We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

They HAVE ditched a bit of the super serious stories! I mean, they still like to have elements about it, but Colors was pretty goofy overall, and Generations never took itself too seriously either. Eggman and 'Botnik basically telling everybody about how great they are is pretty funny. It was Unleashed where they started going lighter a bit, and then continued from there on. How undramatic do you want exactly?

Oh, well that sounds alright i guess. I've never played anything past Sonic Rush but i've seen gameplay videos of all the modern sonic games, i just assumed they still had that part, wasn't the whole deal of Sonic Generations that some kind of time reaper overlord or something appeared in the Sonic universe? or am i thinking of Castlevania Judgement?

I think i'm gonna rent Generations, i don't want to pay full price for it.

BRP prove your nerdness and ID the two I can't because I have no idea what they are.

*whinnne* do I haaave to?

SpoilerShow

Sega Mark III
Sega Master System II/III (not clear which, I suspect it wasn’t drawn from reference right proper, because they don’t curve that much in front)

It was more popular outside the U.S. than in.

But yeah, three versions of basically the same thing. It’s not like it was in Japan, where there was an actual reason for calling it the Master System: it was a Mark III, but fully perked (and in a different shell). Was the Master System a fully perked anything outside Japan? Absolutely not.

Complete change of topic.

HG101 Senior Editor of the UK Desk John Szczepaniak is crowdfunding a video game history book focusing on Japanese developers. Seems a little pricey at first glance, but this would legit cost that much because of the scope and time requirements.

It keeps coming up and is inevitable, but based on what has been shown so far, I think Lost Worlds/Galaxy comparisons are fairly superficial. The stage design looks more like the special stages of 2 or Chaotix, except they are regular and on the outside of the tube.

I guess, yeah. It was more a "not X-Treme" than a "yes Galaxy".

Kickstarter: “Now you too can be an overeager TV exec from Perfect Hair Forever.”

Kickstarter enables the crowdfunding of outright scams, let alone stupid ideas. I'm honestly curious how many video game Kickstarters go from full funding (or especially massive stretch goal funding) to fully realised game that fulfills everything promised.

I mean I know investment is inherently risky but Kickstarter's kind of morphed into an indie preorder system anymore, for video games at least.

Am I a joyless husk of a woman with no vision

or

does the immediacy and novelty of Kickstarter enable crowdfunding of really stupid ideas

the answer lies somewhere in the middle

You are "or"?

I'm honestly curious how many video game Kickstarters go from full funding (or especially massive stretch goal funding) to fully realised game that fulfills everything promised.

I'm pretty sure so far that figure is "Zero"
The thing hasn't even been around long enough for any game projects at all to be finished, everyone is still waiting to find out if the thing actually works and meanwhile despite the no evidence we have, plenty more projects are getting funded.

Yeah okay *goes to play FTL*

i am shame to admit

that i still haven't beaten FTL

that game still has me huddling in a corner out of utter shame.

a literal corner.

this computer doesn’t fit into corners very well, maybe i should face the other way.

e: this will come in handy i am sure of it

to my (semi-)eternal shame I have never sat through and finished an entire Sonic game

Sorry sega

so E3 is next week
any announcements people look forwards to? (Dks2 announcements confirmed by way of giant poster yaaay)

In the interest of finishing the Dead Space series, I finally got around to playing Dead Space 3. (Don't worry, EA isn't getting a cent out of it.) I'm finding that while it isn't actually that bad, it's...well, it's just Call of Duty: Space Ops at this point. The very first enemies were almost literally Nazi Zombies™ from the same franchise, and the entire opening level made me nostalgic for the admittedly very well done original Dead Space intoductory sequence. Additionally, gone are any survival horror elements. I have yet to run out of ammo or medkits yet; actually, the only thing I've run out of so far has been inventory space, and multiple times. In fact, there are only two parts I have legitimately enjoyed so far, and both of them only because they made the engineer in me dance happily on his feet:

1. Zooming around in zero-G outside the four spaceships
   
2. Being able to manufacture my own weapons
   

It saddens me that there is nothing even remotely survival horror-y on this list. At least Dead Space 2 tried, but at this point...well, it's a little difficult to be afraid of anything when I literally made myself an assault rifle with a masterkey in the first half hour. Even most of the jump scares fail to get me at this point because I can fill them full of generic brand buckshot at a moment's notice. Furthermore, the fact that every weapon uses the same ammunition means that the grenade launcher I created is actually more efficient than any of the more "intelligent" ways of killing enemies (such as the game's own trademark dismembering mechanic), because as long as I hit within a certain range of my target it guarantees a 1:1 shot:kill ratio. Not that it matters - with ammo being as plentiful as it is, I haven't really suffered for not taking full advantage of that ruthless efficiency.

This is more or less what I was expecting, but I'd be lying if I said I hadn't hoped to be proven wrong.

to my (semi-)eternal shame I have never sat through and finished an entire Sonic game

Sorry sega

so E3 is next week
any announcements people look forwards to? (Dks2 announcements confirmed by way of giant poster yaaay)

The Nintendo ones, mainly. Especially Pokemon X/Y and Super Smash Bros. 4.

Although I'm interested the Xbox One display, if only to find out whether it's as bad as we all think it will be.

Oh and also the Elder Scrolls Online, I guess. I normally dislike MMORPGs very strongly, but I guess I'll give this one a look.

