What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Arino]

Didn't original RE4 only allow you to shoot when stood still?
Or am I misremembering big time....?

It's designed around that. You want every single game to be like WASD/left stick for movement and mouse/right stick for aiming? Oh wait, that is actually the current state of AAA gaming. Thanks to people like you Your wish has been granted.

Chill your boots man, fucking hell.
Have you played it?

Moving while aiming reduces you to the slowest speed possible. From what I remember of the original, the enemies are a bit more speedy/maneuverable as well, it balances without being a 3PS. I'm still all fir rooted shooting in REmake 1 and 0, but it never felt quite right to me in 4. I think this strikes a nice balance.

You're right, sorry about the harsh tone. The only RE games I've never completed so far (or not played at all) are 6, 8, and the remake of 4. I've played through all other RE games at least a few times, including their remakes and different ports such as RE1 on DS, which is great btw Yeah I am a big fan of the original ones too and I love the tank controls. When 4 first came out back then, I was disappointed because it was just not RE to me. But that aside, it's a great horror themed action game. I think it's still worth playing today if you're ever curious and it's available on like 20 different systems. I believe it's way better than its remake. It's just lots of fun, and the combat system is perfect with all the different weapons, knife and melee attacks.

https://youtu.be/z7mwQiIJxTQ?si=SRhig0eBcSWahp18

https://youtu.be/yAHppD_Vvts?si=9U-j3MB5v8nCDTIA

https://youtu.be/KDvpIYzQVv4?si=dvypbjmuY0qt9hsm

[Lander]

The only RE games I've never completed so far (or not played at all) are 6, 8, and the remake of 4.

You should consider 6, if it's in the not-played category

The haters are mostly right - it's a shit Resident Evil - but hides one of the best (if not the best) TPS gameplay systems of its gen once you A. suppress the urge to vom long enough to get good via the terrible campaigns or B. skip straight to mercs mode and enjoy life.
Sadly cratered forever, since it was attached to a bomb. I was hoping they'd bring back some of its ideas for the more actiony remake entries; just-framed SCHWING action parries are a bit counter to the serious modern tone, but no other TPS has ever had it so good for movement options and overall moveset complexity. Max Payne was back in the 90s, yet nobody outside of Capcom seems to have considered diving to prone and being able to shoot / roll afterward.

[hazys]

Yeah, RE6 is ironically the most exciting the series has gotten combat-wise (apart from RE5 with input-buffering I guess, and The Mercenaries 3D). Too bad it's attached to a really lackluster game.

[Arino]

Haha yeah I was going to play 6 eventually. I'm sure it's great if you're in the mood for what it is but I have played so many dumb games over the last few years that I don't think I will be in the mood for it any time soon. At the moment I really enjoy getting back to arcade games, I find them much more satisfying.

[Steven]

At least his voice sounds vaguely like how Nimoy did in those horrible new movies, except for when he doesn't.

I liked the first one a lot. The second one sucked ass, and the third one didn't leave much of an impression on me. Mainly I just remember hating Cumberbatch in the second movie. Even though Khan was supposed to be played hammy, BC just doesn't have the right chops for the role. He's hammy in all the wrong ways

The first one is actually the worst one, as it has A LOT of problems. Into Darkness has its own problems and Beyond is the #2 most forgettable Star Trek movie (lol Insurrection), but that first new one is very problematic indeed. The cast is good, possibly even great, but what they had to work with isn't, like it's attempting to be intelligent but clearly knows that it isn't but still tries hard to pretend to be even though it knows nobody is fooled. I could go on for a while about all of its problems, but I'd rather not lol.

That said, having actually been in the military myself and worked hard to achieve what I did while I was there, having Kirk go from cadet directly to fucking captain is beyond insulting to an indescribable extent. All of the others aside from Spock, Sulu, Chekov, and Pike do the same to get to their TOS ranks, for that matter, but Kirk was the worst. I might not hate it as much if I hadn't actually been on active duty when I saw it for the first time.

Definitely had mixed feelings about Cumberbatch, though. He's a good actor, but he doesn't really fit for Khan, and after the movie released they had to make that comic that shows how they modified Khan to make him look like Cumberbatch, which was pretty awkward.

