Lurker > StartTheMachine

Yeah, brought up that opening in the most recent "has a video game made you cry" topic. That opening hits like a ton of bricks.

Both games are amazing! The sequel has way better gameplay mechanics (largely influenced by Hollow Knight) and both games have 10/10 stories.

wtf Nintendo

we've been waiting all month and this is what you do to us

xp1337 posted...

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1539058659304546304

of course he's pay to win

when you think Ted Cruz can't get worse

KCF0107 posted...

I mean, why would we when DKC, DKC2, and DKC3 exist? Returns and Tropical Freeze are good, great even, but the best DKC games after the originals are Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair and Kaze and the Wild Masks.

Ooooof hard disagree on this and the absurd idea of ranking DKCR above Tropical Freeze. Impossible Lair is fantastic and still nowhere close to Tropical Freeze, the GOAT platformer. It has tons of cool ideas, but the actual level design and atmosphere is leagues behind. That said, Tropical Freeze is so much better than Returns in everything it does, using a very similar formula, I could see myself putting Returns at the bottom of the list below all the originals. But I'd probably tie it with DKC 1 at the bottom (and they're both 9/10 games still).

Also funny enough, my most recently beaten game:

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D

Played the original multiple times and just bought this for the exclusive levels at the end. And honestly...worth it as a huge DKC fan. That Cloud world was splendid. And it had been long enough since replaying the original that a fourth playthrough was still fun to work through to get to that bonus world.

I also rebought Tropical Freeze on the Switch and I'm hypedddd. Literally my fourth favorite game of all time. I bought it just for the slightly better resolution, but I'll check out Funky mode. Just kinda not that interested in lessening the difficulty - the challenge is one of my favorite things about the Retro Studios DKC games.

8.5

Leonhart4 posted...

I'm assuming they have to pay usage rights to include it at this point so this is probably a measure to offset the costs.

I suppose that makes sense but the game is already $40. Ehhh, better to have it in some form at least. Kinda interesting to be able to have these prototype songs if you get both.

andylt posted...

There's an original music dlc pack for this game though, I assume that's the legit stuff.

So they can legally include it and just chose not to for the sake of paid DLC? That just makes this even worse

Lightning Strikes posted...

First of all, an article there complaining of exploiting workers is very hilarious.

Second of all, I love how a Civ fan clearly hijacked the article partway through to explain how Civ is good, actually.

Yeah, the best articles are the ones that are clearly hijacked. Almost certain parts of the Bernie article were too. Like the policies section starts off with the usual Conservapedia bullshit, then after the first two, they barely try to refute the obviously good policies. Could just be they had no effective propaganda for refutation, but I'd wager they'd just not mention the policies instead.

oooof ruining the best Sonic game of all time

I lost 75% of interest in this now

holy shit, I found the holy grail of Conservapedia articles

https://www.conservapedia.com/Bernie_Sanders

just knew that would be a good one! okay, that's enough brain rot for me today

Maniac64 posted...

https://www.conservapedia.com/Special_rights

What rights are being denied due to same sex marriage?

the right to hate gay people

but wait, it gets worse

https://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexual_agenda

these guys sure love Russia nowadays

E: https://www.conservapedia.com/Conversion_therapy

The Bible and Christian faith are powerful methods of becoming a heterosexual, as are participation in activities like baseball and chess.

now that's a sentence

In a masochistic fervor today, I rediscovered the batshit insane gem that is Conservapedia. Here's a classic:

https://www.conservapedia.com/Video_game

Somehow, I think this article has gotten less crazy since the last time I saw it. If you want true insanity, the 2020 presidential election page doesn't disappoint.

SMB 3 but can't go wrong either way. This is the real finals

Wordle 365 3/6

Felon
Lover
Loser

A felon, lover, and a loser all walk into a bar

Wordle 364 6/6








somehow I got today's word on the last try, but this one was brutal

whoa

I expected this to be good but these are crazy high reviews

Big massive dumps?

I never beat the fourth pantheon and it haunts me to this day :(

Kirby

Moonroof posted...

Thats Skowpoke. Hes from Pokmon, Im talking about Live A Live.

https://static.pokemonpets.com/images/monsters-images-800-800/534-Conkeldurr.webp

LordoftheMorons posted...

Wow, theres actually a deal in the Senate on guns:

https://twitter.com/chrismurphyct/status/1536013602846560256?s=21

Jesus that bill seems incredibly weak. If that doesn't pass, nothing will

Just another case for why you should go into most games blind

you guys are breaking my heart

I couldn't care less about Adventure 3. I just want more great 2D Sonic like Mania. Hell, I'll also take a Sonic Generations 2. That game ruled.

