We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

I'm actually happy they're abandoning Darkstalkers forever, i'd rather remember it as the awesome franchise it always has been as opposed to see it fall apart like most of Capcom's other Ip's.

You're forgetting that Capcom is legitimately known for being the best fighting game developer in the industry. And that they managed to bring another Marvel vs Capcom to the table years after the last one, and made it damn good.

DMC and Megaman did fall apart, unfortunately, but there's still a huge chance that Capcom wouldn't fuck up this time.

Capcom was the best fighting game developer. I wouldn't call MvC3 damn good, it was okay at best. Way better than SF4 though.

I guarantee you that if for whatever reason they decide to make a new DS game, they'll fuck it up. They already showed some signs in Resurrection, as a port, it's great 'cause it plays just like the original and it has GGPO multiplayer. As a compilation however, it sucks. It fails to compile everything about Darkstalkers, even if you ignore the fact that the first game is not included. I have many reasons to dislike the compilation and i plan to type a big rant about it at some point.

They don't take risks anymore, if it's because they won't profit otherwise or because key producers left the company or corporate assholes are in charge now i don't know, the point is that they don't take any kind of risk anymore and as a result, everything they produce now is cash grabbing hollywood-like garbage.

I don't know, a new Darkstalkers would be the only thing I actually trust about Capcom at this point. I really like MvC3, and SF4, a lot. They both felt updated and modern, while keeping core mechanics and gameplay intact. They're out to make a ton of bucks and all, but they've still got a development team with it and a lot of talent and knowledge over fast-paced action games. I don't really see a reason to have such a pessimistic outlook anyway. We'll just have to wait and see.

I really like MvC3, and SF4, a lot. They both felt updated and modern, while keeping core mechanics and gameplay intact.

Not saying you are not allowed to like these games ... but aren't you like 17 years old? So when MvC2/SFIII 3rd Strike came out, you were four. Did you really play enough of them to form an opinion like that?

I played a ton of MvC2 at my cousin's house, among several other fighting games. That was around 2004, when I was 8 or 9. I remember a lot about it. I didn't play Third Strike as a kid though, I only played one of the versions of SF2 on an old SNES at my neighbor's.

EDIT: I certainly won't say that I can form an opinion like that that is as valid as someone who played a lot of MvC2 at an older age though. Just that everything I remember seems to have carried over well to MvC3. There's also a lot of folks who don't like the art style of either MvC3 and SF4 when I absolutely love it. I don't know.

EDIT: Some more Dark Souls 2 news:
https://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=538551

A: The version shown before the interview actually ran on PC. If the first Dark Souls was adapted from consoles to PC, this time, it's the opposite. The PC version serves as a base from which the warranty is adaptations consoles. Clearly, the game is being developed simultaneously on different machines directly internally.

On the subject of bloated budgets, its a business model that I don't think can sustain forever in the gaming economy.

When the game industry initially rose in budget, they not only had a high ceiling of technical quality, but a huge untapped pool of consumers. NOW, the amount of space for technical improvement is a good bit smaller, and there's not a huge untapped market of people looking for the type of game you're churning out, and there's quite a few other companies using the same business model to compete with. And none of that is to mention that a good portion of the consumer base is becoming increasingly fractured and jaded with the current state of the industry. Now, as Wheat said, a lot of the gross income is used to cover the huge amounts of money that go into making a game, so when you're projecting 5 million sales and you get 1 million, that alone could be a major crippler. And if you were to continue your usual practice and continue to get underwhelming sales, then you get a bankrupt company.

And if you think companies, especially those that are international, wouldn't continue their usual practices despite increasingly dire financial issues, boy let me tell you a story from outside the video gaming world. No, this is from a seedier world called Online Poker that I have been a part of because I was just the most adorable degenerate. I'll spoiler it though.