I worked as an art handler for a long time and one of the companies I worked for handled Nimoy's apartment in NY. He had a cool collection, and it's exactly what you'd expect Spock to have in his place; mostly framed b&w photography from the 60s and geometric sculptures. Very POMO, but also very classy. Never got to meet him though, he always scheduled us to come and switch things out or deliver something from an auction house when he was in LA. My boss of course did, and said he was super cool and friendly.

Yeah, I heard Nimoy was a nice guy. He said that he became more Spock-like as time went on due to being in character so much while acting. I wonder how much that influenced his later life, but we can't ask him now.

Still not entirely satisfied with this Resurgence Spock, but I did notice a few times where he does this



in the game, so while his earlier big, sweeping hand gesture was really out of character and very odd, it's nice to see that someone on the dev team clearly paid attention. Honestly, the animations are one of the weak points of the game; they're very stiff and many were clearly not motion captured. They probably spent a large amount of money to get Frakes to do Riker, but I'll talk about Riker later. Aside from looking a bit odd and sounding 20 years older than he's supposed to be, as this is set around one year after Nemesis, Riker is mostly pretty fine, fortunately.

[Sumez]

Well they clearly didn't have the license to use his likeness. It's quite possible they intentionally avoided most of his mannerisms to avoid a lawsuit.

[XoPachi]

Beat Metroid because I haven't played it in 20 years. Want to see how well the inception of the genre holds up compared to modern offerings. And I'm realizing that, at least of the ones I've played in the last decade, a LOT of newer games could learn from this old dog. Because this game is great. But I want to specifically compare it to Zero Mission.

Spoiler

I never hated Metroid, but growing up, I was of the common mindset of "Zero Mission makes the original obsolete".

Zero Mission is a great game, but it is thoroughly different. It offers great variety, content, breaks up certain level layout monotony of the original, and has lovely presentation. But it has no depth or pressure which inherently also kills any sense of reward.
The second to second action is extremely dull and you never need to think about anything before proceeding. So powerups feel meaningless other than to fill a linear role of being world keys. Expansions are only to boost completion percentage as opposed to relieve the pressure of juggling low resources because nothing is a challenge. Maybe you need 3 energy tanks because of Kraid, Ridley Robot, or maybe Tourian. But you'll never be low on health with the standard enemies or constantly at risk of death.

You have no need to learn how to approach anything because Samus is an unstoppable powerhouse through her stock movement the moment the game begins. The relationship free 8-way aiming, crouching, and her quick movement has with enemies is massively skewed in the player's favor. There isn't even a noticeable shot limit which is actually shocking when I think about it. You don't need to misdirect Zebs. You don't need to pay attention to Geruta arcs while worrying about landing on Novas. Skrees are invalidated the instant you get the Long Beam and in some cases even before that. Most stuff can be killed before it's aggro'd and it's so insanely easy to avoid everything because jumping is easy to manage in Zero Mission.

Enemies at every stage of the game are dead before they pose a risk because they can be dodged by holding right or just blasted because diagonal aiming is broken. Bigger things can just be spammed and have no answer for it (that first Dessgeega after getting the Long Beam is a perfect example). Manual dodging, assessing situations for optimal routes through problematic areas, and thoughtful positioning don't come into play ever. And the game is also afraid of pitting you against complimentary, different enemies at once.

Keep in mind, I'm just talking about how easy the game is just from the perspective of the basic toolkit Samus always has. This isn't even getting to power ups that further nullify combat and even platforming (Power Grip).

I appreciate that 2D Metroid immediately went back to having some attempt at challenge with Mercury Steam's entries even if somewhat fumbled in their entries. I think it's important that Samus be pushed a little bit at least in 2D. These are supposed to be perilous adventures.

[Sumez]

Metroid 1 does a whole lot of things I wish I could find even one modern game in the genre able to replicate.
It feels like an open world that truly asks for the player to explore to find secrets and work out their own route to optimize effeciency. Although areas are gated off, some times hard, some times soft, there are often different ways to deal with each obstacle, intended or not. You never feel strictly pushed towards one golden solution, and even though my eventual sub-one-hour-route is probably nearly identical to most other people's, it still felt like something I'd pieced together on my own accord, and not something the game made me do.

