Lurker > RyoCaliente

colliding posted...

also in non-spoiler news the art in the opening for secret invasion is AI generated, so that sucks. they've already come out with the statement about it being artistically and thematically intentional but still sucks.

Would it be wrong for real people to imitate AI art?

Zero Escape: The Nonary Games - Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (PS4)

As someone who has no maths in his brain, some of the puzzles really had me struggling...there was some really good writing in it, and I was quite surprised to find myself enjoying the English voice actors more than the Japanese ones. The ending did leave me completely befuddled at pretty much everything though. Still a very recommendable experience.

Far Cry Primal (XBO)

Far Cry: Primal is an adventure. It offers you a lot of freedom to traverse and explore the world, but the lack of linear structure is also its weakness.

Far Cry: Primal opens up with you, Takkar, joining your tribe in a mammoth hunt for meat. While you manage to fell the beast, a sabretooth tiger pops up to kill your comrades, steal your food and chase you off to parts unknown. You're left to quickly gather some materials to hunt for food, and trek through a cave, where you encounter the sabretooth again. You manage to scare it off and find Sayla, a woman who's also part of the Wenja tribe but whose tribespeople were killed by the Udam, a rival cannibalistic tribe. She asks you to take vengeance and to rebuild your people.

This is more or less all the story you're going to get in the game. FCP is not really a story-driven game; it's all about the adventure. You set out, gather materials, kill enemy tribes and wild animals and try to end up on top of the food chain. The gameplay loop is enjoyable, or it was at least for me; I had the advantage that this was my first Ubisoft open-world game, so I wasn't dragged down by Assassin's Creed or other Far Cry games. Still, the first story missions you receive are to recruit specific people to your tribe: a shaman, a warrior, a huntress, and an inventor. These are the people who will then later offer you quests, alongside the gatherer Sayla who welcomed you in the beginning. None of the people are particularly different; they don't receive a lot of character development in their missions and being cavepeople, they are all varying kinds of crazy.
Yes, cavepeople. Far Cry: Primal is a game that takes place in caveman times. There are strenghts and weakness to this setting: one positive is certainly the setting. The world is named Oros, and it is beautiful. There's plenty of beautifully lush forests to run through, lakes and rivers to traverse and wonderful vistas to admire from high rocky mountains. There's also a part of the map that's essentially all snow, which is a great sight but like most snow areas, loses its luster after prolonged exposure.

The early parts of Far Cry: Primal are tough. You have to gather materials to make all your weapons and to progress the missions. Combat is two-fold; either you'll be facing the enemy tribes of the cannibalistic Udam or the fire-worshipping Izila who have their own unique challenges and fighting styles but are generally manageable, or you'll have to deal with Oros' true hell: animals.
Animals will tear you to shreds and not think twice about it. This is the area where there is actual enemy variety; Udam are more physical and will charge at you with clubs while Izila will generally chuck spears, arrows, rocks, and fire bombs at you from a distance but each animal type really has their own fighting style. Dholes are like dogs and generally easy to take care of, but wolves will often fight in packs and overwhelm you early on. Big cats like leopards and jaguars will use a hit-and-run fighting style while bigger animals like bears and sabretooth tigers will physically overpower you. You'll be half dead before you notice a badger snuck up on you and is tearing you to shreds, and their hardiness means you won't kill them too quickly either. And woe upon you, poor cave(wo)man, should you anger a mammoth, as it will mostly likely result in a quick game over. Later on, you'll get missions to hunt the most ferocious animals, and the Blood Mammoth as it is called, could genuinely fit into a survival-horror game.

The animal menace can thankfully be dealt with as you are the Beast Master. Tensay, your shaman, will quickly instruct you in the way to tame wild animals and once you manage to recruit a sabretooth tiger (which scares most other animals when they approach you, leaving you to traverse the world in relative peace), the game really opens up. I found it to be very interesting game design, as there is a clear difference in difficulty before and after taming a sabretooth tiger because animals really will not hesitate to attack you, most are quite fast or hit incredibly hard, and are much more difficult to deal with as opposed to enemy tribes.

