Chatterbox: Video Games

I replayed Ori and the Blind Forest. First time, beat it in 8 hours+. Second time, beat it in 5 hours+. Great little Metroidvania they're selling for like $20.

This is the sort of game I'd like to see more of. Old-school style pick-up-and-play with modern production values.

I also tried Rocket League. It's basically soccer with cars. I'm not a sports fan, but it's fun. And it's the epitome of easy to learn: if you've ever played a single driving game, and you understand the basic "hit the ball in the opponent's goal" concept, then you automatically know how to play. It's also nice that each match takes less than a full second to load!

So I was at a game night at a bar tonight, and mainly ended up playing Artemis. I still kind of stand by my initial reaction that it would be something I would be more into if I were the type of sci-fi fan who grew up with Star Trek and always wanted to be on the crew of the Enterprise... But I'm enjoying it more now that I'm trying out different positions: The first couple times I was on weapons, and while it's always fun to get to blow enemy ships up, you kind of do a lot of waiting and naturally don't participate in any non-combat maneuvers. This time I was on navigation and I enjoyed it because I felt more like an active participant in everything we did.

The other thing was that during downtime I got nosy and looked at the laptop of the guy who runs it and noticed a game called "Emily Is Away" that drew my attention with its retraux AOL Instant Messenger "Away Message" icon. I didn't get the opportunity to ask him about it, but I did take note of the title and go look it up. It turns out the entire game takes place in an instant messenger program that is AIM with the serial numbers filed off, in which you converse with a fictional classmate named Emily over the years. Playing it sort of felt like playing a Visual Novel, just with way less of the "visual" aspect - you get dialogue choices and what you say effects how Emily feels about you and how the story progresses, you just never see anything outside of the messenger window format. While I think it's well-written enough be enjoyable regardless, I think it'd probably have the biggest affect on people who were teenagers in the late-90's to early 2000's because a lot of what makes it feel "personal" is the format and some pop culture references. I particularly like the touch that you "type" your answer choice by selecting from a set of dialogue options, then mashing the right amount of keys, and that "you" occasionally hit the backspace key, either to correct a typo or delete parts of your messages you have second thoughts about. I also ended up letting my choice of screenname color my responses to some extent: In my playthrough Emily mentioned Coldplay and Snow Patrol: I figured "KoRn666" wouldn't know or care much about either because he preferred Nu Metal ^note or even actively hate them, but just be too polite to say anything, but now I've decided when I play again the first thing I'm going to do is either agree with or very bluntly disagree with her music taste and see how that affects things.

edited 7th Dec '15 6:01:39 PM by MikeK

Well this is going to be a thing real soon It seems Blade And Soul will be heavily censored when it releases on the 19th even though the devs specifically said it would not be.

I'm not sure that I would enjoy a game that features a misogynistic creeper stealing ladies' clothing to reactivate his libido as a quest line, regardless of whether it offers any enjoyable nudity or sex scenes. There is no mention of any of those that needed to be censored, so that's definitely a title I won't be getting, even if I were otherwise inclined by the attempted mature-sexy rating.

edited 6th Jan '16 9:34:18 PM by Fighteer

Eh? Getting a side quest where you screw over a misogynistic creeper by getting him laid and knocking up an ugly girl actually is funny and probably changes him a lot. It's been done before with say Barney in How I Met Your Mother.

There is no nudity and such, they have made any revealing costumes behind a paywall instead of in the game itself as well...

edited 6th Jan '16 10:30:44 PM by Memers

That's not how the article made it sound, but oh well. Where are my A titles that have on-screen sex and/or nudity, huh? The Witcher is about it.

That still sounds pretty disgusting, in part because it objectifies said "ugly girl".

In any case, I've known that controversies over video game censorship have been on the rise lately on the internet, and I take them on a case-by-case basis. In this case I know nearly nothing about this so I won't pass judgement.

Which could be lightened to change his opinion and not objectify women at the end, I don't think anyone would opposed to that. That was the point in How I Met Your Mother, which is why I brought it up.

"Instead, the NPC is now a scholar “who’s studying the town” in the hopes of “bringing their currently-at-odds communities together peacefully.” "

/shrug this kind of censorship really really bugs me, no matter what it is. Especially when the devs said they were not censoring anything.

edited 7th Jan '16 11:09:29 AM by Memers

Going back on one's word without warning bothers me more than the censorship, honestly.

So Stranger In Sword City out in March for Xbone and Vita is getting 2 art styles Anime and more 3D and you can switch at any time.

Its odd that that the version we are getting has two artsyles and the new one being more anime looking than the original Japan only 360 version.

I actually like the switch at any time style from anime to 3d in the west, Star Ocean The Last Hope international did it on the PS 3 and it was pretty nice.

edited 8th Jan '16 1:08:57 PM by Memers

Ok yeah that some extreme changes too.

original 360 artstyle◊

new artstyle◊

A character gets a gender and job change?

the animu art isn't bad but i do prefer the other style myself.

Is Infinity +1 Sword applicable to Real-Time Strategy Super Units? I vaguely remember seeing it being used for some of them on some pages, and the trope even has a whole folder for RTS examples.

I'm playing Survival Kids! I also reviewed it here. I hadn't played it in a decade and a half.

Does anyone happen to have technical knowledge on the original Far Cry? I have the GOG version, and I tried starting it up for the first time today, but I'm getting a sound effect where there's a sort of constant faint buzzing in my headphones. I fiddled around randomly with all the audio options but none of them fixed it. I know it's not my headphones that are the problem because they work fine with other games, music, etc.