It's baffling to me that for a subgenre that has become so massively ubiquitous in recent years, every single one just seems to follow the same basic recipe instead of trying to push its boundaries. And more than anything, it's ridiculous that none have yet dared to try approaching the things that set either Metroid 1 or Super Metroid apart.

[Steven]

Metroid 1 does a whole lot of things I wish I could find even one modern game in the genre able to replicate.
It feels like an open world that truly asks for the player to explore to find secrets and work out their own route to optimize effeciency. Although areas are gated off, some times hard, some times soft, there are often different ways to deal with each obstacle, intended or not. You never feel strictly pushed towards one golden solution, and even though my eventual sub-one-hour-route is probably nearly identical to most other people's, it still felt like something I'd pieced together on my own accord, and not something the game made me do.

It's baffling to me that for a subgenre that has become so massively ubiquitous in recent years, every single one just seems to follow the same basic recipe instead of trying to push its boundaries. And more than anything, it's ridiculous that none have yet dared to try approaching the things that set either Metroid 1 or Super Metroid apart.

Afterimage is what you are looking for.

[Sumez]

Afterimage is what you are looking for.

this 30~40 hour game

You're sending mixed signals!

[Steven]

Afterimage is what you are looking for.

this 30~40 hour game

You're sending mixed signals!

Any% can be done in about 30~40 minutes, apparently.

[guigui]

Now that you mention it, I'm currently playing Afterimage. Nice setting, exploration, and combats requiring a little bit of thinking if played on advanced difficulty.

As for "different ways to approach things" as mentionned by Sumez ; I've yet to see that in the game. Maybe only 5 hours in, but to me this looks like your typical progress in those games : explore a path, see more paths blocked by different kind of obstacle, come back later when you have the right skill to deal with said obstacles. When I'm playing those kind of games, this is enough for me though, so I like it.

Complain I have is that there quite a few frames of stutters on the NSW, so I'd recommend playing it on PS4 or such. Also, moving, jumping, fighting, do not feel as snappy as in some other games I played, like Hollow Knight, Bloodstained, Iconoclast (this one is very snappy, I love it, but the "puzzle your way out of eevery single room you step in" is not my cup of tea). Also the OST is relaxing music only ; I prefer them to be catchy.

[Steven]

Afterimage is much like FDS/NES Metroid in that it lets you do whatever you want; you can go pretty much anywhere at any time through sequence breaking (there isn't much of a "sequence" at all in this game, just like FDS/NES Metroid) and the game will almost never stop you. The sequence breaks might not be apparent, but they are definitely there.

[guigui]

Definitely interested in hearing more about sequence breaking in Afterimage.
To me now it just looks like : "this platform is too high to reach, come back when you have double-jump or something."

Though the map is so huge with so much left to explore open that I do not feel frustrated by it, yet.

[Sumez]

I do think it's theoretically cool that sequence breaking is possible in games that allow it - but if it's never apparent that you can do something (like say, you need to move through lava that damages you, you can probably get something to protect you, but it seems possible to brute force because it's just a sort section), it doesn't really affect my experience with the game.
If I don't know it's there without looking up some guide or experimenting on a second playthrough, it's not actually a part of the game in my perception

[Steven]

Definitely interested in hearing more about sequence breaking in Afterimage.
To me now it just looks like : "this platform is too high to reach, come back when you have double-jump or something."

Though the map is so huge with so much left to explore open that I do not feel frustrated by it, yet.

You can be creative using damage boosting to reach places before you're "supposed" to be there, use glitches like this one, you can lure enemies to places where there normally aren't enemies and jump on them to go places that you'd normally need some additional ability that you don't have yet, go defeat the level 70~80 endgame bosses when you're level 10~20 and get the abilities they drop early, and generally just do whatever you want. It does require some creativity and the endgame bosses will almost certainly kill you in a single hit at low levels, but it can be done.

I do think it's theoretically cool that sequence breaking is possible in games that allow it - but if it's never apparent that you can do something (like say, you need to move through lava that damages you, you can probably get something to protect you, but it seems possible to brute force because it's just a sort section), it doesn't really affect my experience with the game.
If I don't know it's there without looking up some guide or experimenting on a second playthrough, it's not actually a part of the game in my perception

That is... illogical, but it does explain why you didn't like Metroid Dread, which has a great degree of freedom despite its invisible hand pushing you very strongly toward the "intended" path. All you have to do is ignore it and you'll find the game is rather open.