As the game opens up, the game becomes more comfortable to play. The more outposts and Wenja you add to your tribe (which can be done by clearing sidemissions and story missions), the more resources get added to a general resource stash that you have access to; this makes it so later on in the game you don't have to hoard as much wood and rocks and animal hide as your villagers will do it for you. Most of the missions are pretty simple 'kill these people' or 'gather these things'. There's some variety but not much. The game also gets easier as later on you'll recruit one Udam tribesman and one Izila tribesman, who will give you special skills. The Udam, Dah, teaches you how to make a berserk bomb, which turns enemies crazy and makes them attack one another. Once you have these, outposts and bonfires can be cleared in seconds; you let your owl fly over them and drop a few, and the enemies will take care of themselves. You could also drop sting bombs, which contain bees which will easily take out all but the strongest enemy types. It doesn't make the game completely easy though, as dropping bombs will generally alert enemies and later enemy camps will have horns that can be blown into to call for reinforcements, so a good combination of scouting and timing when to go for the Berserk Bomb is crucial.

After playing many hours of Far Cry: Primal, you'll reach the ending, and actually be surprised with some character and story moments. Both the Udam you recruit and the Udam leader, Ull, have some surprisingly nice scenes in the story finale. After defeating both Udam and Izila, the huntress you recruited also has a scene that made me somewhat surprisingly emotional as it played out. The strength of FCP without a doubt is how easy it is to just slide into it, to get into the gameplay and explore and do missions. Halfway through the game you will probably start missing a little depth; there's plenty of skills but many that aren't particularly useful, several weapons that don't feel like they fit a particular use, and a general lack of reason to do the missions you're doing. The characters will ask you to do something and you'll do it because it's a quest, not because there's a real reason in-game that makes a lot of sense.

However, Far Cry: Primal succeeds in what is, for me, the most important thing in a video game: it's fun. It's a good time. It's a pleasure to be in the world and marvel at the wonders, to lose yourself in the sounds of the animals, and to just pick up your spear, whistle for your sabretooth tiger, and trek out on another adventure.

Half-Life 2

Did a playthrough to get all the achievements (damn you Lambda Locator). I still love it, but man, I forgot how much I dislike Anticitizen One and Follow Freeman. It's just one chaotic mess of huge firefights with useless friendly AI and hiding and throwing rockets at Striders and gunships. None of the tight linearity that is HL's strength imho.

Johnbobb posted...

man how many times now has my #1 been the last place of at least one other ranker. It feels like it happens quite a bit

The first time I heard Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others was on the Best of The Smiths and I was so baffled that of any songs they had available, that was the one they went for

I mean, the lyrics are silly, but you could easily consider the music to be Marr's magnum opus.

I just don't know how people can be positive about this. Everytime you think this show will do something interesting or fresh, it dials it back as quickly as it can. There's no development on any of these characters at all. The show has a moment of epic "Let's reunite the Mandalorian clans!!!" and it boils down to two 1v1 fights. DD gets captured at the end of last episode and basically frees himself with a little help from Grogu who was able to be perfectly sneaky and surprise the troopers. So the whole capture plot was just basic "I need to separate DD from the other Mandos for a bit". So much lazy storytelling.

Iron Man = Mario
Hulk = DK
Iron Man 2 = Mario 2
Thor = Metroid
Captain America = Legend of Zelda
Avengers = Smash

Songs that saved my life, part one (three?). The ultimate outcasts' album, still. But it's not emo. The music, and the wit and humour displayed in the lyrics make The Smiths more than just a depressing band (even though they can perfectly be that).

1. I Know It's Over
A complete, bone-chilling breakdown, every single time.

2. The Boy With the Thorn in His Side
My favourite of the middle pop-songs. It's just got such a nice flow to it.

3. Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
Growing up (and to this day still I suppose) I was always a Morrissey kid. I loved Marr's guitar playing, but in my mind I always more the vocalist, the frontman, putting himself on display for everyone. Morrissey sings well on Some Girls, but this is the one Smiths song (aside from the instrumentals) where he's almost completely superfluous to the song; Marr comes up with pure musical wizardry here. The guitar is just stupendous.

4. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
THE track. This is one of the first songs I really actively listened to, probably the oldest track that I heard that I still listen to. Will always have a special place in my heart.

5. The Queen Is Dead
Maybe the best opener to an album ever. I love the ferociousness of the drums, I adore the lyrics, and I love the outro as well.

6. Bigmouth Strikes Again
I honestly probably like Cemetry Gates more; I've just overplayed Bigmouth over the years that it has dulled my appreciation for it. But for this ranking I did try to really listen to the track, and the complexity of the guitar and other instruments just make it that I really can't put it any lower than this.

7. Cemetry Gates
I adore this track, but it's probably a bit simpler than the other ones rated above.

8. Never Had No One Ever
Underrated, but I've always really liked this one. When you walk without ease, I love that opening line.

9. Frankly, Mr. Shankly
Lots of lyrical fun here.

10. Vicar in a Tutu
I like it more than before, but it's still my least favourite off the record.

"So leave your house, come into my shed
Please stop my world from raining through my head"

"Between the click of the light and the start of the dream" - Arcade Fire, No Cars Go

Goo Goo Dolls > Godspell > Talking Heads

1. Jeremy
2. Alive
3. Even Flow
4. Release
5. Porch
6. Black
7. Deep
8. Once
9. Garden
10. Why Go
11. Oceans
12. Master/Slave

NBIceman posted...

I could choose almost anything from Fair to Midland but I think their absolute peak comes from "The Greener Grass."

If opportunity knocks, let's make him beg

"And at once I knew, I was not magnificent" - Bon Iver, Holocene

"Down on your knees, begging us please, praying that we don't exist. But we exist" - Arcade Fire, We Exist

"Tried living in the real world instead of a shell but before I began, I was bored before I even began" - The Smiths, Shoplifters of the World Unite

"Fear is his name, but his friends still call him God" - One Thing Left to Try by MGMT

"Out of all those kinds of people, you got a face with a view" - This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) by Talking Heads

"Where every ghost unto me known, haunted me" - Tonight in Bilbao, Sun Kil Moon

3. Beat a game released between 2003-2012
Dust: An Elysian Tail

Almost four months but finally on the board!

Dust: An Elysian Tail (iOS)

Dust: An Elysian Tail is one of those games that's good, but you're especially interested in what the future could hold for it as a franchise. It's got a lot of good things going for it, but they're all not worked out well enough that you can call it a really great game, but you see all the potential there to make something actually special.

The story is one of the first examples of this. The game stars Dust, an amnesiac warrior with a talking sword and Fidget, a Nimbat who is your sidekick. The plot meanders for the most part, with Dust just looking for clues to who he is and saving people on the way. Most of the plot and the twists happen near the end of the game; at their core, there are some cliches but I felt the game does enough to put its own spin on it to make it not a complete rip-off. The characters (and especially the side characters) are pretty emotive. Dust is a pretty stoic character for most of the game (with room to be awkward or joking at times) while Fidget is more of a comic relief sidekick, but I found the voice acting for both somewhat grating at times which made it difficult to really get attached to them. The main problems are incomplete attempts to tell the story; there's some dialogue options later on that feel like the game wanted to do split paths, but nothing happens there. The big bad of the game, General Gaius, is someone who is described throughout the game as a ruthless monster, but every actual scene that features him, casts him in a more positive light. It feels like the game is missing a chapter to really highlight the character of Gaius and his relation to Dust, but maybe the indie development cycle didn't allow for that.

Gameplay-wise, Dust: An Elysian Tail has been named a metroidvania. While the naming is understandable, there's not that much backtracking to be done, and the vast majority of it is purely to pick up some chests if you want those. There's one level with a significant amount of backtracking throughout and it's also the biggest chore. This is mostly due to the fact that the screens are pretty big (where in Metroid or Castlevania the actual screen can generally be traversed pretty quickly) and horizontal. Enemies respawn every time you leave the screen and love getting in the way, which makes it almost obligatory to fight them.