I played the first Dead Space, 20 minutes in i thought it was kinda neat, 30 minutes in i thought it was okay, then 40 minutes in i realized it was terrible.

Wait, the first Dead Space was terrible? I thought that was the good one, and the series got progressively worse after that. (Then again, I haven't had the chance to see more than 40 minutes of Dead Space gameplay.) What was so bad about it?

It's alright at first, it sets up the mood okay and the gravity rooms are interesting. But it never goes past that, the enemies get really boring and repetitive and it's nothing but jump scares, the whole game is also literally on rails with that light on the floor that tells you where to go at all times and the plot is just garbage that goes on forever.

Overall is pretty mediocre.

The first dead space was alright, the second one is where it really hit its stride, then the third was pbbbbbbhbbbbbhbbbbbbbt dorritos double XP pepsi slim jims.

I'm several hours in and I can count the number of times the game has actually gotten me with anything remotely horror-like on one hand. The number is four. They were all jump scares.

To be honest, at this point the jump scares don't even get me. This is a saddening fact and it only occurred to me yesterday when a monster jumped out of a vent right in front of me and I promptly fired my magical masterkey and dismembered pretty much every limb on its body in a single shot purely out of reflex. I only remembered I was supposed to have been surprised when I noticed the musical sting fading.

Honestly, the best part of the game so far (other than assembling my own weapons) was a segment in a dark environment where a horde of lesser foes was overwhelming me in a circular room. It started with a hallucination/mental attack scene (the only one I've seen so far in the game) that ended with the lights of my helmet flickering back on and me getting a slight shock to note how much they resembled an evil jack o' lantern face, then winding up being rushed in a rectangular/circular room with tight corners and being chased by a pile of weak but fast-moving critters (meaning my shotgun was much more difficult to use than usual). It got my pulse racing and I actually found myself muttering, "Now this is more like it!" Unfortunately, when it ended I found I'd only used two of my fuckmillion medkits to get through it. A shame. The feeling was also completely ruined when I left the area and was treated to a lovely scripted cutscene of machinery operating itself, as the NPC who was supposed to be going through the motions had somehow managed to get despawned.

The rest of my medkits were sucked up by the third fight with the gimmick boss, wherein the sequence you'd used the previous two times only got you a certain distance. After that it became a Zelda boss, requiring you to hit a switch, lure it into position, then AGGRESSIVELY MASH THE F KEY FOR LIKE AN ENTIRE MINUTE and then boom you won the fight. (It sucked up all my medkits because it took me so darn long to figure out what I needed to do.)

Also I agree with Gen that Dead Space 2 is where it hits closest to the mark. It's an acceptable blend of horror and action and made me hope the franchise was heading in the right direction. It has fewer terrifying moments than Dead Space 1, but still makes some memorable ones, and the combat was greatly improved without sacrificing the survival horror feel; ammunition and health were both pretty scarce still.

One thing i really liked though was it's lack of a HUD. Like i said, it sets the mood fairly well and everything but it's like... whatever. The entire game is a fetch quest for the dude that keeps telling you what to do, also there's a ghost girlfriend girl that keeps popping up? Who cares, there are like three or four different enemies in the game.

One thing i really liked though was it's lack of a HUD. Like i said, it sets the mood fairly well and everything but it's like... whatever. The entire game is a fetch quest for the dude that keeps telling you what to do, also there's a ghost girlfriend girl that keeps popping up? Who cares, there are like three or four different enemies in the game.

I agree with you on the lack of a HUD; it was a great move. The fetch quest quest structure and the ghost girlfriend didn't particularly bother me, but I understand that they're a little lazy. I could, however, count nine different recurring enemies off the top of my head, so either you're exaggerating more than I feel is necessary or you didn't pay much attention. (This isn't "this will change your outlook on the game," just "this thing you said kind of annoyed me.")

Unrelated to Dead Space 1, related to Dead Space 3: Apparently at some point the game bugged out and gave me infinite ammo. Maybe it's because I pirated it? The only way to be sure would be to buy the game proper, and I don't intend to do that. At least now I can get really silly without worrying about weapon efficiency. Chaingun with underbarrel flamethrower? Yes please~

Making the game easier is only a punishment if you think about it too hard, they should have done like Earthbound and made every enemy ridiculously powerful

I retell this story every once in a while, but while I was playing Mercenaries 2 it somehow locked all enemies into A-Team mode. After restarting the console, however, it turns out the Chinese soldiers are supposed to kill you if you steal their stuff and kill their guys (who knew!?). Had to quit even though it was only a couple hours from the end.

If you wanted to hear 1 hour and 15 minutes of gushing about the System/Bioshock series I’ve got your guy. Got some interesting arguments, some that seem to struggle for air. And he trips over some buzzwords. It’s clear that he could do with some better production values, read off a script, re-dub slip-ups, not mention that he works in food service, that sort of thing, but these are incidental issues. But if you want an overview of a microcosm of FPS gaming, it works.

(Dead Space isn’t all the same, but on paper it sounds startlingly like System Shock 2.)

I could, however, count nine different recurring enemies off the top of my head, so either you're exaggerating more than I feel is necessary or you didn't pay much attention. (This isn't "this will change your outlook on the game," just "this thing you said kind of annoyed me.")

That's okay. I was exaggerating a bit, what i was getting at is that there isn't much variety in the way you engage them.