Lurker > Lightning Strikes

God of War was a revelation when it came out but nowadays is effectively a tech demo for old tech. 2 is much better, and 3 is better to play these days (and the PS4 game blows them all out of the water). At the time it was not only impressive for its scope and visuals (it was punching well above its weight for the weakest system that gen) but also the combat system and quick time events. Nowadays that doesn't really play as well.

If it makes you feel better, not only did ToS beat it in a 2009 shocker it would have won the rematch if it was a full 24 hours.

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Its good news in NZ though. I havent had that feeling about an election in the country Im living with since I was a literal child.

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Cool, now onto Halo Reach! The end of 2010 is in sight. I feel once youre through there you really start to see games that are wholly representative of this decade, not either delayed from 2009 or using mostly the last games assets. That might even start at Reach I dont know!

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I think with time to sit on it, and reflecting after reading your writeup, RDR2 is a vastly superior game to RDR1 despite sharing some flaws. I'm interested in what you think of it eventually!

I think RDR was a great game that is bogged down by its GTA DNA. This is most evident in the shooting. However, I think it makes up for it in terms of story.

I wouldn't worry too much about the old GoWs relative to the new one, but they're pretty short so go for it!

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I don't remember the specifics but Dark Bramble grew from one of the bramble seeds that collided with another planet, and the bramble seeds that you see on other planets like Timber Hearth would have grown and overtaken those planets to be like Dark Bramble. We don't know where it came from though.

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Outer Wilds:

XIII_rocks posted...

What a masterpiece holy shit.

This topic really makes me want to replay it. The beautiful thing is everything is so intricately connected, even though I remember the biggest points (I could just finish the game if I want to) it's very difficult to remember all of that so it's like you can rediscover it anew.

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PerfectChaosZ posted...

He's also the incumbent now which gives him a massive boost and people just don't care how incompetent he is.

Three of the last seven defending incumbents have lost. Its far from a perfect shield.

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Indeed if the election was tomorrow Trump would get thrashed. However its not tomorrow so we wont know for months.

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Yes, the comparisons between 2016 and 2020 are a massive false equivalence. Hillary didnt have a nearly 10% lead and she never led in Texas, which will push Trump into defensive spending and campaigning even if he wins it - in 2016 he visited Texas once.

And thats just looking at the numbers themselves. 2020 Trump is not 2016 Trump and Biden is not Hillary.

This is of course caveated with the fact that things can change immensely in three months. On the whole though it was never this bad for Trump last time.

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xp1337 posted...

citation needed

Not in comparing responses, but that the US government has actually course corrected. The GOP refuses to act on election security and election infrastructure in the states is as awful as ever.

Yep, that is fair. To be more exact I more meant the country as a whole in that the investigation was thorough and successful, and (knock on wood) it is looking like Trump will be gone soon in many ways as a result of the response.

Thats far from perfect, but today the UK government said it doesnt care at all.

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Lets not whatabout regarding corrupting other countries democracies. Plus outside the US rules regarding funding are a lot stricter so yes ads and money are a big deal and can be argued to invalidate the result. It doesnt matter though, because the UK government didnt look, and isnt going to look. Awful.

Id recommend reading it btw, its pretty short. Definitely more damning than I expected because of the sheer amount of negligence. They actually demonstrate how the UK response was significantly worse than the USs. You guys started to course correct fairly quickly, we have done nothing to solve the problem at all.

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Report into Russian interference in the UK:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=aW5kZXBlbmRlbnQuZ292LnVrfGlzY3xneDo1Y2RhMGEyN2Y3NjM0OWFl

Since people will be wondering about brexit in particular:

-Lots and lots of open-source evidence of Russian interference in the referendum.
-The committee asked the intelligence community, got almost no answer, not even the publicly available open source evidence.
-No investigation was done by MI5 because they thought it would be contentious and would influence people's votes.
-An investigation into Russian interference into brexit is deemed essential, but has not been done.

The best quote from the committee on the topic:

"Who is protecting our democratic process? In a nutshell, no-one is."

And there are many other key tidbits here, including the fact that the government's reasons for delaying the report from before the last referendum were false, and that the government is trying to politicise the report to deunk it to help themselves. Horrible.

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RE7 great game!

The VR is very good, it was easily the best "full" VR game until Astro Bot. But the non-VR version is clearly supposed to be the primary version of the game, as IIRC the menus and opening cutscene were not tuned for VR.

The advantage of the game aiming for PSVR that you feel in all versions of the game though, is that it's really well optimised.

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I stand by doing Leon 1-3 before the rest because otherwise you effectively lose all tension from that segment. I think thats probably the best part of the game as well, which says little but when I played through that, I was like hmm, this might be alright and then I was like oh.

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Ocarina of Super Mario 64, make of that what you will!