Yes

Her standalone movie doesn't really make the case for a yes vote, but that's just a bad movie. Still a good character.

man I loved Deadly Alliance back in the day

great Mortal Kombat. actually...might be the last one I played (that wasn't at a friend's). I bought 11 a while back - maybe I'll finally start playing it soon

JackMan posted...

Well, they've been working on remastering/remaking Sonic 3 & Knuckles, so I wouldn't expect it for a while.

You mean the remaster in Sonic Origins or something else entirely?

I just really want Mania 2 :(

Yeah, that's a very positive development. I'll still be shocked if combat doesn't get repetitive fast though.

Nevertheless, the real question: where the hell is Sonic Mania 2

Sounds like these are actually loud? I just bought some Airpod Pros and am incredibly disappointed with how loud they go. The other day, the music at the gym was louder than the music I was trying to listen to on my phone while working out!

(I don't see this complaint commonly for Airpods so I know I am probably just deaf from listening to music/everything really loudly all the damn time and many concerts during my youth.)

I may have to check these out though just based on loudness. Probably returning my Airpod Pros tomorrow.

You forgot the most important argument for Knuckles:
- Unlike Sonic, he doesn't chuckle. He'd rather flex his muscles.

at which point DK socks him in the face real good. DK

Oh shit I forgot the Ori games. Pretty sure both of them made me tear up at one point or another. Hell, I think the freaking intro of Ori 1 got me.

Also Braid - I don't even think it was the ending level (I remember not even comprehending it the first time I played it - realizing it later was more mindblowing than tearjerking) but I think some of the text got me after the final level. I mean, Oppenheimer's quote is always powerful.

Crying is good.

Yeah definitely a few times. I'll start with the most unexpected ones.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze - Probably the weirdest one! The original DKC trilogy are some of the first video games I ever played and they still mean a lot to me, especially the soundtracks. Tropical Freeze features a masterful remix of DKC 2's "In a Snow Bound Land" that very sneakily works its way into what sounds like an entirely new track. About a minute into the song, it hits. Childhood memories came flooding back to me and I lost it. Really a special, personal moment.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - "I'll always be your Zelda." The big reveal/Zelda conversation after the first 6 dungeons is just so good. I don't think this did it to me until my second playthrough, but it's obvious the first time through that Zelda (well, the writers) is being very meta here and talking about the series as a whole. That line takes on a whole different meaning when reflecting upon the series, just thinking about how much it means to me got me. It feels like such a perfect tribute. Another reason I love this game.

Gears of War 2 - That part with Dom. If you've played the game, you know what I'm talking about. Never in a million years expected a game like this to make me cry

okay lesser weird ones

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - That ending. Almost definitely the most intense cry ever from a video game; was literally bawling uncontrollably the whole credits. Also think this was the first time a game ever made me cry.

Outer Wilds - the ending, you already know. But not tears of sadness for this one. The campfire had me very emotional, but the big bang is what pushed me over the edge into full blown tears.

The Gardens Between - think the ending here got me too, maybe just very slightly but still powerful with that ending song

Gris - again, the ending. I played this game only a few weeks after my brother committed suicide and this game is all about dealing with the death of a loved one.

Tetris Effect - Not sure if the final level did, but I know the credits did

The Last of Us - the ending of the "Winter" section with Ellie. Damn forgot this one but yeah, incredibly powerful.

There are possibly (still) more I'm not thinking of.

LordoftheMorons posted...

Living paycheck to paycheck is a bad metric because it includes a lot of people who are quite well off that just spend all of their money immediately (counting doing stuff like contributing a ton of income to retirement plans, etc). Excess savings are still way up compared to pre-pandemic, as I understand it.

I don't doubt that some of these people have assets, but that's also largely nonsense as it makes up a much smaller percentage of that 64% than you seem to think. So here's a better metric:

https://wallethacks.com/average-median-income-in-america/

Heres another number that may surprise you to be in the top half (50%) of all earners you need to earn somewhere between $25,000 $29,999.99 a year. The number of people earning less than $30,000 accounts for 46.5% of the population.

HeroicCrono posted...

I felt that Trump did a great job on the economy and Biden is doing a great job too. Step back to 2016 and think about goals for the economy and whether those goals have been met or exceeded. My hope was for significant wage increases for the working class and significant drops to unemployment. And now we have unemployment at a 50-year low and market wage increases have been so high they have run far ahead of the $15/hr movement that was so active back then (I am seeing loads of help wanted signs for fast food jobs starting at $18/hr here in California). I am also hearing that the net worth of the bottom half of the country is something like 11x what it was in 2011, with most of the gains coming in the last couple years.

