General Gaming Discussion

[Heatman]

On 9/6/2022 at 2:05 AM, killamch89 said:

Thanks man but IGN's reviews aren't exactly the greatest or most accurate. I'd much rather ask fellow gamers than these journalists who can barely play Cuphead.

Well, that's completely understandable too. I also do that as too but it's definitely going to be from a fellow gamer that I know would give an honest review. If that's gotten, the review will definitely be 10x better than what you're going to get from IGN. 

[Akun]

There's a lot of hype around CD Projekt Red "fixing" Cyberpunk 2077 again, and it did tempt me a little bit to repurchase the game and play it again (I refunded it after one hour on Steam), but after doing some research on the "life path" options, how they barely have any impact on the rest of the story, I'm once again not interested in the game anymore, which is a shame.

However, all these complaints about the life paths does leave me thinking. RPGs like Cyberpunk with their false illusion of choice is the reason why I don't enjoy sandbox games because the outcome of your decisions in sandbox games are as inconsequential as Cyberpunk 2077's life paths. Think about it. Choosing whether to be a Nomad or a Corpo in Cyberpunk only means something in your mind. Whether V is a different person from any other player's version of V is in your mind, because the story's gonna be largely the same for everyone. It's all imaginary, just like sandbox games like The Sims where you imagine the Sims to have more interesting lives than just whatever career paths the base games offer you (I haven't played The Sims games for a long time, but one thing that bothered me was that you couldn't even see what the Sims' workplace was like, making your choice of career path for your Sims feel all the more hollow). It's like playing with Lego blocks and imagining your Lego man to be some superhero when he doesn't even have a costume. It's like spending 100 hours designing a theme park in some super creative fashion - Planet Coaster doesn't give you extra points for creativity as far as I know, it only rewards you for meeting the visitors' needs and making the rides fun. Same with Minecraft. The only "impact," "interaction" and "reward" that exist for these games are in your mind.

In that sense, while that ultimately means that Cyberpunk 2077's inconsequential life paths wouldn't make the game appealing for me, I don't think the game did anything different from other RPGs or even sandbox games in terms of offering players the false illusion of choice. Many modern RPGs' "choices" are aesthetic-based, or more commonly, the choices only affect the gameplay, never the story, so Cyberpunk 2077's "faults" in terms of its life paths are more like the industry standard for modern RPGs. That's because it's hard to cater to the choices of billions of players. It's hard to make a bazillion different outcomes and paths based on player choices, even if CD Projekt Red did promise a game that "would change gaming forever." That's why when a game does create the lightning in a bottle, the rare game where your choices actually lead to multiple outcomes and endings, that's when it's such a gem to me, which is why I held Detroit: Become Human in such high regards because your dialogue choices alone could ultimately lead to so many different variations. Even Fallout: New Vegas did this better, even though its "outcomes" is just a series of slideshows, the same way Mass Effect 3's developers added different "outcomes" in the extended cut of the game through a series of slideshows.

But anyway, it's why I find it a shame that the roleplaying aspect of many role-playing games isn't as immersive as I would like it to be, for a game's story to reflect on your choices the same way a gamemaster would work the plot around your characters' choices and backstory in a tabletop RPG. It's why "roleplaying" is such a joke among a lot of MMO RPGs. I remember how roleplaying is pretty much dead in Star Wars: The Old Republic because it's just a bunch of people imagining their characters going on adventures the base game didn't offer. It's just kinda sad, to be honest.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Akun

[killamch89]

On 9/6/2022 at 7:34 PM, Kane99 said:

I don't mind IGN to some extent, but I don't really follow them for their reviews. I've heard stories about how they have plagiarized some reviews, and to be fair those were the writers and not IGN themselves. But it happens a lot more with IGN it seems, so I'm not really interested in taking their opinions at heart these days. 

Wasn't that like two-three years ago or something like that? I do remember that and I even think we have a thread about it. 

On 9/6/2022 at 6:21 PM, Shagger said:

There was a time when nothing IGN said was worth taking seriously, but in recent years I think they've become a lot better and more willing to score thier reviews for the players rather than to keep publishers happy. I still think the way that game's journalism has become as least partly dependant on game's industry success is flawed, but I don't doubt for one second that even big journalistic entities like IGN have passionate, dedicated people who want to do right by the gaming public. Maybe game's journalism is less dependent of advertising from games publishers than it used to be, I don't really know, but I do think it's a hell of lot better than it was even 4 or 5 years ago.

