You guys are out of your minds. MN9 was a great platformer, better than any "official" Mega Man game by miles, and only got a hate train because of the circumstances of its development.

I haven't played it myself but from what I understand the problems people mostly had with it were technical problems (extremely poor optimization and lack of content, hell ProJared's Let's Play of the game experienced a critical memory leak and started fucking up his recording equipment in real time). I think most of the backlash came from people hoping/expecting it to be great and instead were disappointed with a game that overpromised and underdelivered, not any circumstances involving its genesis and funding (though the numerous delays probably didn't help at all with the whole "underdelivered" part).

And wait hold up, better than any official Mega Man game? In the last twenty years or something maybe, since the franchise has been treading water for eons, but I can't think of many platformers period that are more fun than Mega Man X.

Do you go out of your way to be contrarian or...?

No. MN9 is an amazing platformer. The dash-kill mechanic makes it unbelievably kinetic, and needing to maintain a chain of max-absorbs adds a layer of technique and planning that's usually reserved for scoreplay-focused shmups. E-tanks being fueled by absorbs and losing them on death is an obvious improvement over the Mega Man system of "use metagame knowledge to do the levels in the right order to get E-tanks, and then hoard them all for the one difficult boss". Rolling the utility items into functions for the weapons (eg, the helicopter-blade weapon also enhancing your jump and letting you hover, or the bulldozer weapon giving you a different dash) reduces clutter, and the new weapon-switch system, while arguably a bit complicated, is better for flow in scenes where you want to switch weapons frequently. Boss weaknesses being less powerful than the traditional MM games and the menu letting you know when you've got a weapon the boss is weak to are two more upgrades; boss fights now have to be learned even if you've got the weakness instead of just mashed through by landing 5 hits before they land 16, and the silly trial-and-error grinding that has always sucked in the series is removed.

All in all, MN9 is a huge design upgrade on the Mega Man series, and the hatred it gets is just a meme.

I recall the "anime fan on prom night" comment, but forgot it was actually in reference to Mighty No 9.




Was quite pleased to see Bloodborne on there, even though I already have it. Bought the collector's edition when it launched. One of my favorite PS4 games. And one I've been meaning to replay again, if it wasn't for all that "almost no time at all" and "so much other stuff to play" going on.

I bought Dark Souls II and Dark Souls III last night for around $40 off the PS4 store, because I'm an idiot.

I'm an idiot, because I love these games so much, but if there was a worldwide ranking system I would rank among the worst and the RAGE I get from these games brings me back to the original Ninja Gaiden.

I blame this thread btw. Everyones' passion for these games WILL be the death of me.

So I just completed the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion for the first time in my life. Could never muster the courage to kill someone in cold blood before, mixed with a healthy dose of the (for me) inevitable burnout. It was, indeed, rather good, though I wish there were far more Whodunit?s and far fewer "kill xyz because reasons." Still, it was good fun and the stealth mechanics worked surprisingly well for a game this massive; far from perfect but it's better than anything PB, CDPR or Ubi could ever come up with.

To be fair though I'm playing Oblivion with like 400 mods including all the unofficial patches, so maybe this has more to do with post release fixing from modders rather than Bethesda. But whatever the case, it was fun.

edit

None of the guilds in Oblivion/Skyrim have any real storyline - they just drag the process out by having intermittent "main arc" missions that appear after you've randomly been given (or in my case, saved & reloaded until) X number of certain mini-quest types. "Go kill x, go steal y, pickpocket z", yawwwwn. Add in the ability to save literally anywhere you want and hide until your health regenerates... there's no real challenge to them at all. I enjoyed exploring the worlds and the main storylines could be fun, but all those side missions (thieves guild, dark brotherhood, the vikings in whiterun, etc) just leave me cold. Not to mention, you can just join any one of them, complete all missions to become the absolute boss of it within a day, then move on to the next one and do the same. I think at one point I was both king of the vampires AND king of the vampire hunters, ffs.

Yeah, and most of the Daedric Shrine quests are no joke either, as well as many of the city side quests. Though I've gotta say, the fact that you can't tell the leader of the Black Hand that she fingered the wrong traitor and that the real traitor must be among her peers (including having his fuckin' DIARY, that describes everything in painstaking detail, in your inventory) seems like a massive, almost unforgivable plot hole to me. Still fun though.

Sadly the entire mages guild is really lame and all of the non-city side quests suck ass (go find my lost potatoes, are you serious Bugtesda?). Fighters Guild has a few cool twists but isn't much better either.


Factions were originally meant to be occupations for the player; they slowly shifted into being about stories because that's what people want from gaming today, for some reason. Why read a book or watch a film when you could play a far inferior one instead!?

Skyrim sucks, but I also put 200 hours into it.

Skyrim is still my absolute favorite game for the purpose of wanderlust, doing completely random stuff on a whim and being immersed in a world. One of my favorite games ever honestly. I hope Skywind is finished within the next couple years. Judging by their constant updates, it seems a likely reality.

And yeah Oblivion, while my least favorite of the modern era TES games, definitely does have the greatest Dark Brotherhood questline of them all.

