Video Games General

[iamnuff]

On the flipside of that, I want more games where taking the "evil" route doesn't necessarily involve kicking puppies and being a douchebag for the hell of it, or endings where "kill the villain" doesn't involve your character instantly turning into a full-blown cackling Sith Lord when you've been largely pragmatic throughout your playthrough.

I'm specifically recalling Jade Empire's morality system, where the Closed Fist path was allegedly a legit martial philosophy about seeking personal strength and betterment and sometimes helping other people do the same but in practice was just about being a douche 99% of the time.

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Agreed.
Renegade Shepard could have been so much more if it was actually a 'I will do anything to ensure the survival of my people' path, instead of just a dickbag racist asshole path.
The fact that it's flatly inferior to the paragon path sucks too. It feels like you should end up with more Galactic Readiness at the end of the series, but you had to sacrifice a bunch of things to get there.

I want a game where you talk to a former party-member at the end of a thee-game-series and they say "So it turns out that you were exactly the kind of person we needed to save the galaxy." and then tells you quite sincerely that they hate you and don't ever want to see you again.
Because you are the man who saved the galaxy, and to do that you sacrificed his homeworld, killed two of your party-members, broke a bunch of promises and left a bunch of people to die.
And if you hadn't, all life would have been scoured from the galaxy.

Not a game where you get the "Do the idealistic thing" option and the "Do the hard but necessary thing" option, where being too soft gets you a gameover.
Give me a game where you spend the first arc building alliances and making promises to back people up when The Bad Thing arrives in exchange for their help now, but when it does show up it's so much worse than you predicted.
You made promises to ride to the defence of five different allied nations, but you only have enough troops to fulfil three of those promises.
So choose.

Oh, you didn't ride out to help the under-armed magic-using nation? Well, they got wiped out and now you don't have a circle of wizards working on a mega-ritual for the final battle. Hope you brought a shit-ton of guns to make up the difference.
You opted not to defend the proud-warrior-race guys? They actually did fine and looked after themselves, but their leader won't meet with you anymore because your word is ash.
Like, he gets it, he completely understands and even agrees with your decision, but you made a blood-oath with the dude and you broke it, and that means that relations there are permanently soured.

You backed up the idealistic pastoral homeworld that your waifu hails from?
That's nice, but they're not actually going to be of any help in the war effort so you don't get anything from it.
You do avoid a famine event that could have popped up later in the game, but you don't get a fleet of ships or a new superweapon.

Edit: The Force Unleashed had the absolutely worst 'this is the bad ending for no reason' option.
You choose to kill Palpatine and it magically makes your protagonist into an evil psychopath.
No, no. I'm pretty sure wacking Sheev is the morally correct choice here.

 

[Jace Spicer]

Edit: The Force Unleashed had the absolutely worst 'this is the bad ending for no reason' option.
You choose to kill Palpatine and it magically makes your protagonist into an evil psychopath.
No, no. I'm pretty sure wacking Sheev is the morally correct choice here.

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Pissed me off something fiercely when that happened. Made sense with Vader's path since you let your anger overpower your reason, let the rebel leaders die and lost to palpatine. But killing palpatine would have made you just like him? Get the fuck out of here.

I like playing good guys so none of that super appeals to me however I would like to be able to play as a villainous hero of sorts without it turning into "man that time we decided to kill the villain was fantastic, now we're the villains! We'll rule the world justly!"

"What the fuck are you talking about? I killed him because they consistently showed they weren't willing to listen to reason and also exterminated entire races, how do we even fucking compare in the slightest?!"

"Well he surrendered and you killed him of course, that makes you no better than him."

"Get the fuck out of my face right now before I take this mace and smash your head in."

 

[Malcolmo]

Technically the whole "no we can't kill Palpatine" thing was to try and tie the game to the overall star wars canon without breaking the story because this was still at a time when people tried to do that and well, you can't exactly tie this game with Star Wars canon if you've lopped Palpatine's head off during it. Unfortunately it resulted in spectacularly retarded actions to get there in the form of people not taking the opportunity to cut the head off the serpent that was the empire when they had a chance because "lol we're all retarded and deserve to die".

 

[Jace Spicer]

Technically the whole "no we can't kill Palpatine" thing was to try and tie the game to the overall star wars canon without breaking the story because this was still at a time when people tried to do that and well, you can't exactly tie this game with Star Wars canon if you've lopped Palpatine's head off during it. Unfortunately it resulted in spectacularly retarded actions to get there in the form of people not taking the opportunity to cut the head off the serpent that was the empire when they had a chance because "lol we're all retarded and deserve to die".

