Random Gaming Thoughts

Also another game that picked my interest is the new Yuji Naka 3d platformer announced today. It has that Nights vibe or classic SEGA vibe.

 
The founder of ReptileGames has confirmed Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is not PC only:

 
  • Like
Reactions: red
Anyone else think video games today are just a bit too serious? Or better yet, there are not enough light hearted games? I was watching the Xbox presentation today and my daughter was scared of the Halo villain. I then had to turn it off as it seemed every game being shown had a focus on gritty themes or violence.

My favourite video game memories are not just nostalgia because if I get a chance to revisit them the enjoyment is not there. I think back to games like Clockwork Knight, Ready 2 Rumble, Power Stone, Midnight Club, Conkers Bad Fur Day and Fable to name a few. It seems games like this have either ceased development or are represented in a low budget category.
 
I haven’t seen the new Halo stuff but the rest of the series always seemed pretty tame to me. Serious and kinda grimy at points but mostly didn’t take itself too seriously. Thing is I thought the Prophets, Gravemind, and Guilty Spark made up good antagonists, and Reach was kind of its own thing, but the bad guy in 4 just felt kinda silly and I don’t even recall what happened in 5 but it just put me off of investing anymore time into the series.

I guess it all depends where you go for games. I generally find a lot of silly stuff is relegated to indie games these days, like Undertale, though you still have Kirby and Yoshi and Mario, etc. even Yakuza or Shenmue have a lot of dumb side content. The main story in Deadly Premonition 2 is pretty violent but a ton of it is still goofy in tone. No More Heroes 3 I’m hoping strikes the same balance the first game did so it may have a bunch of silly things on the surface.

I suppose there are many more now that have pushed the envelope in certain ways, like Manhunt or Last is Us games or certain scenes in GTAV, many others. My first really violent game was the aforementioned NMH when I was 15 so I guess I’ve gotten pretty used to it since then.
 
Also this kind of shows are for a certain kind of people (more hardcore) that tends to prefer gritty/serious themes. In addition, in the AAA scene we have that the game of the decade was the last of us which sets a bit what kind of tone players consider good.

A bit old, but this was an xbox report about its users that might also explain a bit why, since it could really well be that demographics shifted heavily from teen to a more adult playerbase: https://www.windowscentral.com/here...out-xbox-one-owners-microsoft-shared-partners
 
Well, there's a lotta reasons for that. First and foremost is that the budgets for AAA titles nowadays are getting higher and higher. The majority of those are American games.

I'd argue that - in terms of major releases - there are four notable and region-based tones to each culture.

(Disclaimer: Yes, these are gonna be generalisations, and there will be plenty of exceptions, however when viewed as one culture in the macro sense, you will see that they are common traits)

America is the home of the blockbuster. Bigger is better. The land of the wild west. Guns, explosions, action heroes. They also wanna say summat about society on occasion.

Europe tends to focus on more introspective games, and tend to be quite experimental.

Japan is Japan. It's a bit of a mishmash of culture, due in part to the post-WW2 US occupation. Japanese games, to me, are quite playful on the whole, and can be quite bizarre. To us, at least.

Then there's us. The Brits. We're all about humour. Go and look at all of our major releases over the past 30 years, disregard any licensed games like the Arkham series, SEGA racing, Aliens, sports games, etc and you'll see the good ol' British humour run amok.

The thing is, as time has progressed, we've kinda slipped down the pecking order. Well, maybe not down the pecking order exactly, but there are huge, notable differences between the budgets UK-based studios work off of, and those of our American counterparts. They unequivocally run the triple-A market right now.

I'm sure Japanese games may sell more on the whole, I don't know the figures, but across Europe and the US, it's undeniable that American developers/publishers gain the most exposure. They just spend more on marketing. That's their way, and that's what I mean when I say they run the market.

Anyway, even our crown jewel Rockstar are becoming more Americanised as time goes on. It makes sense. Hell, the Housers live over there, and it's practically their company. Well, it was, I think they're both leaving now, but still... That company has British roots, but it's effectively been pre-approved for US citizenship.

So when you say that games are a lot more serious now, they're not. You're just being exposed to more games that have a seemingly "more serious" tone. They're the blockbusters. And sure, blockbusters may have some quips and killer one-liners, but it's not exactly "direct some mice to rocket ships to escape space cats".

