Keep Calm And Discuss Retro Generally!

CiDeRmAn

It's a problem I have with a lot of the current gen, it's all so bloody boring!
Bayonetta was great though.
Yes, the combat in Batman does feel like a series of QTEs, but you do feel like you're in control of a brute.
Dyad is good but if Minter had of released it it would have been written off as another Tempest clone, despite his protestations.
I know, I know it's not but it does share a lot, more than it shares with Rez to be sure.
PSN... I don't know, I've bought more on Xbla buy have actually played little of it all.

johnny_ultimate

I'd have to defend the Batman games' combat too. It's one of those combat systems that is seemingly simple and accessible, but deceptively tricky to master. I played Arkham City on hard, and it's actually quite the punishing experience, requiring you to use a lot of tactics when it comes to taking down enemies - fight poorly and you'll be swiftly overwhelmed. If anything, it's a tad too hard on higher difficulties as they throw endless waves of enemies at you requiring surprising levels of accuracy and mastery of the many weaponry and moves available to you.

It's not Bayonetta or SFIV, but it's different, and perfectly suitable for the game / Batted Man in question. Although the stealth sections are still infinitely preferable Incredible amount of gargoyles knocking around Arkham City, it has to be said...

Retr0gamer

If they cut all the brawling nonsense out and gave me a few more stealth challenges I'd be a lot happier.

johnny_ultimate

Batman has this reputation for stealth, but everyone knows the definitive realisation of the character was always up for a good brawl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EEyQIAemn0

Retr0gamer

If they cut all the stealth nonsense out and added more comic sound effects exploding on the screen I'd be even happier.

Danonino.

I would have never had a PS3 if I hadn't of got stupidly lucky and won one in a raffle

So far the only game that I truly thought was amazing was Uncharted 2. There have been good ones I liked (little big planet, Heavy rain etc) but Uncharted 2 and 3 were special. There also seems to be a better selection of unique titles on the PSN compared to the XBLmarketplace. Online is nowhere near as solid as XBlive though.
PS3 exclusives I'm looking forward to are: The last Guardian, The Last of Us and Ni No Kuni. The last of Us looks great.



rant incoming
Also I've been wondering about the PS4 and if it will ever happen at all. Didn't Sony just buy out that Cloud gaming company for 300Million or something ridiculous like that. Makes me think they might go the 'PS4 is everywhere' route and have you downloading/streaming games and playing them on Sony devices like the PS3 or their new Smart TVs/Tablets and stuff.
The WiiU could turn out to be the sleeper the 360 was. I mean when the 360 first came out everyone was saying how similar it looked to the current games (King kong and Ridge racer 6 come to mind), many said they would wait for the PS3 which would "blow the 360 out of the water".... just seems like history repeating itself, and I can see the Wii U actually catching on and dominating the market if Nintendo play their cards right. The fact it seems like a stop gap between two generations might actually be the best move by Nintendo in a long time.

Many will avoid buying one this Christmas, but if the 720/PS4 get delayed and don't appear by late next year I can see people getting itchy and jumping on the U wagon. :pac:

Retr0gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

If they cut all the stealth nonsense out and added more comic sound effects exploding on the screen I'd be even happier.

How's this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aqym3z1ZfnQ&t=0m14s

CiDeRmAn

I always felt RR6 and King Kong were the epitome of early HD gaming.
I loved the crisp visuals on Ridge Racer and KK was a vision of how good licences could be.
I'm sure those who disliked Kong will chime in, but I quite liked it.

Nerdkiller1991

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I always felt RR6 and King Kong were the epitome of early HD gaming.
I loved the crisp visuals on Ridge Racer and KK was a vision of how good licences could be.
I'm sure those who disliked Kong will chime in, but I quite liked it.

What about Ridge Racer 7? That could do a full 1080p.

I just hope that Namco do indeed get their act together after the last couple of RR games.

DinoRex

Combat in The Caped Crusader on the C64 was where it was at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl3Kjmnfay8

Danonino.

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I always felt RR6 and King Kong were the epitome of early HD gaming.
I loved the crisp visuals on Ridge Racer and KK was a vision of how good licences could be.
I'm sure those who disliked Kong will chime in, but I quite liked it.

Oh don't get me wrong, both games were good and I was only trying to name a game or two that the 360 released with. When the 360 was new on the shelves would you say they were jaw dropping enough or next generation enough to warrant spending half a grand? Gears of War and the like were still a good year away, and I remember the only real selling point was HD and online both of which many people didn't care about at the time....
man time goes quick :O

My point was that a lot of people were calling the 360 the stop gap in the generations and that the PS3 would be the 'true' next gen console... I just have a sneaky suspicion the Wii U may be underestimated in the same way.

