Chatterbox: Video Games

Animal Well, the first published by Bigmode. videogamedunkey's publishing company, was released today.

It seems to have glowing reviews.

Edited by DoubleOG on May 9th 2024 at 10:47:00 AM

Stray Gods is getting DLC based on Orpheus!

"Play as Orpheus in this brand new story for Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical! Orpheus’ story is arguably finished - until Hermes brings him back to the world of the living. With their help, you’ll guide Orpheus through the depths of mortal decision making - who to date, what to hope for, what instrument to rock out on…"

Also, Little Kitty, Big City is out!

Edited by lalalei2001 on May 9th 2024 at 2:27:28 PM

Call me cynical, but I have this feeling that there's a trend in all the big game companies that they're focusing on this 'profit over gameplay' strategy, and if it doesn't stop soon, we might have another '83 Video Game Crash' in our hands.

Companies have always preferred profit over everything else. Look at arcade games in the 1980s and 1990s. They were based around getting players to keep putting money into the machine. Die, pay to respawn and keep going. Or competitive tournament fighters: winner stays, loser pays.

As for the crash of 1983, that was caused by a glut of horrible games and customers being unable to figure out which games were good and which ones were bad. Nowadays, there's a massive variety of games and multiple corners of the industry, such as the thriving indie scene. We have reviews and word of mouth to tell us what's good and what's bad. If a sector of the industry collapses, other sectors will be doing just fine. If the big companies get too greedy and customers catch on, they'll simply move on to other games and let the big companies collapse if that ends up happening.

The most that would happen, I think, is a collapsing of the big companies that fail to evolve.

I'm addicted to Splatoon, would it be too much of a risk to play the similarly PvP-biased For Honor? I've heard horror stories of both Ubisoft themselves and the players of For Honor being Call of Duty-tier toxic as of late.

Edited by leafsaber47 on May 11th 2024 at 2:46:56 PM

Animal Well is out too.

Endless Ocean makes my heart feel at peace; it's very relaxing. <3

I don't know much about For Honor's playerbase, but I will say it may be a difficult transition, considering Splatoon is a fast-paced shooter, while For Honor is a melee-centric game where you have to actively wait and strike when your opponent's guard is down, and any mistakes are severely punished.

The PlayStation Network requirement that caused such a big stink in the Helldivers II community may also affect the PC port of Ghost of Tsushima, as it may be delisted in the same countries that don't carry PSN, even though only the Legends multiplayer mode requires a PSN account. That's quite concerning, as the PC port drops next week.

I have specific Hype Aversion to Poppy Playtime and I feel like it's Five Nights at Freddy's but worse in many ways (the toxic fanbases for both Poppy Playtime and Five Nights at Freddy's are about equal in terms of how awful they are, I'm afraid).

Edited by leafsaber47 on May 14th 2024 at 3:05:08 PM

I found a need speedrun history video about The Hobbit (2003), which I didn't know was a thing despite it appearing on all major consoles of the time.

Odd video game forum confession: games that get brought up in video game discussions online, but that I haven't played or been around people who have played them or otherwise been exposed to - they blur into the same game in my mind. I have to consciously remind myself that not only are Ratchet and Clank / Crash Bandicoot / Banjo (and?) Kazooie different games, I have to make an effort to read the names as actually different words. My brain otherwise parses them as "name for this video game that people talk about, with about this amount of syllables, with a C or K in them somewhere", so it's all the same.

Easy fix! -forces you to play the games at gunpoint so your brain can differentiate them-

I have started playing Risk of Rain 2 and I like it a lot. It actually plays a lot like Earth Defense Force moment to moment and I'm always looking for more games like that.

IGN Entertainment acquires Eurogamer, GI, VG247, Rock Paper Shotgun and more

I don't think a single mass acquisition like this has ever been good.

Open question: Is 100 percent completion overrated? If a game doesn't have any substantial change to the story, ending, or some other reward, just the feeling of completion in itself. Do you find it worth doing?

If a game is good enough, then yeah, I make the effort to do it because it makes the experience last longer.

It's not often I feel this way about a game, but certain ones do. Metroidvanias in particular kind of encourage you to do it.

Edited by lbssb on May 23rd 2024 at 9:56:52 AM

It depends on the game and what 100% entails. When 100% requires bullcrap like perfect Chocobo Racing or 200 lightning strikes dodged... hell no, calling you out FFX...

Like Horizon Zero Dawn I did pretty much everything I wanted to do because they were there to do and I was having fun. Just didn't go for perfect for every hunting ground nor did I do Very Hard for 100% of the achievements.

If I'm enjoying the game and 100% doesn't feel daunting, then yeah, I always go for that total completion.

These are, to my mind, two very different questions.

So, to the first, I would say: No. Some people will find it worthwhile and enjoyable, some will find it uninteresting, or a nuisance.

To the second, I don't generally find it to be worth doing; it doesn't suit me, personally.

Usually I play games until I run out of stuff I want to do in them. Sometimes, that just happens to not happen until the game literally has nothing else to do. Especially if it’s a short game.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on May 24th 2024 at 7:24:51 AM

I can't find myself wanting to commit to a 100% clear on any game, unless it's extremely easy and time efficient to do. Usually just do most of the main story and a good chunk of side activities and leave it at that.

Trying to do 100% clear just feels like work when games are supposed to be fun.

100 percent is for when you don't fancy doing another playthrough.

100% is for when you have lots of time but very little money. When I was young, and there were only five games in the house, I'd 100% everything. After all, it would likely be quite some time before I'd get another game, so I had to make everything last (and sometimes that "another game" was Wii Music, so I'd have to make the previous games last even longer). These days, I have more games, so I can move on to a new one when the previous one isn't interesting anymore, and I no longer feel the need to 100% them.

This was something I just learned. Snowbreak: Containment Zone used to have an English dub but was patched out at the end 2023, leaving players to use either the Japanese or Chinese dub.

According to this post, the developers were attempting to get the English dub back for the game and contacted the English voice actors but they refuse to return due to the game's increase of fan service. However, I wonder if the voice actors not returning is due to cultural difference since the voice actors of Snowbreak are from the UK and not used to voicing Gacha games with fan service unlike their US counterparts who have no problems with voicing in Gacha fan service games. Or is it more of a financial issue where the developers couldn't afford hiring the English voice actors or their agency since the game is more successful in Japan and China than global.

"The voice actors didn't return because of the fan service" sounds like an incredible load of bullshit NGL.

If I had to guess the company just doesn't want to pay proper rates and found something to blame.