To be honest, I've checked out a few reviews in recent years and I'm just not impressed by some of what IGN does. Some games they just don't review thoroughly and automatically write them off without doing enough research about it especially if they're not interested in the genre.

[Heatman]

54 minutes ago, killamch89 said:

To be honest, I've checked out a few reviews in recent years and I'm just not impressed by some of what IGN does. Some games they just don't review thoroughly and automatically write them off without doing enough research about it especially if they're not interested in the genre.

I think that their biggest problem right now is there laziness and inconsistency in some of their reviews. It seems like there are some games they devote more time when it comes to working on its review while there are some they would just butcher carelessly. 

[Knight Plug]

This morning, Konami showed off a new Suikoden game. They have more games lined up for this afternoon at Tokyo Game Show. But because of their policy on showing violent games, I seriously doubt Silent Hill will be making an appearance later on. 

If anything like that were to be shown off at any event, it would likely be at the big one, which is the Game Awards.

[Heatman]

1 hour ago, Candy Stick said:

This morning, Konami showed off a new Suikoden game. They have more games lined up for this afternoon at Tokyo Game Show. But because of their policy on showing violent games, I seriously doubt Silent Hill will be making an appearance later on. 

If anything like that were to be shown off at any event, it would likely be at the big one, which is the Game Awards.

There's already a thread Here on the Tokyo Game Show. It's best suited for discussion on the subject in case you haven't gotten a chance to see it 😊. 

[Yaramaki]

Knowing full well this is a pointless rant on vgr, i just had to get this out there, so thanks in advance if you're reading all the way trough and get my point or for skipping it all togheter you have my thanks aswell :

Disclaimer : I'm not posting this to show off, I made this post on another board as to just defend myself, why i don't buy a lot of stuff anymore because even for me prices for retro games are out of control. I got some flack on another board that i don't collect a lot of retro games anymore, to me the 6th generation of consoles are old enough to be considered retro but apperently not for other people. It's not that i care about others oppinion too much but i'd rather make my point clear.

Here is the reason why i don't collect a lot of retro anymore, while i don't really follow prices of stuff i already have too much, prices for retro games are out of control take this game for example. Dicing Knight Period for the wonderswan color, while it's never been a cheap game up until five years ago you could get this for for 300 bucks here is my copy in case you think i'm talking out of my ass, which i paid 275 at the time was probably too much but i had to have it that + it was a brand new copy :

And just look at this auction on yahoo japan that ended a few hours ago, Consider me flabbergasted man this is fucking madness who can afford that in exeptional expensive times like we are in now 1500 bucks :

All in all i should be happy that it goes for so much money but on the other hand these insane prices are ruining what once was a great hobby, it still is fun for me after all these years but it's just different as i can't and don't want to afford paying these prices. 

 

[Kane99]

On 9/13/2022 at 5:12 PM, killamch89 said:

Wasn't that like two-three years ago or something like that? I do remember that and I even think we have a thread about it. 

To be honest, I've checked out a few reviews in recent years and I'm just not impressed by some of what IGN does. Some games they just don't review thoroughly and automatically write them off without doing enough research about it especially if they're not interested in the genre.

Probably. I know there was a few videos on it when it happened, resulting in the guy who did the reviews to be fired by IGN. He also ran his own gaming channel, which failed miserably. 

1 hour ago, Yaramaki said:

Knowing full well this is a pointless rant on vgr, i just had to get this out there, so thanks in advance if you're reading all the way trough and get my point or for skipping it all togheter you have my thanks aswell :

Disclaimer : I'm not posting this to show off, I made this post on another board as to just defend myself, why i don't buy a lot of stuff anymore because even for me prices for retro games are out of control. I got some flack on another board that i don't collect a lot of retro games anymore, to me the 6th generation of consoles are old enough to be considered retro but apperently not for other people. It's not that i care about others oppinion too much but i'd rather make my point clear.

Here is the reason why i don't collect a lot of retro anymore, while i don't really follow prices of stuff i already have too much, prices for retro games are out of control take this game for example. Dicing Knight Period for the wonderswan color, while it's never been a cheap game up until five years ago you could get this for for 300 bucks here is my copy in case you think i'm talking out of my ass, which i paid 275 at the time was probably too much but i had to have it that + it was a brand new copy :

And just look at this auction on yahoo japan that ended a few hours ago, Consider me flabbergasted man this is fucking madness who can afford that in exeptional expensive times like we are in now 1500 bucks :

All in all i should be happy that it goes for so much money but on the other hand these insane prices are ruining what once was a great hobby, it still is fun for me after all these years but it's just different as i can't and don't want to afford paying these prices. 