[vol.2]

I could go on for a while about all of its problems, but I'd rather not lol.

I thought it was a fun, action packed movie and I was never worried about how "realistic" is was, or how true to Trek lore it was. I've seen a lot of Trek, but I am not a Trekkie; I don't get bogged down in the details, nor do I get outraged when fantasy fiction doesn't perfectly match reality in general. I do enjoy when an attempt is made (Ringworld comes to mind), but I don't think Trek is really focused on future realism anyways and it never was.

[XoPachi]

Metroid 1 does a whole lot of things I wish I could find even one modern game in the genre able to replicate.
It feels like an open world that truly asks for the player to explore to find secrets and work out their own route to optimize effeciency. Although areas are gated off, some times hard, some times soft, there are often different ways to deal with each obstacle, intended or not. You never feel strictly pushed towards one golden solution, and even though my eventual sub-one-hour-route is probably nearly identical to most other people's, it still felt like something I'd pieced together on my own accord, and not something the game made me do.

It's baffling to me that for a subgenre that has become so massively ubiquitous in recent years, every single one just seems to follow the same basic recipe instead of trying to push its boundaries. And more than anything, it's ridiculous that none have yet dared to try approaching the things that set either Metroid 1 or Super Metroid apart.

One thing I found cool was that the beams are not strictly upgrades. You need to pick one for your treks to Kraid and Ridley, but you ultimately require the Ice Beam to take on Tourian. So you have to make a huge, playstyle altering decision of whether you want the Ice Beam to freeze enemies or the wave beam for a larger and more powerful hitbox. You cannot have both which people seem to think is a problem (though backtracking to swap them out can be annoying, sure). But I found it really interesting.

Of the ones I played recently, Environmental Station Alpha comes the closest to what I felt playing Metroid.
I also think I now understand why I'm burnt out on this genre after playing this.

[Volteccer_Jack]

If I don't know it's there without looking up some guide or experimenting on a second playthrough, it's not actually a part of the game in my perception

So walljumping and infinite bomb jumping are not part of Zero Mission in your perception? What about Long Beam skip? I guess bomb boosting is not part of Metroid 1, either, by this reasoning.

One thing I found cool was that the beams are not strictly upgrades.

One is strictly an upgrade. The other makes completing the game impossible. Good choice lol.

"But you can use the wave beam to trivialize Ridley!" You're not helping your case here, imaginary devil's advocate.

[XoPachi]

We got a super fan here, folks!

[Arino]

Playing the hack/colorised version of Mega Man World. It doesn't look like it in the second picture but fortunately this GBA has backlight. The old mod where you had to find an SP with the brighter display and then sacrifice the whole thing just for this mod

https://ibb.co/qdZLb1J

https://ibb.co/8KnBrK1

[Steven]

I am not a Trekkie

That's why. As a generic SF action movie it's actually pretty okay. As Star Trek, it's pretty terrible. At least it eventually indirectly resulted in Strange New Worlds. It also eventually resulted in Resurgence, which is better than half of the Star Trek movies and a lot of Star Trek TV episodes. I guess it's time to talk about Resurgence because I just finished it and it was excellent... as Star Trek. As a game, uncertain.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting much going in. I had heard the graphics were not great and they aren't. Animations, especially facial animations, are stiff and awkward and sometimes very stiff and awkward, texture quality is low, lighting is poor and interacts very oddly with uniform collars, and the game very badly needs better anti-aliasing. If you REALLY want to get into specific details, the uniforms look a bit odd as well, partially due to the poor lighting. This is supposed to be the First Contact uniform, the one with the grey shoulders. Fortunately, this gives me a chance to briefly mention Riker, who I talked about earlier. Here he is from Nemesis (from the new Blu-rays, BTW, which are infinitely better than the old ones and 100% worth getting to replace those old ones)

Spoiler

Now this is how he looks in the game.

