I think the only original xbox games I ever really played involved either a crossover Ethernet cable, a 100-button controller, or a game of the year edition patch, so honestly it’s not something I’ve been bracing to return to
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It just felt very you to find out “X console emulation is now good enough” messed with it for 45 minutes and went “okay!”
Even on this 4 year old laptop cxbx’s speed improved and there was only slight hickups I just expect when I play PC games.
I also played all through Silent Hill 2 in PCSX2 and that there is a good video game that is almost old enough to buy a lottery ticket.
you have yet begun to get at the greatness of Future’s level design
just wait until you get possessed and try to collect all the graffiti souls and have to navigate the half-translated clues (the bus terminal clue is legendary)
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Welp, started Arkham Knight last night. It sure is a big-ass Batman game. So far it’s been quite a bit more stable than Arkham City, though the audio is weirdly quiet.
The driving is… okay. I’ve definitely played games with worse. The default control layout for driving the BatTankMobile, however, leaves much to be desired. Putting tank mode on a “Hold LT” command while the accelerator for car mode is on the right and requiring you to use almost all the shoulder buttons while controlling the tank with both sticks and occasionally a face button or two, as well as tying the scanner mode to the dramatically slower tank mode kinda feels less than good.
Riddler’s racetrack car puzzles are not the game’s strong suit, imho.
Framerate is usually a steady 60 fps, though it does dip occasionally with all the fancy effects turned on. I’m pretty sure if I dialed back the smoke effects it’d not dip at all. Haven’t had any slideshow moments.
The game changing the controls to accommodate the BatTankMobile has had some side effects. Nothing like being in a fight, wanting to toggle your scanner and hitting LB (which was said scanner for the last two games), only to have the BatTankMobile come plowing through a crowd sending hapless henchmen flying in all directions. It’s funny, if a minor irritation. A bigger irritation (imho, at least), is moving all your gadgets to a pop-up wheel overlay. Makes gadget switching feel incredibly clunky.
The further additions to combat and moveset are currently a bit overwhelming and I’ve not really got a feel for how everything fits together. Batman is, or at least feels, once again even faster than the previous game which kinda makes the weight of punching enemies feel a bit off to me.
Anywho, back to the mean streets of Gotham, there’s a killer on the loose and a clown on my mind.
[Edit]
Pet peeve
The BatTankMobile is armed with 60mm cannon that fires high-velocity armor piercing sabot rounds. The enemy drone tanks are equipped with reactive armor to improve their survivability. Reactive armor is designed to explode outward countering the force of HEAT shells by negating the plasma jet they create on detonation. Reactive armor is pretty uniformly terrible for defeating the ammo the BatTankMobile uses and would not be effective against it.
That Ghostbusters port seems OK, if you keep your expectations entirely to “they put the same game on new consoles.”
They shoehorn in a “In Loving Memory of Harold Ramis” card into the title sequence, removed the Ray Parker Jr. + incredibly artifact heavy video clips from the loading screens, and just barely changed the Doritos branding present in the original (and Pepsi? I think there was Pepsi?), but otherwise it’s the same game.
Other than that I’m…kinda having a good time with Breakpoint. I was, anyway, until I pulled off The Perfect Snipe on Friday and the game’s servers crashed. Love 2 always be online.
I guess to elaborate a bit more on Breakpoint - I dig that playing solo is now this one man army affair, without your weird quipping buddies talking dumb bullshit war stories as you drive a sedan down the side of a mountain at 200 mph (I mean, that has a place, in Wildlands! But going solo feels better here).
But I guess they’re gonna add back AI buddies later? Hopefully that’s optional? Let me roll around the muck and beef firefights on my lonesome!
Oh also I guess the monetization is bullshit. I don’t care a whole lot about cosmetics or buying blueprints for shit I can find in-game, but if I do decide to go in on the smallest amount of credits so I can get the cool facepaint and free eyepatch, at least show that eyepatch in the cutscenes 
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BUT DOES THE SWITCH PORT HAVE JOYCON BUSTIN’, WHICH WOULD FEEL GOOD
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IF THERE’S NO DORITOS ADS, WHY EVEN FUCKING PLAY
I’M NOT YELLING AT YOU, JUST YELLING ABOUT THESE THINGS IN YOUR DIRECTION
The fake Doritos ad they ginned up in its place is like, just barely different enough to keep them from being sued.
Also I’m not as torn up about its absence as I am like, the ubiquitous Hollywood Videos/Game Crazy stores that were all over Prototype that got nixed in the remaster (it’s where I bought the game!)
That or the huge vans advertising Vizio and, uh, Gillette razors in Burnout Paradise.
RIP to egregious in-game advertising, RIP harder to dynamic billboards that made me crash my car in Saints Row 2 when I saw a gigantic ad for The Jeff Dunham Show when I second guessed what I just saw.
