whatchu playing now

I just tried the strike included with the Destiny demo (Devil's Lair) and my team got stomped into jelly by one of those spider tank things. The tank itself isn't so much of a problem- I've participated in killing one in a world event, and got an ascendant shard (I understand this is fancy) to show for it, and the instance has some nice areas to block line of sight from its turrets- but the endless flow of level 8 enemies in a demo that caps out at level 7 seems a bit cheap.

This is me, for what it's worth (I seriously don't get why there is character customization in this game if you can't switch your character's helmet off even in social apps like bungie.net but whatever)

https://www.bungie.net/en/Legend/Gear/2/4611686018451908605/2305843009323124448

Can Steam RL talk to PSN RL networks?

Yes but no. If you go into matchmaking then it's cross platform, but as far as I know there's still no way to intentionally team up with people from the other side. They say that'll be in a future update though.

Stayed up all night beating Bayonetta.
How. How did I get through life without playing this game? It is truly an amazing thing.

Got some Dreamcast action:

Shenmue - Ok this is cool. Voice acting nowhere near MGS tho. Some of it, like the random kids, is really grating on the ears. Gameplay is super awkward but not too bad for the time it was made. The atmosphere is super charming so it seems most of the draw for this game is just chilling in that world.

The audio quality was kind of bad but I am running my Dreamcast thru an ancient RFU composite adaptor and thru a VCR before going into projector so that might be why. When I play the original Playstation the audio goes thru RGB connectors and sounds like crystal.

Resident Evil 3 - Never played much RE except for the first one when it just came out and my friend beat it over a week. This was cool but super early in the 3D cycle. It is weird to compare those games to never 3rd person open world games, where everything is modeled and in-camera cinematics and super intuitive dual-stick controls are a standard. The controls always feel like they are fighting the camera to me. This is another reason why MGS is so good for an early 3d game, it didn't bother w the tank controls and fighting the camera, it designed the levels and gameplay on the camera. Anyways this was ok but I killed a bunch of zombies and didn't know where to go next, I'd been to every screen so I was pixel hunting. Character select screen was kind of funny, looking like a ridiculous Sexy Costumes section of a party store. Check it out Anita.

Sonic Adventure - Holy crap I don't know what it is about this game but it is just the funniest thing ever to play. It is almost like The Room or Troll 2, a horribly assembled caricature of a cinematic experience. The characters will say stilted and desperately cool (in a 90s way) dialog and the camera will linger just a bit too long on their expressionless faces, introducing an impending sense of Lynchian horror. Think Sonic in the restaurant dream sequence from Mulholland Drive. The music is straight out of a back to school special pretending to be 90210 but about cyberpunk furries. It is the soundtrack to Station Square, the mall with cutout taxi cabs and bikini babes, a hyper virtualization of the hotel swimming pool where the 3d cast of the "Money For Nothing" music video celebrates being awesome. My favorite quotes:

Sonic: Come on ya' big DRIP! Where you going?

Miles 'Tails' Prower: Hey, Sonic!
Sonic: Oh, um, heh heh. I was on a snooze cruise, I guess...

It's a hard game to play for more than a few minutes. Hilarious as hell though.

My buddy & I still quote certain Shenmue 1 bits to each other, like the dreadlocked dude you encounter in the neighborhood. "Hi, R-y-o!"

Hah. I like "Kitty don't look so good."

I thought it was neat that they had in-game capsule machines for little Sega-related doohickeys I want in real life.

http://shenmue.wikia.com/wiki/Shenmue/Collection_Datasheets

Beat Devil's Lair and am now properly done with the Destiny demo. It's pretty great, actually- I like how well tuned at least this strike is for drop-in play with total strangers, with no voice required. Though I do totally get the complaints about Destiny's bosses being bullet sponges, because it took for fucking EVER to kill both the tank and Sepkis Prime, but at least the latter encounter mixed things up a bit, with less predictable enemy spawns and attack patterns. I mean, I'm sure they're there, and old hat to anyone who's been playing for a while, but the encounter felt genuinely exciting and dangerous instead of a dull grind like the tank.

lol, love the dreamcast reviews AB.

lol yeah that Sonic Adventure review matches up with my memory exactly. i was amazed by how corny it was, the how flashy the graphics were at the time, and also how hard it was to play the game for more than 15 minutes in one sitting.

got to play evergrace on a friends ps2 recently. apparently it was a launch title made by from software. its got kind of a souls precursor feel, i can see where some of it carried over to demon's souls. the controls and weird enemies at least, not the bad music and voice acting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot3kX3psh_o

they added a horrible song to the rocket league menus :(

wish rocket league was on mac!

Rocket League is rad, i am terrible at it.

House is child free for a couple of weeks starting tomorrow, so in anticipation of actually getting some decent game time in, I just went to the psn store and bought:

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
Game of Thrones Season One
er Peggle 2

Demon's Souls: nine hours played, two bosses down. This is going to take a while, isn't it...

always turn off the rocket league music! always!

the new map is a headfuck and a half. still, scored 2 hat tricks in consecutive games yesterday and it was probably my highlight of the week.

horizon chase (ios) is a sort of perfect rad racer update, get it.