Spoiler

Aside from Riker very obviously losing both a decent amount of weight (his whole model looks really thin) and the hints of grey in his beard in the roughly one year or so that it's been since Nemesis, the uniform is weirdly dark, except for when it looks super bright, which is especially apparent and very strange-looking on the operations division uniforms, which sometimes appear neon yellow. None of this actually matters that much, fortunately. There are also some strange audio glitches on occasion, but nothing too bad. Going back to Riker, he was probably the only really problematic voice actor in the game, as some of his delivery was really odd. I wonder if the devs really didn't have any better takes for some of his lines. There are no graphics options at all beyond resolution, motion blur, and v-sync. I would have really liked at least better anti-aliasing, as the aliasing is quite bad sometimes.

I really like what they made here, graphics aside. The story works, and I'd say it's much better Star Trek than I expected. Expectations were exceeded, and I am very happy. Whoever made this knew exactly what they were doing (they even used the extremely rarely seen Steamrunner and Nova class ships!) and if they make another one I'll be there on day 1. The gameplay is... fine, I guess. It's an adventure game and I wasn't expecting anything novel or whatever and I got exactly what I expected. There was more tricorder scanning than shooting phasers, which was also nice. Finished the game in 9.06 hours, although there are a lot of things I could have done differently and gotten different results.

As a game it's probably just okay, but as Star Trek it's actually very good. Want good Star Trek? Buy it. If you don't... lol why the hell did you read this?

you ultimately require the Ice Beam to take on Tourian.

Nope: https://youtu.be/miLd03k0gXc?si=S038hjURATiQa9s8

[ryu]

Playing the hack/colorised version of Mega Man World. It doesn't look like it in the second picture but fortunately this GBA has backlight. The old mod where you had to find an SP with the brighter display and then sacrifice the whole thing just for this mod

https://ibb.co/qdZLb1J

https://ibb.co/8KnBrK1

Jealous. What's that cart to load roms called?

[Sumez]

That's why. As a generic SF action movie it's actually pretty okay. As Star Trek, it's pretty terrible. At least it eventually indirectly resulted in Strange New Worlds. It also eventually resulted in Resurgence, which is better than half of the Star Trek movies and a lot of Star Trek TV episodes. I guess it's time to talk about Resurgence because I just finished it and it was excellent... as Star Trek. As a game, uncertain.

Just to share my two cents... As a generic SF action movie it's pretty terrible. All the new Star Trek movies are. Even without being "truly star trek", you can still do so much better.

[Steven]

That's why. As a generic SF action movie it's actually pretty okay. As Star Trek, it's pretty terrible. At least it eventually indirectly resulted in Strange New Worlds. It also eventually resulted in Resurgence, which is better than half of the Star Trek movies and a lot of Star Trek TV episodes. I guess it's time to talk about Resurgence because I just finished it and it was excellent... as Star Trek. As a game, uncertain.

Just to share my two cents... As a generic SF action movie it's pretty terrible. All the new Star Trek movies are. Even without being "truly star trek", you can still do so much better.

Now that I think about it again, and thinking about that movie is definitely not something that I like to do at all BTW, you're probably right. At least it's still (barely) better than Nemesis and possibly Insurrection.

[Sumez]

I do think it's theoretically cool that sequence breaking is possible in games that allow it - but if it's never apparent that you can do something (like say, you need to move through lava that damages you, you can probably get something to protect you, but it seems possible to brute force because it's just a sort section), it doesn't really affect my experience with the game.
If I don't know it's there without looking up some guide or experimenting on a second playthrough, it's not actually a part of the game in my perception

That is... illogical, but it does explain why you didn't like Metroid Dread, which has a great degree of freedom despite its invisible hand pushing you very strongly toward the "intended" path. All you have to do is ignore it and you'll find the game is rather open.

Is it really illogical to judge a game based on the experience you have playing it, rather than how it can potentially be played??

Like.. The mockball technique definitely adds an interesting element to Super Metroid, that opens up new paths which I think ultimately improves the game. But if the game didn't already feel incredibly open ended on a blind playthrough, before getting into weird sequence breaking tech, I wouldn't have had the same interest in exploring those approaches in the first place.

