Game musings and news

[beatbandito]

Isles of Amalar: We Used Up The Generic In The Title So No Subtitle is a currently-crowdsourcing for what appears to just be publishing costs and other release touches before a planned release next summer.

It's an small studio that decided they wanted to make Morrowind with Oblivion QoL mechanics but actual combat and co-op, which is enough to get me on/off. But the really fancy part is it the fact that they're not just releasing a full mod tool kits, they're releasing a full module kit that looks like it blows the original NWN out of the water, at least with control of physical assets.




Nothing too major yet, but a few twitch and youtube people playing the demo if you wanted to dive deep into the actual campaign, which I expect will be the least exciting part. As it should be with any inheritor to the elder scrolls throne.

[mharr]

Did anyone catch the Game Festival on Steam? Apparently there were some temporary public demos of upcoming releases that became unavailable again 48 hours later, but once downloaded they could be easily detached from Steam using open source tools, unlocking the bizarre time restriction.

One of them was the full medical deck of Citadel from Night Dive's second attempt at remaking System Shock. This habit of very temporary demos that only a few true believers get a chance to look at does not fill me with confidence.

[pacobird]

So replaying FF7 and reaching Cosmo Canyon at the age of 39 explains my enduring fascination with Arizona thanks a lot dickheads die in a ditch

[pacobird]

Seriously though cosmo canyon is probably the best " we don't care if you're white ( or Asian, whatever) this is your world too" sequence to date

[pacobird]

Weeping IRL thanks sakaguchi

[Friday]

Cosmo Canyon is fuckin' rad and has fuckin' rad music

I really like FF7 actually despite its weird flaws and weird weirdness

[mharr]

Hypothetically, if someone had bounced off Final Fantasy after VI because the move to optical media and early 3d shredded all the immediacy and charm from the genre... Should they jump on the remake, or attempt dark FPGA magic to remove all those load times and jaggies?

[Brantly B.]

FF7 Remake seems fairly removed from the original so if you want to play FF7 you should play FF7. Just remember what twenty one pilots told you.

[Friday]

Just remember what twenty one pilots told you.

A quick google result returns a song named "Hype", so I assume you're getting at "don't believe the Hype"?

Which, I mean, is a blanket good thing to do, if so. Cause yeah if ANY GAME EVER MADE had warts IT WOULD BE FINAL FANTASY FUCKING 7.

(and also Xenogears but that is another story)

[Friday]

A ten thousand page story

read by a man speaking extremely slowly

[Mongrel]

A ten thousand page story

read by a man speaking extremely slowly

I read an awesome story yesterday which was only four words. "Burger King Ice Thief"

[Brantly B.]

A ten thousand page story

read by a man speaking extremely slowly

Well, yeah. If you talk too fast, Promise starts playing.

[Thad]

FF7 is worth playing, in its (more or less) original form. Which is readily available on PC and modern consoles, though I read something about bugs in music playback, and you may want to look into that.

But if you only play one 32-bit Final Fantasy game, the correct answer is Tactics, and it's not a close call. I'd say play the PS1 version with the War of the Lions translation patch, though you might also look into the iOS or Android version (not sure if they're still available).

Not sure what you mean by the FPGA thing; I'm not aware of any FPGA cores that simulate the PS1. But the modern rereleases of the game should at least help with the load times.

[mharr]

I was thinking that if playing the original is the way to go, it's likely there will be a complete Playstation core before I've finished putting together a Mister console, which I'm obviously going to do anyway just to have an Amiga again. If I'm too fast I'll just have to replay them all in sequence.

And of course there's always the NES demake!

[Thad]

Wow, I didn't realize Playstation support was that far along.

When you do build it, could you share what components you use (maybe over in the Old Game Hardware thread)? I'm thinking about building one myself.

[Thad]

8bitdo's long-delayed Zero 2 controller is finally shipping. It's like a tiny Bluetooth SNES controller that fits on your keychain. Haven't tried it yet but it's getting positive reviews.

Seems like a useful thing to have onhand if you want to fire up an emulator on your phone or laptop and don't want to carry a full-size controller around. I wanted to get one for my last trip to Hawaii (6-hour flight and all) but they weren't available yet.

[Mongrel]

This is some TRIPPY FUCKIN' SHIT.

[beatbandito]

Damn, every aspect of Valve's new game has been severely chumped.

[zaratustra]

tbf

1. making a two-room tech demo and making a complete game out of it are WAY different things (Superliminal started work in 2013 and it only came out)

2. the source engine can handle roughly zero of what makes that demo work

[beatbandito]

Star Fetchers (Pilot) is free on Steam and you should play it.

It's about an hour of Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden humor with bad English and a lot of shit to talk about capitalism. Also there's some equally sloppy physics-based mouse-pointer sword-swinging I guess.