be known, take a big ol shit on the periphery and that plus the general problems of empire cause shit to start to not be so great again. A big war starts between the RIM WORLD REPUBLICS and the Star League and the guy in charge of the star league’s army liberates earth but decides maybe he needs to take the army and fuck off because we live in a society. You see where this is going. army man is named Aleksandr Kerensky, who is perhaps one of the most famous people in battletech. so they leave for UNCHARTED SPACE and almost all of the Star League Defense Force goes with him, kerensky has two sons one of which is surprisingly normal and the other is an obsessive paranoid failson nazi who naturally ends up founding a thing called the clans, which is a eugenics and caste based warrior society where nearly everything is settled through stupid combat rituals and you say AFF instead of yes. They think it’s their birthright and destiny in life to liberate Earth from the spheroids because in the 1000 years since kerensky left humanity has only managed to reinvent feudalism. Whether or not we’d be better off under the clans is a huge point of contention for nerds.

I should also mention my commander, Morphy ‘Mo Money’ Richards, is from the Free Rasalhague Republic, which got turbofucked when the clans invaded the inner sphere in 3049 because their main invasion corridor was right on top of it. They think it’s dishonorable to punch robots and the best thing you can do to a clanner is piss them off basically. They fucking hate it when you use their stupid rules of single combat against them and own their ass, because their mechs and weapon are inherently more OP than yours because of how technology got fucked up after the star league collapsed. Or when you bring equal amount of lances (clan lances are called “stars” and contain an extra mech because they’re Special) to their stars and they start yelling about how you’ll suffer for your insolence because how could 8 FREEBORN SPHEROIDS take 10 brave TRUEBORN clan warriors?! therefore, the company’s motto is “Let them hate so long as they fear” because fuck the clans. They’re stupid assholes. It is only 3062 and Morphy has not forgotten how they have shit all over his life.

My favorite thing about this mod are the dumb rp stories you can make up in your head. All your crewmates earn specializations and expertise with the robot they’re piloting which gives them a variety of bonuses. Morphy’s second in command HATFIELD ‘Iguana’ STOJANOV (one of the best randomly generated names ive ever gotten) has an extensive rapsheet. According to the game her history is that she was an infantry commander in the succession wars which sounds completely fucking horrible so I’m not really surprised she is the most efficient killer in this part of space

My crew so far has ended up being like 60% ex-pirates, smugglers, ex-cons but they all have traits like “Dependable” and “Honest” which i think lends itself to the illusion of the bastard mercenary company who smashes cockpits and dishonors itself but everyone in it is actually really skilled and honorable. ive been doing a lot of contracts in lyran alliance space and this happened

its easy to imagine the legend of the cock crushers beginning to spread…

[smbhax]

Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 2 (PS2)

Has a pretty straight port of the arcade version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo, it seems like. Seems to play okay.

A training mode! Can’t get the dummy character to play as CPU, though–just jump or stand or whatnot. : P

You can toggle on progressive scan (480p, instead of 480i), although the graphics remain pretty blurry. ; )

18 pages of unlockable ST tips full of ridiculous shenanigans to try to learn! = o

Also, old VHS-quality tutorial videos! = ooo

I was having a hoot in The Speed Rumbler. Guess I’ll have to try out that PS3 version (in Capcom Arcade Cabinet). Oh and there’s a modern release in Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium…

[RT-55J]

TIL that VR is only marginally disorienting/nauseating to me (I can handle smooth walking and turning just fine), but it is very stressful.

I tested out HL: Alyx on my sister’s setup (like an HTC Vive or w/e), and it was pretty fun for a bit. I mostly liked poking around the environments and drawing silly stuff on the windows. I didn’t get very far before stopping (just after escaping being captured), but the atomsphere of the game felt very oppressive — moreso than I remember HL2 being. The sense of presence brought on by VR was really making me stressed out (I’m not sure I would have been able to handle a firefight). What really made me stop playing though was that I was standing up IRL the whole time and my feet were sore. (Also the ladders felt uncomfortably janky to climb.) Seems like a cool game, though I mostly just wanted to poke around the decaying city rather than dealing with Plot and Drama and Action.