SpoilerShow

See, there was this huge online poker site called Full Tilt Poker, where you could deposit money to gamble it at DA CARDZ. Now, see, they had this one, quite popular way of depositing directly from your bank account, where they give you your credits for that money immediately, and they get it out of your account when the transaction is authorized. Now see, the trouble was that, and its really quite hilarious, a good percentage of the time the site never got that money out of your bank account. These are known now as the "Phantom Deposits" and they went on for quite a long time, to the point where somewhere in the area of 130 million dollars on the tables (out of about 350 million dollars total) were fraudulent. As in, completely and utterly unsubstantiated by any real world currency. Now, of course, the owners of the site were still taking rake and still cashing out real money, which means the amount of fraudulent money on the tables was likely even greater. Meanwhile, the average player either A) Thought their money was safe and never tried to withdraw large amounts or B) Lost it the old-fashioned way. So this is how hundreds of millions of completely imaginary money went on unnoticed for so long, and it could have been longer.

But, eventually, in April 2011, the US Department of Justice was able to crash down on Full Tilt (Which was based in the Isle of Man) for bank fraud. Not because of the whole "Phantom Deposit" thing though, but because Full Tilt apparently was representing itself to US banks as a jewelry company due to the legal gray area of online poker in the US since 2006. Most of the owners got off scot-free with deals, helped out especially by another poker site (who by the way was also being crashed down upon by the DOJ for the same exact crime of bank fraud) buying off Full Tilt's debts and paying back the players for their missing money. That is, except for US Full-Tilt players, who are to have their funds reimbursed to them by the US DOJ.

The overall point of this spoilered story is that, even with obvious and predictable insolvency staring directly in the face of a company, as long as the top are getting some money and the layman is none the wiser, they can continue to go about their daily routines and practices like nothing's the matter until the bitter end, when the top will still probably get away with it but a lot of other people are kinda pissed. This is the kind of mentality that can lead a huge company like THQ to not only default on a 50 million dollar bank loan, but to wait a bit before saying "Oh okay we're gonna have to declare bankruptcy aight cool". And this was after basically an ENTIRE YEAR of financial failure, a year that STARTED with this

https://www.gamespot.com/news/thq-issued...ce-6349477

If game sales continue to underwhelm game companies, I'm sure some of them will scale back budgets to avoid consistently hemorrhaging money and taking on debts. I'm also sure that some of them will continue to do the same thing full force for as long as they can, until they're forced into bankruptcy, conglomerate merger, or get really goddamn lucky with a couple of huge hit.

Western budget standards have always seemed extreme to me in comparison to the rest of the world, but I could be wrong. It just never seems like a problem discussed in the east.

Laughably, a game like The Witcher 2 cost 8 million to make.

the bright side of all this is that I can engage in fanciful fantasies of EA collapsing due to a short series of flops

the bright side of all this is that I can engage in fanciful fantasies of EA collapsing due to a short series of flops

Madden is indestructible.

So did you guys see dresden codaks Legend of Zelda redesign thing

So did you guys see dresden codaks Legend of Zelda redesign thing

Yeah, it's awesome. Too bad we'll never see anything like it.

I think i like his re-designs more than his comics.

E: Quoted to avoid confusion.

So did you guys see dresden codaks Legend of Zelda redesign thing

The designs are good, but it bugs me that it's basically (and unfortunately) a gender swap, especially when Shiek is already a well-established character and a game or spin-off focused on her mechanics would be great. It's really nothing more than Link but female, when there could be much more interesting options for a Zelda-focused Zelda game.

I haven't read Dresden Codak, but I've always liked the art even though the panel layout kind of pisses me off all the time.

I was in the stream off and on when he was making it and people kept asking for more Sheik in there, too. From what I can tell, though, the point was to get a game with similar gameplay to show how you don't need Link and Zelda in their roles to keep the same game, so picking Sheik so you could do something entirely different wasn't the point to begin with. Also, the fact that a lot of people assume Sheik is a guy kind of goes against the gender issue, too.

I like the mechanic it brought up of having the "items" (spells in this case) being grouped into premade sets of three. It helps encourage ways to build synergy between the items which is always fun, and makes switching less cumbersome than pausing and fiddling in a big icon menu.

The issues I had were, first, the clockwork stuff since I feel steampunk's overdone and overrated, but mainly how a lot of the stuff he added in really feels like it came from an "ooh that sounds fun I've always wanted that let's jam that in" school of design that I've ranted about before. Granted, that's not really an issue since there's literally no chance this'll be made, but still bugs me.