Black Ops IV was announced. Super-stoked. Treyarch is the a-team of the Call Of Duty franchise, and I haven't played since Black Ops III, so I'm really looking forward to this. Excited to see something official.

Also, back in Grand Theft Auto V heavily after never playing it on modern consoles. Going through it again, I love everything about this game. Lamar is a revelation in the early parts and Trevor's psychotic underpinnings really propel what these games are about: controlling asshole protagonists in a satire-driven world, and maybe they can find a hint of redemption at some point.

I also love you can meet and hire Packie for jobs, and I love the through-lines in these games which are like, "yeah, either the main dude from the last game either retired and moved away or was killed at some point."


Yeah, Skyrim sucks, but it's also great. But also, fuck that game.

Do yourself a favor with GTA V: either steer clear of Online or make friends fast. The griefing isn't even the problem anymore so much as the exorbitant cost of everything in-game.

Recently I started playing CS:GO, my friend joined me to his team at eSports platform https://dreamteam.gg/csgo/teams a few weeks ago. I'm an amateur but try to practise my gaming skills regularly. Never thought that playing in a team can be so entertaining.

This Darkest Dungeon port is making me so happy. Surprisingly, I've absolutely murdered just about every boss I've faced other than that stupid Crocodile mini-boss. Having a Leper that does 45 damage critical hits certainly doesn't hurt.

Started a new game on Bloodborne. The threaded cane was not for me. Trying the axe, and seem to be doing better. Still going slowly but more confidently. Still can't seem to comprehend the mental map of Central Yarhnam.

Also, all previous characters were modeled after Vincent Price. This one was more of a doe-eyed Lemmy and I think the power differential is obvious.

Some straight up God of War gameplay:


This looks fantastic. The changes to the core gameplay feel like a huge breath of fresh air for this franchise. The change was very much needed, and I welcome it with open arms. Making the combat feel like a mix between the brutal melee of The Last of Us and the more tactical hack 'n' slash of the Souls series is a brilliant decision. If there's anything I could complain about, is that the combat looks rather easy, with enemies kinda twiddling their thumbs until you come smash their face in, but I can imagine that's just lowered difficulty for the sake of showing off the mechanics and the cool stuff. Other positives to mention:

- Graphics are utterly gorgeous. I'm not a graphics purist by any means, but seriously, just look at all of that beauty.
- Keeping Atreus as a support companion that requires little protection or management is a really good design choice, reminiscent of Ellie from the aforementioned TLoU or Bioshock Infinite's Elizabeth. Nobody wants to play a game that comprises almost entirely of an escort mission, because those fucking suck.
- QTEs, a once innovative but now clichéd and dated feature popularized by the franchise, seem to be kept to a minimum. Even the trademark violent executions are seamlessly integrated into the regular combat and kept quick and dynamic, so as to not interrupt the flow.
- Mechanics which were merely skin deep before seem a lot more important now, such as parries, counter attacks, and the like. Also, is that axe the coolest weapon ever, or what?
- The inclusion of heavier RPG elements, such as loot and stat investments, helps to further distance the game from its dead simple predecessors, and I think it adds nice variety to the mix.
- I already talked about Atreus, but for real, I love how much of a little badass he is; at points, he pins down enemies for you to beat down, and you can sometimes see him fucking drop kicking zombie vikings. The kid is a beast, hahaha.

I'm super hyped for this. I still like the old games, one trick ponies they might be, but this is on an entirely new level. It can't come out fast enough.

What I want to know is what the soundtrack is like. God of War 2's soundtrack is one of the best in video game history.

Just finished playing through the fan HD mod of Diablo 1 called Belzebub. Overall an absolute blast! I played a cheesy caster Sorcerer using mostly chain lightning. I started as a melee barbarian but lost my patience really quickly with close-combat. Brought back lots of memories and honestly the atmosphere of the game has held up really well over the years. Only minor problem was that they scaled the hell out of the difficulty near the end - I pretty much blasted through the entire game but then Level 16 and The Terror Domain were fucking brick walls so I had to grind a few levels to get through those. Not exactly the most fun, but now that it's all over it doesn't seem like it was a huge hindrance.

Would recommend to anyone wanting to replay Diablo 1 but not wanting to kill their eyes on those graphics.

Eastern Sun is a really fun Diablo 2 mod! Played it a while back and it put a lot of freshness into the game.

You've said all I needed to hear.

I really did love the original games, but I agree a breath of fresh air with game mechanics was needed.

Wow, Bloodborne really opens up after you kill Gascoigne huh? Now I got some mug shooting a gatling gun at me.

The charged up R2 is so important. Really didn't understand before.

Gascoigne? You're on your 2nd playthrough aren't you?

I've remade my character a few times but all I had ever done was run around and die lol.

Oh, right now I remember. You were struggling through the first horde.

I'm hoping I finally beat Nioh soon, so I can get back to Bloodborne.

Yeah I don't know what to say other than I just didn't get it, at all. I did beat him on my second try which felt nice.

Not into playing both? Bloodborne is popping right now. You should be on if you enjoy any aspect of the online play.