There's a much deeper analysis to be made here, but I'm tired and meant to be doin shit atm, so you'll just have to wait on someone to do a long-form video essay on YouTube or summat.
 
Creward said:
Also another game that picked my interest is the new Yuji Naka 3d platformer announced today. It has that Nights vibe or classic SEGA vibe.

Click to expand...
I had a lot of mixed feelings the first time I watched it, but it has grown on me a lot after a few rewatches. There's definitely a whole lot of NiGHTs DNA in there. Even if ends up crap, I'll probably still buy it day one because it definitely seems like Yuji is putting in some real effort here.

Nathanial Essex said:
Anyone else think video games today are just a bit too serious? Or better yet, there are not enough light hearted games? I was watching the Xbox presentation today and my daughter was scared of the Halo villain. I then had to turn it off as it seemed every game being shown had a focus on gritty themes or violence.

My favourite video game memories are not just nostalgia because if I get a chance to revisit them the enjoyment is not there. I think back to games like Clockwork Knight, Ready 2 Rumble, Power Stone, Midnight Club, Conkers Bad Fur Day and Fable to name a few. It seems games like this have either ceased development or are represented in a low budget category.
Click to expand...
I'm fine with serious and gritty, my problem is they're just fucking dull now from a visual standpoint. Virtually everything seems to look like either The Walking Dead or a literal children's cg show. Stuff like Outrun, Panzer Dragoon, and Gun Valkyrie are a thing of the past outside of indies (which tend to have nowhere near the visual fidelity and polish for obvious reasons). You get some straight-forward anime visuals too, but honestly, I find that a little boring as well compared to the varied JP aesthetic that we used to get in games.

I had to laugh a bit at your daughter getting scared of the Halo villain, though. When I was watching that part, I was thinking they were aiming it at little kids. I guess not, though. Children's minds are a mysterious thing, you never really know how they perceive things. I thought the gameplay looked pretty fun for a western game fwiw.

BloodyHeartland said:
The main story in Deadly Premonition 2 is pretty violent but a ton of it is still goofy in tone. No More Heroes 3 I’m hoping strikes the same balance the first game did so it may have a bunch of silly things on the surface.
Click to expand...
I'm with you dude. I don't know why, but this sort of dramatic tonal-shift is like my video game fetish. Danganronpa, NMH like you said (and pretty much everything Grasshopper makes), Shenmue, Yakuza, MGS, etc are the master of this. One of these days I'll get Deadly Premonition. They basically just stopped putting it on sale in Steam the moment I switched to PC gaming...
 
Last edited:
I would recommend any other version of DP if you can. There’s a “fix” for it on PC but even with that, it still seems very up in the air whether it will decide to actually work for any given person, unfortunately, from what I’ve heard at least. Perhaps you could find it cheaper for the 360 or PS3 by now, not sure what it’s currently priced on the Switch eshop.
 
BloodyHeartland said:
I would recommend any other version of DP if you can. There’s a “fix” for it on PC but even with that, it still seems very up in the air whether it will decide to actually work for any given person, unfortunately, from what I’ve heard at least. Perhaps you could find it cheaper for the 360 or PS3 by now, not sure what it’s currently priced on the Switch eshop.
Click to expand...
Aww shit, really? I didn't know about that. I don't have any non-Sega consoles anymore, so if it doesn't work on my PC I may have to resort to trying to emulate the PS3 version or something... Which I'm sure will end terribly lmao.
 
That’s unfortunate...as much as I personally like the game, I couldn’t say it’s worth it alone to buy a whole console for unless you can find it extremely cheap. Maybe PS3 emulation will get easier one day, though I wouldn’t know myself how it is now.
 
halo 6 demo looks good but not mind blowing.i was kinda hoping it would almost look realistic but it looks cartoony and very similar to previous entries.

as im one of those stupid people who will buy a games console to play a single game (+being a halo fan)..next big thing i want to see from halo6, is how it looks on current gen consoles vs next gen.. that will determine where my money is going to go..i imagine a xbox one x is gonna be pretty cheap when the next gen roll around..i did own a xbox one a few years ago but i prefer ps due to the exclusive games (mainly looking at a ps5 at the moment)
 
Last edited:
red said:
halo 6 demo looks good but not mind blowing.i was kinda hoping it would almost look realistic but it looks cartoony and very similar to previous entries.

as im one of those stupid people who will buy a games console to play a single game (+being a halo fan)..next big thing i want to see from halo6, is how it looks on current gen consoles vs next gen.. that will determine where my money is going to go..i imagine a xbox one x is gonna be pretty cheap when the next gen roll around..i did own a xbox one a few years ago but i prefer ps due to the exclusive games (mainly looking at a ps5 at the moment)
Click to expand...
I was a big Halo fan, easily up there as one of my favourite series. I've played Halo 1-4 and Reach. It was Halo 4 that killed my interest in the series. Same old game, crap enemies and unnecessary story. You just have to think, how unlucky do you have to be that every second your race is facing a major threat.