It takes a while for developers to push the hardware and even then noone expected the 360/PS3 to be producing the level of games they are now

Someone better buy me a Wii U for Christmas


Apologise for spelling/incoherent waffle, smashed drunk. :pac: thanks to spellcheck.

CiDeRmAn

The 360 had a very strong launch line up.
Aside from King Kong you also got, the now dated but then superb, PGR3, the excellent COD2 and NFS Most Wanted. Let's not forget, too, that PGR3 also gave us Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved as well.
So a launch line up to easily warrant the investment.
As opposed to the truly awful launch of the over priced PS3.

Danonino.

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

The 360 had a very strong launch line up.
Aside from King Kong you also got, the now dated but then superb, PGR3, the excellent COD2 and NFS Most Wanted. Let's not forget, too, that PGR3 also gave us Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved as well.
So a launch line up to easily warrant the investment.
As opposed to the truly awful launch of the over priced PS3.

Ah come on. the 360 had a strong launch lineup??
Maybe in hindsight but at the time trying to convince people to buy was fecking hard work.
PGR and Condemned were the only worthy titles not available on the PS2/Xbox at the time. (maybe Perfect Dark zero, but lord was that crap) I'm only going on memory when in work and trying to push the system for sales. Not many had a HD tv nor cared about them at the time. The 360 was overpriced at launch too, I remember the cheapest bundle with a game was €480 and it launched something stupid like the first week in December making it a nightmare to get for christmas. IIrc Sony dropped the price of the PS2 to something like €120 with a game. Trying to convince people to spend an extra 300 quid when they dont have a HD tv on games they cant tell the difference on is hard work. :mad:
The PS3 launch lie up was drastic but if both consoles were released at the same time things could have been very different.

Damn it PGR was amazing though was it 3 you could 'walk' around the garages? I lost interest once they added Bikes.

EDIT:not sure when Gears, Halo 3 and Oblivion ect arrived but that was about the time everyone started to take notice and really wanted to spring for a 360. I have a sneaky feeling if Microsoft and Sony don't hurry Nintendo if given enough time could surprise with a killer game or two and take the market. Heck I already want a Wii U even though most of the Zombi U reviews are meh... I want one cause simply because I can't have one >:(

johnny_ultimate

Everyone knows the 360 didn't have a great game until The Darkness showed up!*

*this post is most definitely not an attempt to flamebait a certain individual. Nope. Not at all.

Retr0gamer

Gaming on a 360 was so poor that I ended up picking up the Darkness which I think was endemic of early 360 users. They would all migrate to the next big release even if that release was rubbish since they were so few and far between. As for the launch line up apart from PGR3 it was really poor. Yeah Geometry Wars is great but did you really shell out so much for a console to play a robotron clone? Anything else on it was piss poor or available else where. As for King Kong heralding in the HD generation, I very much doubt it since the game was unplayable on HD screens due to a bug that made the game too dark to play. I think ciderman had the 360 hooked up with AV cables. It did get a lot better after the first year, Gears of War would be the point when I felt the console could no longer be ignored and Viva Pinata is unfairly ignored, the best Rare games since Blast Corp.

Danonino.

I had a Viva Pinata faceplate that i lied to the housemate and said it was a gift from the 360 rep.
I bought a Viva Pinata faceplate, for something like 20 quid. I don't know if I should be proud or horrified by that fact.

I remember there was a definite turning point where the 360 became the only option, Forza 2 getting released was the turning point for me. It was truly awesome and the first time I entered the world of online O_o. I also remember a friend saying he'd wait for the 'real driving simulator'... oh dear. lol

Pretty sure Gears came out that Christmas and it really blew everything else out of the water. That game was beyond epic. Dead or Alive 4 keeps coming to mind too. It was on the display in the local Gamestop for ages and at the time looked fantastic.

Andrew76

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Everyone knows the 360 didn't have a great game until The Darkness showed up!*

*this post is most definitely not an attempt to flamebait a certain individual. Nope. Not at all.

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Gaming on a 360 was so poor that I ended up picking up the Darkness which I think was endemic of early 360 users. They would all migrate to the next big release even if that release was rubbish since they were so few and far between. As for the launch line up apart from PGR3 it was really poor. Yeah Geometry Wars is great but did you really shell out so much for a console to play a robotron clone? Anything else on it was piss poor or available else where. As for King Kong heralding in the HD generation, I very much doubt it since the game was unplayable on HD screens due to a bug that made the game too dark to play. I think ciderman had the 360 hooked up with AV cables. It did get a lot better after the first year, Gears of War would be the point when I felt the console could no longer be ignored and Viva Pinata is unfairly ignored, the best Rare games since Blast Corp.

Eh, no love for Perfect Dark Zero?

johnny_ultimate

Andrew76 wrote: »

Eh, no love for Perfect Dark Zero?