The combat is a mixed bag. It feels good and it looks really cool and great. The shame is that your arsenal is very limited. You have a normal attack, and early on the game teaches you two combos. Later on, you don't get any more combos. Very quickly you will learn that the Dust Storm attack is the way to go. This means you let Fidget throw a projectile, and then spin your sword so you can send out an attack that is powered up by her projectiles. Fidget will unlock different kinds of projectiles after each boss you beat, but the electricity one really makes all the other ones obsolete. Especially the aerial variant of the Dust Storm is a great weapon, as it offers invulnerability to the vast majority of enemies. So combat will always look a cool force of chaos on your screen, but it is quite unfortunate that the combat will feel like a chore later on, as it'll just feel a lot like button mashing. There's also a parry you can do, but there's very few enemies that will really offer the opportunity to do it, as all the smaller enemies will generally crowd you to the point that you won't be able to see when you have to do your parry.

Graphically, the game is very pretty. The backgrounds are lovely and detailed, the enemies have nice variety in their design even if they are variations of each other, and the characters are easy to keep apart. The actual character sprites when they are having a conversation feel lower quality, but not to the extent of being bothersome or ugly.

On the audio, the music was enjoyable without being extremely memorable. In a game where there's a lot of traveling around, not having any grating music is definitely a good point, but I also doubt I will look up any of the tracks of this game on YouTube later.

Overall, Dust: An Elysian Tail is a fine, solid game, without being anything more. The ending leaves room open for a sequel, but I can't find anything about it potentially happening online, which is a shame, as all the systems are there to be improved upon and perfected to create a truly awesome title.

Wario games > Mario games

If these are available for Europe, I'd love a Yoshi Springtime Siesta

HaRRicH posted...

Nobody has contested this hot take? Fine, I will.

Hershey bars are the Coca-Cola of candy bars.

Oh I should probably have worded that better. I wasn't attacking Coca-Cola, it was more that Coca-Cola is known everywhere, just like KitKat.

Which I find woeful, considering I despise KitKat.

Wordle 639 5/6

azure
spoke
gnome
globe
glove

From back to front to back again

DeepsPraw posted...

Sugar is superior to European chocolate

FTFY

I'd love a Yoshi Springtime Siesta, but I'm in Europe so I assume it won't work?

Bacon is overrated

Peanut butter is overrated

KitKat is disgusting and it's abhorrent it's like the Coca-Cola of candy bars.

I didn't know about points and the only themes they've got left are lame ones!

I still had some money and I bought Lapras Ride with it, but I don't know which one to buy with the last money I have. I'm not huge on Eevee, but the Eevee Collection is really cute. Yoshi Springtime Siesta is also great, but I'm also thinking of getting Team Magma because it would fit well with my red and black 3DS. Dilemma's...

The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r-qDvD3F3c

Pivotal '80s album, heartcure for everyone who's ever been lonely, filled with Morrissey's wit and Marr's guitar peak. I should really just copy and save these blurbs somewhere.

Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC5zHACynR4

Iconic 2000s post-punk band. Always cool.

dEUS - The Ideal Crash
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyA01nH72NI

Incredibly consistent album, really. Belgian alt(or art?)-rock band, according to some maybe THE Belgian rock band. Instant Street is a top 10 all-time song, incredibly sweet but that outro...(cut somewhat in the video above to serve as a tease ;)

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

Looks like a release date is still TBA they might have chickened out.

We'll have to keep abreast of the situation.

Pokemon Presents are the epitome of "This meeting could've been an email".

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/3/1/AAKsqHAAEOS7.jpg

Don't want to come across as a genwunner but boy these got tough the further it went. Starting from Gen VI I was just generally left with a "THESE are my options?!" feeling.

LightningStrikes posted...

I think after watching this Anakin might be the best Star Wars character?

Anakin (and Ahsoka) are absolutely the best SW characters when you take into account the full scope of SW beyond just the movies, and this a show that definitely brings that home.