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Its obviously not going to solve the issue but it might help, because outrage is difficult to sustain. But the only way to really stop it is to screen reviews and require confirmed ownership, just like Rotten Tomatoes for movies. Of course there they now have a different issue, which is that the early reviews get biased positively because the people getting out there on opening night are the most likely to say they love something. So I guess you need to layer something like this on top of that.

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I have done what is I believe most of the first chapter.

I think the story is really interesting so far, it's probably the best opening for a Paper Mario game (second IMO would be either SPM or PM64), surprisingly spooky atmosphere and some good cutscenes. We'll see how the rest of the story goes but it's the best setup in a good while. Olivia is a cool character, the writing is great.

The exploration is good too, it seems like there's a lot of stuff to find and some things that you can't access right away. For the out of battle gameplay it's mostly what you would expect with some puzzles, then some actiony bits that I quite like. I do have a couple of minor gripes. This is shared with I believe every Paper Mario game, but you can't skip text or increase text speed. Additionally, I wish it would just fill in the confetti holes automatically (though these are largely optional).

So yeah, good first couple of hours with it. If it keeps it up it will definitely be one of the better ones.

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I've been playing this video game, and deem the soundtrack to be banging

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aaaaaaaaaaa

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ZeldaTPLink posted...

That's not a very high bar to clear when there are only two good PM games.

Never speak to my child Super Paper Mario again

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MechanicalWall posted...

One that needs an expensive bit of plastic and metal attached to your face

It's still a game, and an acclaimed one at that. Probably better than the last few even though it is a shame not nearly as many people can play it. Not a big fan of the "that doesn't count!" crowd in general, people saying Paper Mario.

Anyway, Ace Attorney, even though it's actually Advance Wars.

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On the Club Nintendo surveys it wasn't that people disliked the story but that they weren't interested in it as a draw. This I believe being worldwide not just Japan. Of course Nintendo clearly listened to the complaints there even by Color Splash since that game has significantly more story than ultra-barebones Sticker Star, even if the setup is familiar. And it sounds like this one's story is really good! So maybe the real mistake was just SS all along.

Leonhart4 posted...

Also I could be persuaded to get the game for cheap if the writing actually is solid, but it's still pretty mind boggling that they keep making games where fighting is actively detrimental, especially because they were apparently inspired by friggin' Tingle

Japan is the worst

Fighting is not detrimental. They fixed that. It's just that the old guard have now moved the goalposts from "fighting is detrimental" to "needs more incentive to battle".

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Up to 81 on Metacritic now which is more or less exactly what I expected, so a notable improvement from SS and CS (and the latter was already an improvement over the former). If we're getting super-granular it means that it is closer to SPM than to CS. Good news! I have a voucher and was waiting for reviews to see if this is what I use it on, and I think this response will push me over the edge.

I will say this on the subject of the combat and RPG systems - the RPG systems in 64 and TTYD were good, but they were there in service of the rest of the game that was the main draw. The story, world, characters, exploration, and so on. The RPG stuff was serviceable above all else. So if you came to Paper Mario for those specific systems then this might not be for you, but I think this game delivers on what made Paper Mario great in the first place.

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I have the NES update but not the SNES update what

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TTYD (87) is much closer to SPM (85) than the original (93).

Anyway, I think this is low 80s, mid if we are lucky and I can see a chance of it going to high 80s.

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Leonhart4 posted...

Villains 2 won over Series 2 so don't bet on it...!

I mean both would be fine. Villains was only meh because of Sephiroth anyway. Him out and fifteen years of change? Itd be alright.

...But a series contest would be better anyway.

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Its a lot closer now.

So many new series have come and old series have had their fortunes changed that we absolutely do need a new series contest! If anything the first one was probably too soon. Its been two generations since then, and one of those generations was defined by the loss of old series and the rise of new ones.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

I mean I think it still has that right? Nothing about that gameplay reveal wasn't something that could be in this kind of game.

Im not saying the demo was misleading. Im saying it allowed people to set their expectations much higher than they would otherwise have been because it hinted at (or let people imagine) something much grander. So people might be a little underwhelmed.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

I feel like the blowback I'm seeing for this game in some places is a little wierd. Sounds like it's exactly the kind of game it said it was gonna be, don't know why people are surprised? I personally haven't played one of these in forever (Far Cry 4), but I guess for people who play all the big games there's a lot of fatigue.

You forget how good the first gameplay reveal looked! It almost salvaged Sonys 2018 E3. So I think people were expecting more there.

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

is that like a credible rumor or just some shit some rando said

Its credible. Doesnt mean certain though. We also dont know if this will include the entire lineup for the rest if the year though.

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Yeah the lions share of other options are Nintendo franchises, with all but the Square third party options being series traditionally associated with Nintendo.

Zelda actually beat FF last time they did this poll, though the change is more due to Zelda falling than FF rising. Super Mario and DQ have been the main beneficiaries of the lost Zelda votes.