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Hate that shit then because it means they were going to originally mention Galen Marek or Rahm Kota but just went :LOLNOPE

 

[Smuthunter]

Not a game where you get the "Do the idealistic thing" option and the "Do the hard but necessary thing" option, where being too soft gets you a gameover.
Give me a game where you spend the first arc building alliances and making promises to back people up when The Bad Thing arrives in exchange for their help now, but when it does show up it's so much worse than you predicted.
You made promises to ride to the defence of five different allied nations, but you only have enough troops to fulfil three of those promises.
So choose.

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Fable 3. The douchebag king you just overthrew was being a douchebag in order to gather resources and build up the military to fight the world-ending bad guy who's coming in 5-10 years or so. Now that you're the new king you get to be the hard man making hard decisions, and while it's not impossible to win without making sacrifices it makes the final battle waaaay harder.

I like playing good guys so none of that super appeals to me however I would like to be able to play as a villainous hero of sorts without it turning into "man that time we decided to kill the villain was fantastic, now we're the villains! We'll rule the world justly!"

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You might like The Old Republic if you haven't played it already. Both Republic and Sith factions have good vs evil morality choices which is really interesting when you're playing a Sith Warrior or Inquisitor since you come across as a sane, reasonable, and even honorable villain protagonist surrounded by moustache-twirling psychopaths if you take the "light side Sith" options.

 

[Bear_Mint]

Fable 3. The douchebag king you just overthrew was being a douchebag in order to gather resources and build up the military to fight the world-ending bad guy who's coming in 5-10 years or so. Now that you're the new king you get to be the hard man making hard decisions, and while it's not impossible to win without making sacrifices it makes the final battle waaaay harder.

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It's not really that hard. Fable's market system can be abused to passively get back all of your funds. The real grind is waiting for the arrow to deposit your amount of gold into the castle treasury to finally reach the other side.

 

[ShogunTrooper]

Fable 3. The douchebag king you just overthrew was being a douchebag in order to gather resources and build up the military to fight the world-ending bad guy who's coming in 5-10 years or so. Now that you're the new king you get to be the hard man making hard decisions, and while it's not impossible to win without making sacrifices it makes the final battle waaaay harder.

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Unless you go into real estate. Since time only progresses when you do the quests, you can take your sweet time raking in mountains of cash in rent from refurbished homes, and fill your war chest that way, without doing anything morally too dubious or having to make any evil decisions.

Well, except if you consider being a landlord that charges exorbitant prices to be evil, but hey.

It's not really that hard. Fable's market system can be abused to passively get back all of your funds. The real grind is waiting for the arrow to deposit your amount of gold into the castle treasury to finally reach the other side.

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That too.

Turns out, all you need to save the world from an eldritch abomination is good old Capitalism. Who knew?

 

[iamnuff]

Fable 3. The douchebag king you just overthrew was being a douchebag in order to gather resources and build up the military to fight the world-ending bad guy who's coming in 5-10 years or so. Now that you're the new king you get to be the hard man making hard decisions, and while it's not impossible to win without making sacrifices it makes the final battle waaaay harder.

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I'd like it if it went a little further though.
When you're making your decisions on the throne, the 'evil' ones are often so cartoonish.

Do I want to build an orphanage for all the little kids with no mums and dads... or do I wanna build a whorehouse?
One I did like though was the "The picturesque bowerstone lake has iron deposits under it. We should drain the lake to get at them." and it's actually kind of a good point?
Like, it completely ruins the scenery and devastates the natural beauty of the land, but iron is vitally important to your war effort.

Plus, there's stuff like 'Do I keep all of my promises to the people who helped me take the throne, or do I realize how much keeping those promises will cost me, and choose to flake out?'
You can abandon the mountain man who helped you early on. You can even deforest his entire zone.
The urban revolutionary who backed your grab for the throne? You can fuck her over.
The foreign kingdom? You can send people to reinforce them, but that costs money from the treasury.

For me, instead of just having a big pile of gold that represents your war-readiness, I'd rather you have a budget and a bunch of options on how to spend it.
Keep promise to X, or upgrade your troop's guns? Fortify your home city or reinforce your allies?
Refurbish the summer palace or hire mercenaries?

Of course, for a fable-game, it'd feel terrible if you couldn't get all the cool stuff and then save everybody anyway.
And this is a game about mythical heroes, so it feels fitting to add a 'third option' that lets you have your cake and eat it too, if you're clever.