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actually sat down with sayonara wild hearts FOR REAL
oops i basically liveposted playing the game SORRY NOT SORRY
its an infinite runner with QTES, was gonna try and get all the little diamonds on a couple levels BUT SWITCHING LANES FEELS LIKE SHIIIIIIIT
i wanted more rez less temple run 2, the music is good for a videogame, but my snob ass felt like ive heard a better version of every song
I JUST REALLY WANTED REZBIANS
jeez i thought maybe i was harsh on the controls but then it put me in a boat of a car and made the screen wider than i could actually see
thats the worst level, I WAS FINALLY GETTING USED TO THE NOT TIGHT AT ALL CONTROLS
i just want digital controls i think snapping into a lane like amplitude would make this game 100x more enjoyable
NO WOW THE CAR LEVEL WASNT THE WORST TO CONTROL ITS THE FUCKING FIRST PERSON FLYING THROUGH A OBSTACLE COURSE LIKE STARFOX BUT YOU CANT INVERT THE CONTROLS LEVEL
im gonna finish it but these controls REALLY don’t want me to. at least the levels are short, so if you hate pilotwings or saints row high gravity driving or the bonus level in tempest 2000 or QTES they end quickly
theres also a level skip option if you fuck up a lot, but the best part of the game are its visuals so i turned that option off immediately
theres a neat wireframe VR level but it still felt like, i dunno a free mobile game where i drag my finger on the screen IT WAS FRUIT NINJA
like i thought it was cool but you know that feeling you get when you realize sound shapes is just a platformer? thats how i feel in half the levels of this game
GOT SOME BATTLETOADS AIRBIKE BULLSHIT GOING ON IN ONE OF THE LATER LEVELS
might actually skip this mob psycho GET TO THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE SCREEN BEFORE WE SHOW YOU THE THING YOURE GETTING TO BULLSHIT ASS LEVEL
rote memorizationnnnnnn
i didnt skip it! im an honorable gamer
of course the first gold rank i get is the actual controls like rez level
WHEN YOU LIKE THE LEVELS THEYRE WAYY TOO SHORT
there’s a torus trooper level too!
OKAY
this game is an alright minigame complilation of mechanics from games i love, but never executed nearly as well
WHOA I JUST SURFED DOWN SOMEONE’S PUKE AFTER I KICKED THEIR ASS THATS NEAT
time for the last level
god the last level wants to be thumper so bad
okay the last level fucking rules that made the game totally worth it! THE KISSES!!!
decent spiritual sequel to rub rabbits
the game restarts instantly when you die which is nice too, its liberal with checkpoints
OH i haven’t touched the horoscope riddles or whatever im guessing that unlocks story i dunno i haven’t even looked at it!
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The Ghostbusters game kept the trophy for vaporizing the ham at the bar mitzvah.
Anyway I took a picture of my TV of a busted not-Doritos machine. They probably scanned a Cheezit or something.
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Devil Engine sure is kicking my ass and I am OK with it. There is a filter to make everything look like Zero Ranger hell yeah.
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I’ve also been playing Sayonara Wild Hearts for the past week or so, after Birch brought it to my attention. I’m glad that the game is forgiving and lets you continue even if you don’t have good reflexes or timing. I’m lucky to get a silver ranking in many of the levels.
I probably could get the gold ranking eventually in more levels if I made an effort to memorize them before moving on. But it’s not as if these are R-Type levels with interesting things to memorize. It’s just a matter of which “lane” to occupy at a given moment to get more gems. And even then the controls can be awkward, as daphaknee said. There isn’t the precision of Audiosurf.
The game is fun and the music is catchy, though, and I’m glad I tried it out.
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more of a playable concept album than a traditional music game
Still possibly my goty
I found it to be a whole lot less than the sum of its inspiration, I might have to try it again on a different platform when there aren’t five other games I’d rather be playing
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if the controls weren’t awful itd be on my favorite games list. they really get bad in some of the gimmicky levels and like… not being given the option to inverse them at some parts that are like flying a plane really baffled me
if i wanted to play it again itd be a great game. its packaged well, its gay, there’s pop music, the graphics rule but you cant have all that with bad controls you just cant
harmonix should just hire that team so they can figure out how to make the game feel good to play
at its best moments it reminded me of that game that jake from kentucky route zero did with m83, for a project where devs made music video games
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They shoulda done Ecto Cooler for that drink machine
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I have fond memories of that, it was a good jammed-out thing
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Ecto cooler is owned by Coca Cola. They sold it without ghostbusters branding for a few years but still keeping the name.
So it would have all the same issues as working out the rights to Doritos, even if it did start out as a ghostbusters tie-in.
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yeah i wanted to playit again and im like oh nevermind its an old unity game rip
If we had the package, I think it’d still run, but it was web-hosted and not downloadable, as I recall…
It was a museum commission, right? I would assume they archived it, I wonder how they envision caring for software like this in their collection.