 

I wish I had some rare games still in the box in my collection. I have In the Hunt on the PS1 which I heard last goes for like $400 used. I don't think I have anything else that's too rare. But as video game collecting becomes more popular, I think some of my current collection will go up in price. 

[Heatman]

5 hours ago, Kane99 said:

Probably. I know there was a few videos on it when it happened, resulting in the guy who did the reviews to be fired by IGN. He also ran his own gaming channel, which failed miserably. 

Yeah, I followed up on that guy's story and he was horrible at it. Even though IGN haven't always been putting much effort in their reviews, the guy's work wasn't anything to write home about. 

[Crazycrab]

On 9/16/2022 at 8:23 AM, Candy Stick said:

This morning, Konami showed off a new Suikoden game. They have more games lined up for this afternoon at Tokyo Game Show. But because of their policy on showing violent games, I seriously doubt Silent Hill will be making an appearance later on. 

If anything like that were to be shown off at any event, it would likely be at the big one, which is the Game Awards.

 

I think the main reason they didn't show showcase any Silent Hill games is because they are (most likely) not publishing any!

 

@Candy Stick I'm only saying this to help, you seriously need to stop!  It seems like every time Konami starts to stand up you think their about to announce a Silent Hill game and you get all worked up.  They they just fart into their chair, pretend it doesn't stink and sit back down!  Outside of blind optimism from fans like yourself I have not seen any activity that suggests that any project under the Silent Hill IP is even in pre-production, let alone about to be announced at TGS, TGA, E3, Gamescom or anywhere!  Yet everyone pisses themselves at every opportunity when it comes to rumours about this damn game, the latest being these "screenshots" from Bloober Team's already debunked "Silent Hill 2 Remake":

 

  

 

IT'S JUST SOME GUY STARING IN A MIRROR!  But it seems like the only scenario where such a one of a kind dramatic moment could happen is a Silent Hill project right? Even that's assuming the screenshot is genuine which it almost certainly isn't.  I'd call it a joke but it really isn't funny anymore.  PLEASE wake up and start smelling this bullshit for what it is.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Crazycrab

[Crazycrab]

57 minutes ago, Heatman said:

Yeah, I followed up on that guy's story and he was horrible at it. Even though IGN haven't always been putting much effort in their reviews, the guy's work wasn't anything to write home about. 

 

I remember that.  He was caught plagiarising a review of Dead Cells from a smaller creator, then after he tried to defend himself by challenging everyone to find more examples of plagiarism his "work".  Of course they did MANY times over which effectively flushed his entire career down the crapper.  Jim Sterling made a quite entertaining video the whole thing.

 

 

[Heatman]

3 minutes ago, Crazycrab said:

 

I remember that.  He was caught plagiarising a review of Dead Cells from a smaller creator, then after he tried to defend himself by challenging everyone to find more examples of plagiarism his "work".  Of course they did MANY times over which effectively flushed his entire career down the crapper.  Jim Sterling made a quite entertaining video the whole thing.

 

 

Yeah exactly!! He actually felt that gamers weren't keeping tabs on what he's been doing doing for a while and his hubris caught him dead to rights and that was over for him. 

[Akun]

Sold my entire SMT collection for $400. Not a bad return, considering I bought each 3DS game for about $110 on Amazon. And that's why I love physical copies of my games because I could resell them like this. By comparison, I probably can't get a refund for my Steam purchase of Soul Hackers 2 because it's been more than 14 days since it got released.

Ah well. I'm ready to move on from my SMT days. It's been an interesting phase of my life, but that's all for now.

[Shagger]

35 minutes ago, Akun said:

Sold my entire SMT collection for $400. Not a bad return, considering I bought each 3DS game for about $110 on Amazon. And that's why I love physical copies of my games because I could resell them like this. By comparison, I probably can't get a refund for my Steam purchase of Soul Hackers 2 because it's been more than 14 days since it got released.

Ah well. I'm ready to move on from my SMT days. It's been an interesting phase of my life, but that's all for now.

 

As I understand it you can refund any game on Steam so long as you bought the game on Steam itself (Didn't redeem a code.) and have played the game for less than two hours.

[Akun]

3 minutes ago, Shagger said:

 

As I understand it you can refund any game on Steam so long as you bought the game on Steam itself (Didn't redeem a code.) and have played the game for less than two hours.

Nope. If you've bought them for more than two weeks (14 days), the refund isn't accepted. I've tried this with many previous games, including bundles of games I didn't have time to play.