Trump and Biden have done far far better on the economy than I expected. I don't understand what more could be reasonably expected of them, from a results point of view. Of course they are not going to fix 36 years of Reaganomics in 5 years.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/08/as-prices-rise-64-percent-of-americans-live-paycheck-to-paycheck.html

You think it's acceptable that 64% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck? Is that an issue that presidents just shouldn't address? They've both done awful, but as you implied, it's been the norm since Reagan.

2024 Corrik: sure they all had assault rifles this time but 90% of them never fired. they were just LARPing!

masterplum posted...

Nah, I agree with Corrik. People stormed the capitol and took selfies in offices.

Like it's 100% terrible, but I agree with the take that 90% of the people there were planning on looting at worst. Could it have gotten worse due to mob mentality? Sure, but the videos we have show lots of people who got inside and.... kind of just didn't know what to do next.

Of course no one thinks 100% (probably not even 10%) of the people there were ready and willing to murder politicians that day. But 100% of them were there expressly for the purpose of "stopping the steal" that didn't exist. Just because they were a disorganized mess that had no clear plans of how to actually enact their desired outcome doesn't mean they weren't there specifically for the purpose of keeping Trump in office and overthrowing democracy in the process.

Really not getting what's so hard to understand about this

Corrik7 posted...

There was zero attempt to overthrow the government. It's kind of a ridiculous notion. 90% of the people there were LARPing. [...] They didn't think they were there to overthrow the government.

jesus that's one hell of an interesting interpretation of events

so why were they there? what were they protesting/LARPing about again? nothing at all to do with an election I guess

5

Going back on everything Halo 2 built on with the Covenant/Arbiter side will always be incredibly disappointing for me.

Tetris

This really should be a shutout

red sox 777 posted...

Just non-RINO Republicans isn't enough to win though. People like Corrik and Ulti matter literally 20x more than the Republican base people keep focusing their attention on. And they're pretty cleanly not on Trump's side at this point.

Point taken and I think we all know who the too-far-gones and the reachables are...but Corrik literally just said he has no problem voting for Trump in spite of his supposed outrage at January 6th. "Moderate Republican" makes no sense when the party is what it is

Also holy fucking shit I had no idea until now that Fox News went completely commercial free for 2 hours during the January 6th hearings. Have they ever done anything like that before? Not even secure enough in their own brainwashing of their viewers who already don't trust any actual news source?

Gonna chime in with the opposite and say it was the best choice I ever made. But maybe it's merely because I went from a 32 GB phone (that couldn't even read my SD cards for whatever reason) to a 128 GB phone with a 10x better camera

Maniac64 posted...

Someone hasn't seen the Fox News coverage.

I'm pretty sure red sox knows that the modern day Republican party just calls them RINOs and they have god awful approval ratings by Rs nationwide. I never know for sure, but I always feel like red sox is just trolling. Whereas Corrik is actually just kind of lost sometimes, red sox always seems smarter than 98% of his posts.

Considering Kirby games often have hard/very time-consuming requirements to unlock their secret levels, that's actually really cool

squexa posted...

The IGN Expo just now was way worse. Most PC Game Shows and Future Game Shows I just leave on the background since it's all forgettable indie games that couldn't make it into any of the bigger directs.

And did we forget E3 2021 already? Most were terrible outside Nintendo and Xbox. Gearbox, Take Two, Capcom and some others I'm forgetting basically had nothing.

Yeah I guess I have standards for watching these things so IGN Expo just sounds like it's going to be absolutely nothing, thus a natural skip. Good point about everything last year that wasn't Xbox and Nintendo though.

But still Randy Pitchord walking around is about equally as exciting as this was to me. The biggest problem is even the stuff that looks cool like Neon White and Callisto Protocol didn't really show us anything noteworthy that was new.

I genuinely can't think of any showcase that bored me as much as this. Like I'm sure there's one over all of time but man. The Nindie directs have way more interesting stuff than anything here, and those are usually the most uneventful showcases to me (though there's almost always a few gems in those too).

Corrik7 posted...

Dude literally said there wouldn't be any big announcements at Summer Game Fest. And people are still upset there wasn't any.

I mean Sony just before this said to temper expectations for their State of Play and it was nothing but bangers.

This felt entirely pointless. I will shout out Goat Simulator 3 skipping 2 altogether.

Mario
Castlevania

January 6th committee is pretty nuts so far. But yeah, Trump is totally not a fascist or anything lmao

Corrik7 posted...

I am saying your fascist nonsense is propaganda.

okay

if the f word makes you uncomfortable, despite a majority of historians agreeing now that it suits Trump, feel free to use whatever anti-democratic, pro-insurrection synonym of your choice

Corrik7 posted...

Propaganda

what

Weren't you literally the one who made the "America is under attack" topic on January 6th? Now you're saying that's...liberal propaganda?