EDIT: I've noticed that the buzz persists even when my system sound is turned off. It also seems to vary whenever I move or turn in the game. Possibly some sort of electrical interference between my GPU and sound system? That still doesn't explain why it doesn't happen with other games, though.

edited 2nd Jun '16 11:22:29 PM by Meklar

I spent most of Memorial Day Weekend playing with my 7-year-old nephew and 4-year-old niece, and finally found some time to play a game by and for myself. I played Life Is Strange. Of course my nephew walked in, but he took surprising interest in the game, asking me questions, asking me to make choices, and later asking me to play the game again. I was surprised that he was so interested. I started explaining the story (including, yes, how Mark Jefferson is the bad guy) and he asked me to play the last episode so he could see.

He watched me play most of episode 1, which means he was exposed to Chloe's drug use, Chloe being slapped by her stepdad and threatening him with arrest (I showed him all four possible outcomes to that scene), Nathan coming out to threaten Max and beat up Warren, and the principal not believe Max's story about Nathan having a gun. I guess that's a bit much for a 7-year-old to be exposed to perhaps. I was still impressed that he was so interested in the game.

He said that his favorite part was seeing everything go backwards when I rewound time.

Given that the buzz doesn't show up with other games, the following possibility seems unlikely, but it might be worth mentioning nevertheless:

I've experienced something similar with a set of headphones that I have. In my case, it seems that the interference comes from the wireless mouse that I use—one of the old sort that uses a little wired receiver-box. Moving the mouse or pressing any of its buttons causes a buzz in the headphones. In my case this only happens when the headphones are wired; when using them wirelessly, no buzz is produced. I imagine that either the signal used by the mouse to communicate with the box or some emission of either mouse or box is inducing a current in the headphones, presumably in the connecting wire, specifically.

If the same is true of you, it might explain why the buzz is connected to in-game movement: you're presumably moving the mouse, and thus producing the buzz.

I'm using a wired mouse and wired headphones. I actually had a similar thought, that the mouse cord might be interfering electrically with the headphone cord, but when I just press keys on the keyboard to move forward and backward without turning, that also seems to change the buzz. Also, I had originally clipped my headphone cord to the PC's power cable (just to hold it back so it didn't tend to drop too far down in front of my desk), and I thought that could also be interfering, so I tried clipping it to the monitor's power cable instead, but that didn't fix it (even when the monitor was turned off). I also tried plugging the headphones into the front audio jack, but it seems that jack doesn't work (maybe the motherboard only supports one audio out jack?).

In any case, the fact that it doesn't happen with other games (or at least is reduced so much that it doesn't bother me) suggests it's a software problem. Actually, that's not quite true- I've also acquired Crysis and Crysis Warhead (but haven't played them yet), and if I load them to the main menu and then turn off the system sound, I get a similar effect. So it seems to be a problem with CryEngine games in general?

On the other hand, I also tried plugging in some old earbuds (into the same jack), and I didn't seem to get any problem with them, but the volume was way lower and the sound quality generally worse. The buzz scales with the hardware volume wheel on my headphones, but not with system volume. Actually, come to think of it, that suggests a possible workaround...right now I have the volume wheel at max and the system volume at 18%, but if I cranked the system volume up to max and then turned the wheel down to compensate, supposedly the problem would be reduced proportionally?

*tries it*

Holy shit. That is much better. I could actually play like this. :D

I just bought God Hand!

-Comemorates-

Huh. That is very odd. o_0

Well, I'm glad that you found a workaround, at least! ^_^

This may be the dumbest research article ever published on video games: kids who have a habit of playing violent video games show less of a physiological response when playing violent video games than kids who don't. There should be a "no shit, Sherlock" award for this kind of thing.

In other words, they're not shocked by content they're exposed to a lot. Wow.

I've been playing Bro Force a lot recently. I at first thought it looked stupid and lame, but after seeing gameplay footage that made clear just how open and interactive it was and how destructible its environments are, and how chaotic the gameplay is, it looked like a lot of fun. I finally got in the mood and bought it a week ago.

I can't wait to show my nephew (age 7).

Metro 2033 Redux

Ok, I'm loving the look and feel of this game. I am digging the resource management game, how the guns feel, and the tense firefights.

Boy George, though, is this stealth system dogshit. I might be doing it wrong but it takes me out of the illusion when the entire room knows where I am, and where to shoot when one isolated fucknugget takes a quick glance at my ass in the light.

I watched gameplay footage of Mafia III and Forza Horizon 3, and I was intrigued. I thought both games looked enjoyable, so I obtained both. And I didn't like either. Forza Horizon 3 is a driving sim with simulation controls that are too realistic for my taste; I hated how the cars handled. And Mafia III so far has been basically standard shooting mechanics with nothing new or innovative or that fun, and a lot of driving to the location of the next mission, when I'd much rather explore the open world and discover random things like I could in Deadly Premonition.

I just can't predict what games I'll like. I bought Yoshi's Woolly World last year because I was desperate for a new Wii U game, and I ended up absolutely loving it. One of the best purchase decisions I ever made. I bought Shantae and the Pirate's Curse on a whim recently, and while it had rather uneven difficulty and a few flaws I feel were elementary noob game design mistakes, I still enjoyed it quite a bit. I only bought Undertale because many people said it was good, despite not liking gameplay footage I saw of it. And I loved it.

And I'm thinking of trying HOVER: Revolt of Gamers. I had mixed feelings from gameplay footage, but it looks like it could be interesting and fun, I hope.

I just can't predict if I'll like a game or not, and that's frustrating and upsetting. I don't want to waste more money on stuff I end up not liking, yet it's great to find out that something I didn't think I'd enjoy I ended up loving.

BUMP

So a thought just occurred to me. How many indie games get an ESRB rating? From what I can tell, you can just release it on a digital platform with no problem. I figure the only time it does get a rating is when it gets a physical release or when a console distributes through its digital store.