Not with rent though. That's boring. I'd rather if you had a bunch of options for difficult quests that pay out a lot, or to skip costly upgrades if you just handle stuff yourself (send troops to clear the monsters out of the mine? Pass, i'll just do it myself.)
Being able to personally support the kingdom's war effort off your own back is a suitably heroic deed, but I'd want to do it in a cool way, not in a lame way.

Maybe you have to make the correct series of decisions early in the game, and in late-game it pays off with you unlocking a secret hidden dungeon where clearing it rewards you with a statue made of gold or a ruby as big as a troll, and then the decision comes up to keep it as a vanity item that you can display in your castle, or to sell it for war-money, which allows you to buy the dumb shit like the whorehouse and the summer palace while also buying all the shit that you actually need.

 

[Bear_Mint]

Turns out, all you need to save the world from an eldritch abomination is good old Capitalism. Who knew?

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And all it took was raising the property tax by 200% and causing massive economic inequality as the monarchy purchased every property from the peasants.

 

[Scygnus]

Unless you go into real estate. Since time only progresses when you do the quests, you can take your sweet time raking in mountains of cash in rent from refurbished homes, and fill your war chest that way, without doing anything morally too dubious or having to make any evil decisions.

Well, except if you consider being a landlord that charges exorbitant prices to be evil, but hey.

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Don't even have to overcharge, just fuck off for a bit while your money builds up. Not once did I ever raise the rent above the... medium, I think? Been a long time since I played, so I don't remember how it did it, but I'm pretty sure it had a price recommendation that told you how much was reasonable, how much would put you at a loss, and how much would really piss the tenants off. I honestly think I may have kept prices relatively low while I went and magic'd shit to death and just had a little patience.

I also remember immediately purchasing every single piece of property and shop the moment I had the cash for it, though, rendering me poor as fuck until the last building was bought and repaired... and then my cash went whooop.

 

[Raven1138]

Just ran into something on YouTube for Berzerk Studio's Castlevania inspired platformer Infernax: a Cheat Code Trailer. One for a very famous cheat code that must be seen to be believed.



And people wonder why we demand that Konami just license its IPs to people who actually give two tugs instead of making yet another crappy cash grab...

 

[Smuthunter]

Just ran into something on YouTube for Berzerk Studio's Castlevania inspired platformer Infernax: a Cheat Code Trailer. One for a very famous cheat code that must be seen to be believed.



And people wonder why we demand that Konami just license its IPs to people who actually give two tugs instead of making yet another crappy cash grab...

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Yeah but then I wouldn't get so much use out of the FINE, I'LL DO IT MYSELF meme.

 

[Mach565]

Finally, now there's an actual release date, after being delayed twice (Early 2021 → Late 2021 → Early 2022). Here's hoping it'll be good.

 

[Scygnus]

Playing the Planet Crafter 'Demo' but you can opt into the beta and pretty much play everything they have at the moment. Since it's not even for sale yet.

Decent sandboxy build-stuff game. Especially for a two-person studio. My only complaint is the time it takes to cart your loot back to base, since there's no vehicles or fast travel of any kind.

Restarted once already because I built my base near the spawn- which is the lowest elevation I've yet found. And then the game warns me that'll probably fuck me when the rain comes and the low parts fill up with water. Second game I built it in the highest spot I could get to. Easy to leave, because there's no fall damage. Walking back is a pain, though, and it's waaaaay away from the Aluminum field. Hoping the ice cave right next to it melts relatively soon, since it's full of Aluminum too. Just need to get the planet warm enough. Did get very lucky with the random chests in the second game though- lots of... what's it call it, Super Metal? Well, once you get the T3 crafting station you use it to upgrade your oxygen tank and backpack to max level (so far,) which is really great.

Go pick it up and try it. On Steam. You can just play the regular demo and then carry your save into the beta, easy, if you want to avoid any glitchiness- though I haven't found any yet.

Also: Best way to travel once you get the T2 or better backpack, with three iron, two titanium, and one silicon. Can just drop a hab anywhere and refill your oxygen, then break it back down again. Or leave it there as a waypoint. Also Also: There's a gold chest on TOP of the wreck on the mountainside near your starting point. Just look up from the landing pod door and you should see it up there. At least for me, it had a plant with 600% oxygen production and a Uranium Rod- which normally takes nine uranium to make and that shit's pretty rare.

 

[Digital_Devil]

I've been playing through the Borderlands 3 DLC after being away from the game for years. I just started the third one, Bounty of Blood, and I'm kind of surprised how good they are. I heard the writing was a lot better than base game, but it really surpassed my expectations considering I hadn't played the game in about two years. I'm glad they're good.

 

[Raven1138]

Some important news for those who still own a WiiU or 3DS.