I also tested out VRChat for a few minutes, but quit because I was getting pretty tired and slightly nauseous. All I have to say there is that the initial onboarding process feels incredibly bizarre, and I’m a bit miffed I wasn’t able to test out my avatar.

It’s a nice novelty but I don’t feel VR is going to be The Future anytime soon.

[Sykel]

it IS in early access, at least that’s what the gog page says

[HOBO]

During the first turn of my second Wizardry battle my warrior was killed but don’t worry he instantly got better, just popped right back to full health with no input on my part. So yeah it’s pretty fuckin early access.

[sleepysmiles]

i had to reread what lonelyfrontier said about the ineffective attacks thing a few times, like wasnt that in the orig-- wait within the same enemy group you dont auto-adjust your target?? they took an archaic mechanic thats already questionable to have in a 2023 remaster (at least without an option to toggle it) and made it WORSE??? what the hell lol

the trailer left me cold aesthetically but i figured it would at least be like, competent

[VastleCania]

i uninstalled F-Zero 99 after playing 3 races in the original F-Zero. I realized what I don’t like about 99 when I played the original:

• Holding a line is basically impossible unless you’re in first or close to it. It’s just bouncing around in a crowd hoping nobody fucks you over
• The game feels slower - I think the tracks are wider which I would guess contributes, but I also think the game is just slower.
• Hitting a wall is actually like, less impactful than I think it should be? Same with hitting other cars. Which is like, yeah duh that’s what you want in a game with 99 racers. I just don’t think 99 racers is a good idea.

I never won a race but I got 4th once, and I’m fine with this. I was just getting bored and frustrated so I’m happy to not think about it anymore.

[notbov]

see they shoulda based it on F-Zero X and then made the only track Big Hand

[extrabastardformula]

it’s like On Any Sunday, but every turn is just like the first turn

[captainlove]

F-Zero 99 fits the 99 formula pretty well? I think I like it more than the original SNES game which I never really felt compelled to play more than 10 minutes of. Rocking Wild Goose but as soon as I got yellow Wild Goose I have no desire for anything else.

Race starts are a lot of shovin’-bumpin’, and there isn’t really much of a race strategy at all. It feels more like optimising overtaking people in tube tunnels, you can never overtake them all but it’s satisfying to try.

Imagining what a GX successor would look like with this format is tantalising but ultimately I just want a proper racing game. I think I should go back to F-Zero SNES and give it another shake.

[meauxdal]

F-Zero SNES is a perfect example of how time can be unkind to a game

on release, it was probably the most impressive console racing game… ever? i can think of zero realistic competitors. mode 7 is just so much better for this kind of thing than any preceding pseudo-3d methodology i can think of (notably excepting sega’s incredible super scaler work in arcades - effectively none of which made it to console intact for obvious reasons). the music is also absolutely immaculate, which is huge for a futuristic racer.

it has some important major design flaws that really keep it from racing greatness (drones and bombs are largely obnoxious and unnecessary, practice mode is woefully limited and hugely hurts time attack longevity, difficulty curve is somewhat questionable), and this just becomes amplified upon the release of more fully-realized games like Super Mario Kart (speed classes! 2-player! co-op! battle mode! every track in time trials! ghosts!) and the GBA F-Zero entries.

[ellaguro]

the true promise of videogaming

[VastleCania]

i would 100% play F-Zero X 30 or F-Zero GX 30. Hell, even 99. Those games have good, solid mechanics for Bumpin and making and doing that with real humans would be amazing.

And I do think it fits in with the 99 thing real well. I just love F-Zero too much to have it be so luck-based and chaotic.

[hellojed]

Big Bumpin 99.

come on Burgerking the nostalgia is real. Are we nostalgic for the 360 era yet??? yeah

[Father.Torque]

F-Zero is the best 16-bit racing game for the same reason that Einhander is the best 32-bit shooting game: immaculate vibes, and my general disregard for the things that fans of those genres actually like about those genres