I'd also consider Clone Wars much better than Andor which I've never understood the love for. I think it portrays a much more interesting and balanced universe and displays something not really seen before with the importance of the Clones and the role of Jedi in that universe.

I can also totally recommend Rebels, as I think it only has one 'dud' season out of four. There's definitely an argument to be made that it leans more kids show than Clone Wars, but I liked its focus more. Kiddy-wise, the ranking would probably be Clone Wars > Rebels > Bad Batch > Resistance

Raka_Putra posted...

The problem is not AI, it's capitalism.

As companies race to lower their costs as much as possible, creation of art is one of the things they'll likely delegate to AI.

Pretty much. It's great that creative people no longer have to be stunted by a lack of skill or income or contacts to create.

But everything that can be AI-automated, will be, because it cuts costs.

While PokeBank will be free, PokeTransfer (for Gen I-III?) is tied to Bank and will need to also be purchased once to still have access to it later!

With Switch offering GB games, the rush to download them is lessened, but if you want to own them, this would be the time to download them. Especially something like the 3D Kirby's Adventure, which I'm not sure the Switch will offer.

Ace Attorney games, SteamWorld Dig, Zero Escape and SMT IV (and SMT IV Apocalypse) are all titles worth picking up as they're either digital only or a pain to find physical copies of.

I also thought patches could still be downloaded after the shop shuts down. If not, a good way to find them (also for games you might later buy physical copies of) is to search for Update in the eShop store.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBuKNkVFaMU

What's the best way of getting those three games? You need only one of them to get Revelations, but you have to play until Chapter 6? There are two versions of Revelations for both Birthright and Conquest? I've tried some Google-fu but things are still a bit unclear.

Well, at least you get a choice if you still have money on your eShop account. Buy the GB games on 3DS to own them, or pay in perpetuity to play them on the Switch!

It's not the peak. A lot of people feel like the next saga is a bit of a dip, but I still consider it quite great.

But as Alabasta is the culmination of a (longer) saga, it definitely benefits from that in how big of a deal it is (and Crocodile as a truly fearsome villain).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJRP3LRcUFg

Smiths > Bowie > Aphex

1. Vicarious
2. Right in Two
3. 10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)
4. Rosetta Stoned
5. Wings for Marie (Pt 1)
6. Intension
7. Jambi
8. The Pot
9. Lost Keys (Blame Hofman)
10. Lipan Conjuring
11. Viginti Tres

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVceDus1JIk

Fallout and Smash Bros? Maaaaaaybe.

Was between jaguar and leopard for me because of two YT channels I follow. Voted for jaguar eventually, but they're both great, as are lions.

MartinFF7 posted...

No, and I'm currently struggling with a debate on this because they seem to FINALLY be available... but only as part of a "God of War Ragnarok" bundle which isn't a game I'm interested in/would play.

So the debate is whether to purchase it right now just for peace of mind, or hold out hope for it to be released w/o bundle sometime in the next 5 months (need it before FFXVI in June) and save like $80 in the process...

Same. I can find it in a bundle with GoW Ragnarok, a headset, a controller kit, Miles Morales, Last of Us Part 1 and 12 months of PS Plus for 930...but I haven't played GoW 2018 or Spider-Man yet, and having already played Last of Us I also have no interest in Part 1.

Is there an archive of these threads?

Oooh so in the versus weeks we'll still be ranking just one album, it's just going to be a versus of whose album gets chosen as opposed to one person giving three choices.

I for some reason thought each person would give an album, everyone listened to those albums and then the 'best' would also be voted on. But that would be a significant uptick in work, so not sure why I thought that.

While I understand why it's not the entire story, shame to see Skypiea get shafted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5HuK6u1eJw

If Argentina and Morocco win, it'll be the first WC final without an European team since 1950!

You can take him out of Tottenham...

look at me i am giroud!

I'm not a fan of either side, but at this point in time, with both at the end of their careers, Portugal - Argentina would be an epic final.

Also I need Morocco to lose so they stop burning my country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG6cozRDXU0