I played PDZ once in a friend's house. Once was too much :eek:

Wasn't Oblivion one the 360s first major killer apps, or at least the one that made non-PC owners really go 'ooohhh, pretty!'? Add to that GoW later that year, and the 360 was definitely worth owning by Christmas 2006, despite the fact it was likely to meltdown at any given opportunity. Although it was the promise of Bioshock that particularly encouraged me to pick one up around that time.

Retr0gamer

Yeah Oblivion was a big release. Had horrendous bugs and framerate issues but at the time it would have taken a monster PC to run it as well as the 360.

Dr Bob

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Yeah Oblivion was a big release. Had horrendous bugs and framerate issues but at the time it would have taken a monster PC to run it as well as the 360.

Ah sorry Retro that isnt true , I'd a moderately decent pc in 2006 that ran it on full with a feck ton of mods.(P4 with a 100 quid nvidia gfx card and 2 gb ram)Even the laptop I bought the next year which wasnt massively specced ran at high res fairly comfortably.
I'd never EVER even bother booting up a TES game on a console , never mind buy it.
A/ you miss out on the community bug fix patches to get the damn game working properly , as bethesda are too busy making horse armour DLC to spare a dev to bugfix. (and even a console to let you skip broken quest chains)
B/ Mods...super hi res? check!
want a follower with 6000 lines of recorded dialog? check!
want multiple followers? check!
Want an advanced HUD that wasnt designed for use on a TV ? check!
Want to fight dinosaurs while riding a my little pony and wielding a lightsaber?..well get checked as you may be mentally ill, but also ...check!.

DinoRex

The issue with King Kong on the 360 was that it looked terrible in SD and you couldn't read the text and at that point not many people had HD sets yet. In HD it was a fine game though (except for the last few levels in New York)

For me Kameo was the best of the launch 360 games. I enjoyed it a lot and what separated it from previous generation games was the sheer amount of enemies that could be displayed at the same time. Dead Rising was another early enough title that used a huge amount of enemies, something that simply wouldn't have been possible on previous generations.

johnny_ultimate

Here's a fiendishly addicting website: an app that crafts 'infinite' versions of any song you choose to upload. Works best with songs that have very distinctive beats or repetitive stretches. Some songs don't work at all (and fade outs are a pain), but a surprising amount do!

Here's it taken to its natural conclusion - The Whistle Theme from Deadly Premonition: http://labs.echonest.com/Uploader/index.html?trid=TRFWUBR128D90534F8

MrVestek

Uploaded Open Your Heart from Sonic Adventure... it doesn't work very well with it but it sounds mental because all the choruses are mixed up together...

http://labs.echonest.com/Uploader/index.html?trid=TRHVADW13B612135A9

Retr0gamer

DinoRex wrote: »

The issue with King Kong on the 360 was that it looked terrible in SD and you couldn't read the text.

TBH this was a problem with many early HD games which was remedied with the use of a RGB scart cable.

johnny_ultimate

King Kong was just as good a swansong for the previous gen consoles. Had the original Xbox version and was a very nicely put together game technically. Michel Ancel is one of gaming's most under-appreciated talents. Even when his games aren't quite perfect they have imagination and charm to spare.

CiDeRmAn

I think you are all incredibly hard on the 360, Call of Duty 2 was brilliant, Kameo very good, PGR3 excellent, NFS Most Wanted wasn't exactly lousy either.
Perfect Dark Zero sucked the mutts nuts though, really really bad.
Dead Rising was dreadful in SD, the text unreadable, didn't like the game much anyway.

o1s1n

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

, Call of Duty 2 was brilliant.

Yawn!

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Kameo very good, .

Never heard of that one. /off to google.

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

PGR3 excellent, .

Double yawn!

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

NFS Most Wanted wasn't exactly lousy either. .

Tripple yawn!

/Oisin is now asleep.

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Perfect Dark Zero sucked the mutts nuts though, really really bad. .

Yeah I heard really dreadful thing about that so stayed far away.

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Dead Rising was dreadful in SD, the text unreadable, didn't like the game much anyway.

I like it as a sandbox 'run around and kill everything in a fun a way as possible' game, but never did play the actual game itself.

Danonino.

Dead rising was epic, Myself and a friend did an all nighter (actually closer to a 2 day marathon) running on cheap tesco pizzas, Heineken and coffee. For some reason The part where you get the car in the underground carpark and have to make your way through thousands of the bastards is my clearest memory of that game. That and heating a frying pan on a stove then using to burn zombies faces off.... man that game was great. Never played 2 was it any good?

Retr0gamer

Dead Rising was again absolutely fine with RGB scart cables. Of course AV composite fans will never know.

As for CoD2. It ran perfectly on my frankly ancient PC and I found it boring compared to it's predecessor.

DinoRex

I mostly used VGA hooked up to a computer monitor in the early 360 days.