General gaming discussion

TitianGerm

There was a good article posted here a few months ago about the UIs on both Xbox and PS5.

The jist of it was that both take way to many button presses to achieve simple tasks.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118350286#Comment_118350286

The WiiU's Miiverse was a thing of beauty and the sense of community was excellent. I really miss it and Nintendo's move to a functional but very sterile and barebones UI makes me miss it all the more.

Markitron

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118350248#Comment_118350248

I was more speaking about aesthetics and layout then functionality, the XMB was slow and laggy but its simplicity is a winner for me. The current Xbox one is slow and it looks awful with a terrible layout. When I first fired up the series X I could barely believe it was still in 1080p.

I still can't quite believe how bare bones the switch UI is but at least it is straightforward and reasonably functional.

johnny_ultimate

On another next-gen console discussion point, how are people finding the whole 'fidelity vs performance mode' divide? I always go with performance / 60 FPS, but I find it very hard to discern the visual difference when the resolution takes a hit. I have a decent LG OLED TV, so maybe it's the upscaling doing a lot of heavy lifting. But while I can immediately tell the difference between 30 / 60 FPS, the difference between 'dynamic' res and full 4K is barely perceptible to me - even in the likes of Insomniac's performance ray tracing modes where resolution takes a further hit. No doubt there is a difference, but the hit compared to frame rate makes performance seem like a no brainer every time.

Retr0gamer

60 fps. The jump from 30 to 60 even when it's a stable 30 is just way too jarring and the reduction in lag and increase in fluidity makes the game far more playable. 4K is nice and all but there's not a whole lot of difference between 1080p or even 1440p to make it worth it. You stop noticing it while playing a game whereas 30 fps can't be ignored.

TitianGerm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118351102#Comment_118351102

60FPS every day of the week for me.

quokula

I usually go with whatever the default is as that's what I would expect to be closest to the developers' core vision, similar to selecting normal difficulty level. I think this tends to boil down to fidelity for single player narrative stuff, or performance for more competitive types of games.

Retr0gamer

30 FPS is never a developers core vision. It's always a compromise. Even when a developer tells you that their 30 FPS game is 30 FPS to be more 'cinematic' *cough* Ninja Theory *cough* DMC *cough* Tameem Antoniades *cough* they come out as hypocrites by releasing a 60FPS PC version/special edition. 24 FPS in film creates motion blur to give a cinematic look. In early 3D motion blur couldn't be recreated meaning the more cinematic excuse was bull and in later games motion blur could be created with with post processing at 60 FPS solidifying it as bull.

johnny_ultimate

I should stress that on my 1440p PC monitor the difference between 1440p and 1080p is immediately apparent. Whatever upscaling magic my TV is doing though makes pretty much everything look excellent - it doesn't even do too bad a job with Switch games. It makes fidelity modes all but redundant for most games IMO.

Markitron

Since the start of this gen I have always gone with 60 FPS, as almost all 60 FPS modes still run at either 1440p or with dynamic res + reconstruction. Spider-Man, Ratchet and RE8 even managed raytracing at 60 FPS.

I'm starting Guardians of the Galaxy in a few days and I'm going to play that at 30 FPS, apparently the 60 FPS mode runs at 1080p and that is a deal breaker for me. I can get used to 30 FPS after a while (as long as it is locked) but a 1080p image is way too soft for me these days and would serve as a constant distraction.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118351321#Comment_118351321

1440p is a pretty significant step up in pixel density from 1080p.

Saying that 4K is a pretty significant step up in pixel density from 1440p as well. I think as we go up in pixel density we are starting to see diminishing returns.

One thing to note about 1080p on a 1440p screen is that 1080p doesn't display right and will appear a lot softer than on a native 1080p screen so the effect is even more jarring going from 1080p to 1440p but also not really a fair comparison.

Zero-Cool

There was something i played recently, can't remember what exactly but the 'quality' mode had really nice lighting and particle effects that were missing from performance mode but you just can't turn down a 60fps option.