Quoting you, you literally said that it's possible to sequence break in Afterimage by using glitches to lure enemies to a place they aren't supposed to be...
No one is going to sit down playing a game and say "oh wow it's really cool they made it so you can do that" the first time they see a place where an obscure glitch they probably have no idea exists can let you break the intended(?) sequence of game progression.
Similarly, you need to be strongly aware of unique abuses of the shinespark in Dread that didn't exist in previous Metroid games, in order to break the chain in Dread - and find the singular place it's actually able to do it. You're not going to find anything just by going off the beaten path and exploring. Even attempting to do that is painful in that game.

I don't currently have the means to judge what Afterimage is really like in this regard, but just based on what you've been telling us, it doesn't sound particularly open ended.

[Steven]

Is it really illogical to judge a game based on the experience you have playing it, rather than how it can potentially be played??

It is illogical to consider a thing that is in the game to be as if it is not in the game just because you didn't find it.

Quoting you, you literally said that it's possible to sequence break in Afterimage by using glitches to lure enemies to a place they aren't supposed to be...

That's not a glitch; enemies follow you normally, and there is a limit to how far they will go.

Similarly, you need to be strongly aware of unique abuses of the shinespark in Dread that didn't exist in previous Metroid games, in order to break the chain in Dread - and find the singular place it's actually able to do it.

Incorrect, as it is possible to sequence break without Speed Booster.

You're not going to find anything just by going off the beaten path and exploring. Even attempting to do that is painful in that game.

Also incorrect; see early Super Missile, which does actually require Speed Booster.

[Arino]

Playing the hack/colorised version of Mega Man World. It doesn't look like it in the second picture but fortunately this GBA has backlight. The old mod where you had to find an SP with the brighter display and then sacrifice the whole thing just for this mod

https://ibb.co/qdZLb1J

https://ibb.co/8KnBrK1

Jealous. What's that cart to load roms called?

This is the best brand. No cheap shit:
https://krikzz.com/our-products/

There is the same kind of hack (colorised) of another few games such as Mega Man World 5, Super Mario Land 1 & 2, etc. They look very pretty and give you a reason to play the games again

[Sumez]

That's not a glitch; enemies follow you normally, and there is a limit to how far they will go.

use glitches like this one, you can lure enemies to places where there normally aren't enemies and jump on them to go places that you'd normally need some additional ability that you don't have yet

You're contradicting yourself

It is illogical to consider a thing that is in the game to be as if it is not in the game just because you didn't find it.

Why would I judge a game based on an experience someone else had, if it's not the one I had? You're off the charts here, man
I can understand a situation where someone misunderstood and game and they need to reevaluate their approach to it. But expecting someone to just know about glitches and obscure exploits in the process of describing how a game is designed, just sounds incredibly biased.

[Steven]

That's not a glitch; enemies follow you normally, and there is a limit to how far they will go.

use glitches like this one, you can lure enemies to places where there normally aren't enemies and jump on them to go places that you'd normally need some additional ability that you don't have yet

You're contradicting yourself

I am not. Those are two separate, unrelated items in my list. Had I formatted it with bullet points, it would look like this.

• using damage boosting to reach places before you're "supposed" to be there

• use glitches like this one

• lure enemies to places where there normally aren't enemies and jump on them to go places that you'd normally need some additional ability that you don't have yet

• go defeat the level 70~80 endgame bosses when you're level 10~20 and get the abilities they drop early

• generally just do whatever you want

It is illogical to consider a thing that is in the game to be as if it is not in the game just because you didn't find it.

Why would I judge a game based on an experience someone else had, if it's not the one I had? You're off the charts here, man
I can understand a situation where someone misunderstood and game and they need to reevaluate their approach to it. But expecting someone to just know about glitches and obscure exploits in the process of describing how a game is designed, just sounds incredibly biased.
[/quote]
None of the examples that I gave regarding Dread are obscure exploits or glitches; they exist in the game because they were programmed to be that way. A player not discovering those things does not mean they are not there; consider my first playthrough of Daioujou Rinne Tensei's S Arrange. I did not notice the Rinne gauge at all on my first playthrough and assumed it was not there and that it had no depth to its scoring. I was unobservant, and as a result, I passed it off as surprisingly shallow and easy and not particularly worth replaying. Then I found out that such a gauge does indeed exist and that I was wrong. You could say the same thing about scoring in many good STGs that do not explain their scoring systems in great detail, like ESP Ra.De. or Batsugun, the latter of which never explains scoring at all.