The designs are good, but it bugs me that it's basically (and unfortunately) a gender swap, especially when Shiek is already a well-established character and a game or spin-off focused on her mechanics would be great.

Ehh i dunno, she's still built around magic and wisdom like always, she doesn't carry a shield and she's apparently more acrobatic. Sounds like a lot more than just female Link. I love how Prince Link is a helpless-noble-but-adventure-craving type like so many "strong" female protagonists.

The clockwork stuff since I feel steampunk's overdone and overrated

Yeah he's really into that shit, and hoods, every main character has a hood.

I actually liked the hood and how it was a clear link to Link's hat while keeping her magician motif going.

Ehh i dunno, she's still built around magic and wisdom like always, she doesn't carry a shield and she's apparently more acrobatic. Sounds like a lot more than just female Link. I love how Prince Link is a helpless-noble-but-adventure-craving type like so many "strong" female protagonists.

I suppose. I just feel that it doesn't do enough to make it more than just a gender swap. Like, a lot of Zelda's feminity and reserved nature is gone, as well as her status as a figurehead of Hyrule. Link is the Prince of Hyrule in this case, which is a huge deal of Zelda's character.

Personally, I'd just like to see a game that has Shiek as the protag and fleshes out her role in Hyrule, while keeping Zelda's character intact.

Yeah i see what you mean, it would be better if Zelda kept her royalty.

I liked the hood too, i'm just saying that he draws a lot of hooded characters.

I think complaining "but Zelda is a princess!" is sort of missing the point. Sheik exists because Zelda needed to sneak around and stuff, I don't see why she couldn't be a heroy hero in a different timeline. I don't think anyone would argue that Tetra improved as a character when she transformed into Zelda and was suddenly demure and helpless.

Nah, I'm saying that Zelda/Shiek would be totally be the hero in this case. Zelda and Shiek clearly seem to have different abilities within each form. Assuming that's the case, I mean. Magic is weird. It doesn't necessarily mean that Zelda would have to hide around as Shiek, but could perhaps switch between those forms when needed in terms of gameplay.

And yeah, that's pretty much the only thing I agreed with from Tropes vs. Women, that was kind of bullshit that Tetra's suddenly helpless now that she was Zelda.

This was going to be my third post in a row that started with "Yeah..."

Anyway, yeah that sucked. Though Tetra was the first Zelda that actually helped fight Ganondorf (Zelda in OoT doesn't count 'cause she just pointed her arms towards him). Man, she was a rad Zelda up until that point.

In other (possibly old?) news:

SpoilerShow

More GlaDos dialogue, good. Also, Evil Dead? is Bruce Campbell voicing Ash? I'm confused.

That's not Bruce Campbell, unfortunately.

Booo.

Oh, I wasn't necessarily saying Sheik would replace this Zelda in Diaz's game, I was mostly speaking on the behalf of a possible game with the said Zelda/Sheik switching as an alternative to Diaz's concept. Diaz's concept already mentions Zelda's Sheikah training being part of her abilities.

I've just always felt like Zelda has different abilities while Sheik, which is why I proposed that idea. We're on different wavelengths here, I think.

EDIT: By the way, I agree with what you're saying, it's entirely true, but I still would rather see a game with Zelda/Sheik in some form than the Zelda Diaz had come up with.

Starbound's accepting pre-orders now! I've already gotten the $15 tier.

A friend of mine is gonna buy a 4-pack. Game looks great, Terraria was a pleasant surprise and it looks like there's a ton of content in this.

I've just always felt like Zelda has different abilities while Sheik, which is why I proposed that idea. We're on different wavelengths here, I think.

Did you get that from Smash Bros or something? It just seems a weird assumption to me since it seems to me like assuming Superman has different powers as Clark Kent.

I've just always felt like Zelda has different abilities while Sheik, which is why I proposed that idea. We're on different wavelengths here, I think.

Did you get that from Smash Bros or something? It just seems a weird assumption to me since it seems to me like assuming Superman has different powers as Clark Kent.

Yeah, pretty much. I know that Smash Bros is by no means a canonical gauge of Sheik's abilities, I'm just using it as an example for possible gameplay. Deku Nut teleporting, whip chains, throwing knives, etc.

I don't know man, it just sounds interesting.