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118351305#Comment_118351305

You could use exactly the same logic to say playing at lower resolution is never the core vision when it's possible to play at higher resolution.

Everything is always a compromise, but one of the modes will be the one that was most heavily tested and optimised for. For example if the focus was 60fps, there might be more unforgiving highly twitchy mechanics that don't work as well at 30fps, or if the focus was full resolution there might be detailed art assets that don't scale down well or gameplay that requires you to accurately identify things at a distance. All modes will be accommodated to some extent of course but it's never going to be an exact 50/50 split.

Penn

60fps/Performance where available. 30fps is fine, but I prefer better framerate over graphics, as I'm far enough from the TV that there's not a huge difference between 1080p and 4k compared to the difference between 30fps and 60fps.

OptimusTractor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118351305#Comment_118351305

Given what's going on in the world I wouldn't be going around coughing like that.

OptimusTractor

Exclamation Marc

Presenting the greatest video game trailer of all time...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgQAPDAq3Go

johnny_ultimate

Loop Hero - one of the year's best games, or at least one of its most addictive (in a good way!) - is free via Epic for the next 24 hours. It's a delightful take on the roguelite, automating a lot of the usual gameplay stuff like combat/movement and instead has you craft and edit the map as you go.

MOH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/116547343#Comment_116547343

Loop Hero free on Epic until 4pm tomorrow (21st). Sorry for the necro but I knew I'd seen it mentioned before here somewherre

Zero-Cool

Observer System Redux is intense! Probably not the best game to play before bed after a dream/mind hack. The stealth bits are so unnecessary, pity they were included but the actual mind hack is brilliant.

Zero-Cool

Well Observer was great but what an immersive mind ****, the devs nailed what they were going for.

I see 12 Minutes was added to Playstation store on 7th December. I know it got bad reviews but I still really wanna play it. Not for 25 though, will wait for a sale.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118361511#Comment_118361511

Play Outer Wilds or Fogotten City instead. They're similar except not ****.

Zero-Cool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118361531#Comment_118361531

Played the absolute shyte out of those already, as well as Obra Dinn.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118361511#Comment_118361511

It's on GamePass if you have that.

Zero-Cool

I'm just on PlayStation.

Not sure if it was this thread or another one but there were recommendations to play Thronebreaker which gave the combo of single player gwent and story. It's currently on sale on psn for 6 euro (down from 20) so gonna give it a go. Damn Witcher on Netflix giving me cravings.

Potential-Monke

Damn Witcher on Netflix giving me cravings.

True, but to play the actual game.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118364229#Comment_118364229

Started it yesterday and I'm a good few hours in now. It's definitely scratching the Gwent itch, but definitely a lot trickier. In some ways it's easier than Gwent in The Witcher. It doesn't seem to matter if you put melee cards on the ranged line or vice versa. There's also two types of fight so far; standard battles and puzzle fights (where you are given set cards and have to carry out specific tasks, like kill one specific enemy without killing any others, or get all enemies down to 1hp). Those are trickier because there's only really one way to get it done which you have to find.

The overworld part where you run around the map talking to people and collecting resources is also simple enough to not detract focus from the Gwent side of things, while still being engaging enough and giving you choices along the way that will affect resources etc.

At 6quid, if you liked Gwent, I say go for it. First hour or two where its more tutorial can be a bit slow, but after that it builds nicely. I'm happy I bought it, and I bought it about a week ago at full price because I didn't think of the sale.

Zero-Cool

Haven't started it yet, will do over Christmas but the thought of it just makes me want to play Witcher 3 just to go on an ingame Gwent adventure, feck Ciri :)

Looking forward to the next gen version whenever that decides to release next year.

Zero-Cool

Happy Christmas everyone. Hope Santa brings ye all the games on your wishlist. Had some great chats here throughout the year despite the new site definitely reducing traffic.

Christmas tip: save those vouchers and cash for February, your wallet will thank you later.

Jordan 199

https://youtu.be/SARiXLJhlj8