Had no interest in Halo 5 and now the latest game just looks like a remastered version of the first. What was the real killer for me was the generic enemy at the end (was that a Brute?), with the typical deep, evil voice and maniacal laugh.

They did show a CGI trailer for Fable. Hated the third game but will probably have to find a way to play this. I'm in desperate need for a new laptop so may just buy a half-decent one and play it on there.
 
Now I’ve gone and actually watched footage of Halo 6, I’m glad it seems to be going back to the general feel of the older games instead of how bland 5 felt. Though things look a bit too clean and not too detailed. 4 I felt the new enemies were cool in how they worked together but the overall lack of enemies compared to the variety Reach had kinda killed it. The environments were at least nice and you could tell the influence of ex-Retro employees in the art direction. Not sure what’s going on in 6.

That said, I’m in no rush to ever get an Xbox One again or any new consoles for that matter. Switch and PS4 with my current backlog seem fine for some time to come. That and I’m seriously doubting talks of a “Switch Pro” if they haven’t made one by now. Think they’d be better off being well into development of a new console that’s not just a barebones upgrade.
 
Halo 1 is my favorite in the series so anything to recapture that feeling is fine by me. However, I agree that the showing didn't really look super impressive, but I'll have a wait and see approach. The beauty of Halo 1 was it's simplicity. All of the weapons had their own purpose and there was barely any crossover in functionality. The series probably has too many installments at this point to go back to basics, but I think simplifying the game and being very strict with what you add is a good approach.
 
Tsukuyomimagi99 said:
www.gematsu.com

Suikoden creators announce RPG Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes for PS5, Xbox Series X, Switch, and PC - Gematsu

Rabbit & Bear Studios, a Tokyo-based studio formed by key creators of the Suikoden series, has announced Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, an ambitious new RPG planned for release in fall 2022.
www.gematsu.com www.gematsu.com
Click to expand...
Oh my god, it's happening! Something is actually happening!

I would have really preferred a true sequel to Suikoden III, because I really would have liked to see what Murayama had planned for Harmonia, but this will do. I will almost certainly be backing this.
 
www.segashop.co.uk

SEGA Shop UK

SEGA Shop is your one stop shop for official and exclusive SEGA products with merchandise from your favourite SEGA games including Sonic the Hedgehog, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage and Yakuza!
www.segashop.co.uk www.segashop.co.uk

I missed the KS for this. Very cool that it's available to buy now.
 
i'm starting to remember why i kept giving up on jet set radio future lol. the game is a frustrating puzzle compaired to the first one & the boss fights take x3 times longer than they should .. for example, your meant to "tag" the bosses to complete the level ( there is normally 3 enemies at one time) but they and take upto 60-90 spray cans each..( you can only carry x30) but when you have collected all the cans on the map, you end up skating around in circles waiting for them to reload. o_O

hopefully this new bomb rush cyberpunk will be more fun.
 
red said:
i'm starting to remember why i kept giving up on jet set radio future lol. the game is a frustrating puzzle compaired to the first one & the boss fights take x3 times longer than they should .. for example, your meant to "tag" the bosses to complete the level ( there is normally 3 enemies at one time) but they and take upto 60-90 spray cans each..( you can only carry x30) but when you have collected all the cans on the map, you end up skating around in circles waiting for them to reload. o_O

hopefully this new bomb rush cyberpunk will be more fun.
Click to expand...
Is it really that difficult?

I seem to have forgotten about it's shortcomings if that's the case. Maybe I was just swept up in the idea that the OG Xbox was a kind of Dreamcast successor and was happy to see so many Sega games on it.
 
Anyone played Moving Out? It's on my list of games to buy but have hesitated because my brother is not interested in playing with me. If anyone wants to go through it on PS4, let me know!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top