Gascoigne is imo one of the best boss fights in the game. There's this gradual big reveal in Bloodborne once you get past Cathedral Ward (directly after Gascoigne) that just totally enveloped me and I rate it as one of the best, if not THE best, games of all time. That initial plow through Central Yharnam is one of the biggest difficulty spikes (if you could call it that) of any game ever, but jeez it's satisfying once you know what you're doing.

Yeah its crazy how the difficulty scales as you learn. I literally rampage through central yarnham just for fun and easy blood vials now.

Learning about the charged R2 and changing to the axe was a big deal. My biggest hang-up was always directional awareness. For some reason I kept getting into the sewer area, fighting the long-arm-crawly-guys, and then somehow turning myself around and climbing back out. I just never ran down the stupid hallway.

Also I watched some "good" people play on Twitch and realized I was over-using the lock-on feature. It's a huge handicap when trying to dodge, for me anyways.

I didn't mean that in a condescending way. Believe me, I am godawful at these games.

No I didn't take it that way at all my man! I'm so excited that the game has opened up for me. I'm still struggling with gatling-gun-guy but I'm getting real close. I want to fight the stupid hunter 1 on 1 so bad. He would get his shit wrecked without his help!

I hope Souls III will open up in a similar way, once I put some real time into it. Right now I'm way too obsessed with Bloodborne to care.

I need to get back in that game, but I can't quit Nioh yet. I just beat Honda Tadakatsu for the 2nd time. I have to be nearing the end. Also, I found out how game changing the sloth spell is for the boss fights. I no longer feel so weak and useless.

It sounds like you've really cracked the code on Nioh. I stalled out bad on that game, as I do with almost everything. Same directional awareness issues as always. I was in some poisonous cave system and couldn't find my way. I eventually used a Branch to escape and started playing co-op missions again just for fun. I need to go back and actually beat the level. It's always a ladder or passageway I didn't notice. Always.

Very curious about the sloth spells! I haven't used the magic to much effect other than some really basic spells. I do have the one that turns you semi-invisible and the one that makes you run faster than fuck. I need to play with them more, especially in my current poisonous cave.

Does anyone/everyone kind of feel like DSIII's visuals are STRONGLY pulling from Bloodborne? It almost feels disappointing to me. The level design in Bloodborne has been breathtaking so far, and every time I fire up DSIII I'm like "Oh yeah, grey and grey and grey, and some creepy statues!" This might be a discussion everyone had 3 years ago, I know I'm late. Just curious if anyone else feels like From Software phoned in the visuals just a bit. Admittedly I've made NO progress in the game, perhaps it all looks less Bloodborne-esque once you get passed the Lothric goons.

Your comment on stalling out is the reason why I won't quit. I'm sick of starting video games, books, tv shows and then just running over to the next shiny object without finishing what I started.

The sloth spells are no joke. It has completely changed the game for me. You need to get your dexterity I think it was pretty high before you can use it, but once you get it there you won't want to put your controller through the wall anymore.

There certainly are a couple areas and enemies that seem like they would've been a perfect fit for Bloodborne, but it's mainly at the start of the game. After the Great Wall of Lothric, it goes back to a more traditional Souls flair, although even more decrepit and gothic than usual.

That's good news. I've probably spoken out of turn since I'm hardly anywhere in the game. I've seen some REALLY cool looking boss fights on Twitch. Playing Bloodborne has me hyped to get better at DSIII.

A good example is a comparison of Anor Londo in DS1 and 3 - in 1 it's real standard Souls castle fare, with nicely laid-out tiles and smooth walls, etc etc... but then in 3 it's Cainhurst. Is this just them going in the same direction as BB, or that the current-gen consoles can handle finer wall textures, debris, snow and shit on the ground so much more, or is it just a byproduct of the storyline? Gotta tip my hat to 3, in any case - those extra details are fantastic.

A lot of it is that DS1 and, to a lesser extent, DS2 vanilla had visual design that kind of sucked. Zone-lighting with low-contrast high-detail textures has always been a big no-no in level visual design, but Demon and Dark 1 did that crap all over the place, and Dark 2 fixed the issue with higher-contrast textures, which is sort-of valid but has been non-standard since the late '90s since it tends to make objects look less like part of an overall scene. Bloodborne was the first time From used lighting contrasts correctly with more modern low-contrast textures, and DS3 shares a lot of look with it just because of that.

Uh, I'm pretty sure DS1 looks a lot better than DS2. Like, almost objectively so. I like DS2 a lot, but it has many areas that just look kinda crappy, with low quality textures and lots of muddled, dull colours. By contrast, the only zones I remember looking shitty in DS1 were the Demon Ruins and Lost Izalith, and that was mainly because of the eye-searing glow of the lava than anything else.

Demon's Souls also looks pretty good to me, but it's starting to show its age in comparison to the newer entries in the series.

You guys all make fine points, especially about the difference in textures/lighting. I played for a few hours last night and really enjoyed it. Almost beat Dancer with no heals. That wide-sweeping arc he does is STUPID easy to dodge but then I got cocky and splatclacked into the ground.

Also I didn't realize those Knights in the Lothric castle are parry-training dummies. Super fun.