There is a Triple Triad (card game from FFVIII) now on Android/iOS I've been playing. It's hidden away in something called Final Fantasy Portal. They kept the music so all is well, though the performance kind of sucks.

Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
― JimD, Thursday, August 13, 2015 5:44 PM

how is that

It's absolutely beautiful. Alternately nostalgic and disturbing, I'm enjoying it a lot. I'm making it last though, just playing an hour here or there. It's a lot like playing a John Wyndham book.

Beautiful but lonely?

Well, it actually feels like a populated village, you never see anyone else but you're constantly hearing little...memories, I guess? Scenes from before/during the incident being played out again. Some of them feel like excerpts from The Archers. Some of them are really horrible.

the trailer for that made me want to buy a console, solely to play it

bought that as a Monday-ugh present for myself so will start it tonight....

on another note, me and the girlfriend started playing collaborative Rayman Legends this weekend and WOW THAT IS ONE AMAZINGLY FUN PLATFORMER! and huge huge value for money too. i would imagine also an awesome adult-plays-with-their-child game too, similar to the Lego games

actually one of the most fun things about it is that a little helper guy who is remotely controlled to help you get through levels at certain points (by tickling enemies or sawing through bits of scenery) can be controlled by either player, so there is some major timing needed to make sure you're not both hitting that button at the same time and killing each other, its really fun!

Yeah had amazing fun on that game with my godson

let's all go to the rapture reminded me that i wanted to play that gone home game since a good while ago. got it today. very eerie and intense. has anyone played dear esther?

Yeah, its a solid walking sim

lol. so it is shit?

no, seriously: it's a solid walking sim!
http://store.steampowered.com/tag/en/Walking%20Simulator/#os%5B%5D=mac&p=0&tab=NewReleases

ah i had never heard that term before and it sounded like a pejorative!

it kinda is but it's also an accurate description

i'm not sure it's been done brilliantly yet, but i do like the idea of a game with no winning or losing, just wandering, maybe a story that unfolds with no real effort. especially if they can create a good atmosphere. it's where it becomes a bit more like immersive theatre or something.

gone home is p cool tho i guess. the emptiness of it really builds a sense of dread.

Journey is probably the best attempt so far at a walking simulator, it has some very minor platforming at points but 95%+ of the game is pressing the forward button and looking at the scenery.

Proteus has it licked, as it's literally just walking around. Not much of a game per se, but I find it really meditative.

yeah, i thought gone home was great. probably helped a little that i was the roughly the same age as the characters in the story in the time period it was set in, but it's definitely a great example of how a small team with a limited budget can create something really compelling.

i've played about an hour of welcome to the rapture so far and it's pretty cool - the sense of place and specifically British-place is really striking. jimd's wyndham reference is otm.

Walking simulator is a proto-GamerGate term iirc: you can't even shoot things, this isn't really a game, and of course women like it. Though obviously it's eligible for reclamation.

Hohokum is similar, inasmuch as there are goals (albeit only implicitly defined) but you're mostly just a kite-like thing floating through various colorful areas and bumping into things.

Submerged is also a post apocalyptic explorer with thankfully no shooting, meant to be pretty great

its pretty fantastic to see physical download cards of Rapture in Game's top 10 ps4 chart this week instore... just the fact that it has store placement amongst all the shooters reflects well on Sony i think

in some ways minecraft and terraria and don't starve and the like are just walking simulators with end states.
this deserves a thread i think

"Walking Simulators": Puzzle/Exploration games

Playing a bunch of Hawken while I wait for TPP to download. Hawken is a really cool f2p fps where you are in mechs. I tried a bunch of f2p Steam games and this was the best. Tried Quake Live! and it was cool and the levels were really neat but I got my ass handed to me. Matchmaking in Hawken seems a bit better.

I started playing the original Splinter Cell and, ignoring the story (which I couldn't care less about) and the graphics (which are, y'know, PS2 graphics), it's basically a pretty tight little puzzle game which weirdly kinda feels like a more 'realistic' Portal (I tried to come up with an analogy but it was strained). I gather that this is part of what people like about the MGS games (and what MGS probably does better).

i tried that a few years ago; got stuck on some early level. didn't mind the graphics either, but i was constantly getting lost on where to go and what to do. largely blame that on myself gettin' soft tbh

Bio shock infinite while I wait for MGS - the phantom pain to hit the $5 price point sometime around Christmas 2019

i forgot what the thread i put for live events is named but:

NYU Game Center Lecture Series presents
Masayuki Uemura
The Genesis of Nintendo Power
Thursday, October 15, 7PM
2 Metrotech Center, 8th Floor; NYU Campus

Join us to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) launch in the United States with Masayuki Uemura, the designer of the Famicon, NES, and SNES systems. Mr. Uemura will discuss his role in the development of the NES including how he conceived the Family Computer and then collaborated with chip manufactures and software developers to create the NES. Hear a first hand account of the NES coming to America amid a crisis in the video game industry and how the Famicon turned into the Nintendo Entertainment System.

This lecture is free and open to the public.

tempting