The eShop for these platforms will shutter in March 2023. Likewise come May 23 of this year you will not be able to use a credit card to make a direct purchase in either shops and gift cards will not be redeemable after August 29. The only accepted payment after that until late March 2023 will be your shared Nintendo account balance.

You can still re-download any purchased software or DLC, but will be unable to buy anything new from the eShop, Theme Shop, Badge Arcade or Street Pass Mii Plaza. So if you had an eye on some games you never got around to trying, now is the time to grab them.

 

[Lykaia]

Just got a Nintendo Switch! Now the question is: Is it better to get digital or physical copies of a game? What's your preference?

 

[Bear_Mint]

Just got a Nintendo Switch! Now the question is: Is it better to get digital or physical copies of a game? What's your preference?

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Depends on the game's file size, I suppose.

 

[Athlumney]

Just got a Nintendo Switch! Now the question is: Is it better to get digital or physical copies of a game? What's your preference?

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Physical lets you use older versions back towards what ever version is on the cart, digital can't.
This is especially important if you want to use any of the mods people have developed like Super Mario Odyssey multiplayer mod which allows at least 16 players to play cooperative or competitively.

 

[Hunter 1]

Also, physical versions take up less space on the internal storage or microSD card (patches and DLC are a thing, you know) in exchange for having to deal with game cases and game cards, and all that entails.

The space part is kinda important, since the Switch's internal storage is 32GB on the original and Lite models, and 64GB on a OLED... but system related stuff will take up some of that space, too. A microSD card slot is included under the kickstand on the system's back (or under a flap on the bottom of Lite models), but high capacity microSD cards are expensive; I think a 1TB model will run you about $100? Also, the OS really isn't set up to allow hot swapping the microSD card; it'll just note that it happened and require a restart.

 

[Megaolix]

And PSO2 NGS finally give us a damn good boss fight. Varied attacks, doesn't just feel spongy, a blast to fight against really. Also, great music, especially the second phase.

I expected a Elder clone boss fight and my expectations were blown the fuck away.

 

[Bear_Mint]

Now question is if they can maintain this

 

[Digital_Devil]

Soul Hacker 2 announced and I'm really hype for that. I've got some issues with the UI choice, but other than that I'm excited to see a non-Persona SMT spinoff finally come out for the first time in a while, the last one (unfortunately) being Tokyo Mirage Sessions. I'm especially glad it's not going to be switch exclusive, though R.I.P Switch users since there isn't a release for that at all. Including the Street Fighter 6 reveal, it's been a pretty good night for reveals.

 

[Dakkaface]

Just got a Nintendo Switch! Now the question is: Is it better to get digital or physical copies of a game? What's your preference?

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I prefer digital, since the card reader on the Switch is finicky and sometimes decides that Mario Party or Spyro don't exist. The micro SD card slot is there for a reason.

 

[Megaolix]

I prefer digital, since the card reader on the Switch is finicky and sometimes decides that Mario Party or Spyro don't exist. The micro SD card slot is there for a reason.

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...Wouldn't that instead mean your Switch is defective instead and need a repair? I NEVER had that issue on any game.

 

[Dakkaface]

...Wouldn't that instead mean your Switch is defective instead and need a repair? I NEVER had that issue on any game.

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It's a relatively common issue with the Switch, but there are a lot of potential causes and the occurance for me is inconsistent and random. It's not something that needs a repair, it's just an occasional annoyance.

 

[Megaolix]

So, how has Elden Ring been for you guys?

 

[Smuthunter]

So, how has Elden Ring been for you guys?

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It's been sitting on a shelf at the store because I'm playing Horizon first. From the sound of things they've been having patch-related problems anyways so I can wait a while for them to iron things out.

 

[bryanfran36]

The new Horizon sequel is PlayStation exclusive for now, yes?

So, how has Elden Ring been for you guys?

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Never bought it, seeing it was yet another overhyped marketing product. Will wait between 3-5 years before buying when there's a shitload of bugfixing, patches, and DLCs added.

Now it seems justified when there's been Day One problems being downplayed as usual.

 

[Digital_Devil]

So, how has Elden Ring been for you guys?

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It's a little overwhelming but I'm having a lot of fun with it. I've beaten two of the main bosses so far and one of them I shouldn't have won because he died after he killed me. Literally watched his body fade away and the victory screen came up right before the loading screen. Everything so far feels like when you walk into the graveyard in Dark Souls 1, get your shit kicked in, and realize you're not supposed to be there. And I mean that as a compliment. Haven't run into any bugs or anything so far, but that's probably because I'm not playing on PC.