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I made this topic for discussion by people who have played the game in full, for full discussion of the game. If you do not play the game you will not get the full context because the games story is integrated with every part of the gameplay. And yes, pushing buttons is important, otherwise in the Nora scene for instance they would have just made it a cutscene. Its basic design stuff, and the reason I made the bloody topic in the first place. I read the first spoiler topic after playing for a bit and got halfway through just looking at posts going thats wrong, thats wrong, thats wrong and I was not even very far in. There is a reason this is the actual spoiler topic!

Mobilezoid posted...

All the people who went in wanting to love it are fine though

Wanting to love something is not the same as deciding how you feel beforehand. We should want to love every game. Deciding you hate something is very different.

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Boy I would love a good Lindon game but Watch Dogs Legion does not look like that. Cartoonish in the worst way.

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Destiny

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The question is why they expended so much effort on a game so lacking in vision anyway. There are plenty of technical issues, but the game design is just fundamentally broken at its core with absolutely nothing interesting going on.

I will never forget the deck of Giant Bombs review for this:

The most lavishly produced bad game ever made!

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I mean honestly?

Do Leons first three chapters, then Chriss first two, then Jakes first two, then Chris and Jakes third, then alternate for the rest of Chris, Jake, and Leon, with Adas whole campaign last. I think this is the best way to not spoil yourself or repeat yourself too much.

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Resident Evil 6 sold a lot in large part because 5 sold even more. It ended up being very frontloaded due to poor word of mouth and failed to hit Capcoms lofty sales targets. So the game wasnt even especially successful despite selling a ton.

And just as 5 helped 6 sell a lot, the reason 7s sales were low at first was the backlash to 6. But 7 got good word of mouth and is now set to outsell 6.

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Xenoblade Chronicles because I thought of it very quickly to stop Bioshock from coming into my head which is... not true at all.

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Paper Mario looks great at least!

...Yeah obviously this isnt intended for us, but they shouldnt have hyped this the way they did. They should have said it was a Bakugan game (or a game based on a kids franchise) up front.

...Is Bakugan even still a thing?

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shane15 posted...

They don't even put manuals in the boxes anymore so they may as well just go back to PS1 size cases.

This is actually an excellent point, the current cases are basically a waste of plastic, even compared to other console's boxes. That is no joke a big part of why I have shifted nearly entirely digital. There was a lot of talk about green consoles a while back, they should shift that to boxes as well, as much as they can.


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The blue box makes it ugly, but the actual design is nice. Should have switched back to black or clear boxes.

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The game you are thinking of is Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, which made you do psychological tests and tweaked the game based on your answers, as well as changing things based on the way you played. The end result was the only good modern Silent Hill! Surprised more games havent tried it.

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When did Santa get this way

Top ten anime betrayals

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The Last of Us because I just played Part II and that game is gorgeous.

But its actually either Celeste or RDR2.

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I was going to say try and reach out to them and help them change, but that example is a big yikes. I guess you still should but that is legitimately shocking.

I dont think racism is an inherently generational thing though. I think a lot of it is to do with culture and what we are exposed to.

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Not many first party SNES games left when you discount stuff they no longer have the licences for and the light gun games.

I think its just missing:

DKC2
DKC3
Earthbound
Yoshis Cookie
Tetris Attack (and Panel de Pon is on there already)
Super Mario RPG

Did I miss anything? Super Mario All Stars I guess which is weird as it is a collection.

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Anarchy for UKKKKKK

Is coming sometime maybeeeeee

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Okay rocking chair gaming sounds pretty good.

I loved the game, I absolutely think its Naughty Dogs best. Its not perfect though, and the more I sit on it the more I think the final section was a bit unnecessary for that story. They either needed to dramatically shorten or outright cut it, or expand it into a full act. As it is it introduced some pacing issues and just served as a reiteration of what the game had already said.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I've cooled down on a lot of my initial reactions and am now firmly in the stance of just not wanting to play something this depressing right now.

I feel how depressing it is has been overstated. Its unrelentingly grim, but doesnt really get miserable until the last few hours which is actually a pretty small part of the game. It depends on what youre sensitive to though.

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Leonhart4 posted...

The Extended Cut was free though

Which is why I said disregarding it! Talking about From Ashes (which I believe was on-disc), Leviathan, and the multiplayer (which required an online pass IIRC) being necessary for all endings at launch.

Just a really bad example of malicious business practices affecting a game.

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Oops also didnt read the disclaimer and gave it a 2. The on-disc version is a 1 easily.

Its a mess, even disregarding the EC they clearly held stuff back to sell it to you. From Ashes and Leviathan are essential to the story yet were paid DLC. And the pre-EC ending is just bad. Not to mention the fact that at launch they locked endings behind the multiplayer which IIRC was behind an online pass. Classic example of EA getting their grubby mitts all over something.

When you have all the DLC though, its a lot better. Not satisfying, but passable. The last few hours are still bad though, because the problems with the ending of that game were never confined to just the last cutscene. Its not great, but there are much worse endings out there.

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