Messages

76

General Chat / Re: NBA Thread: Brought To You By The Tampa Bay Raptors Of Toronto

« on: January 15, 2023, 10:26:18 AM »

It may seem silly to care about who the sponsor is on your team's building, but as someone who was there when the Jazz's current arena opened in 1991 this story just makes me smile.

https://www.slcdunk.com/latest-utah-jazz-news-recent/2023/1/14/23555527/the-delta-center-is-back-utah-jazz

After 20 years of actual toxic waste companies and smart home manufacturers slapping their name on our building, the Jazz will once again be playing in the Delta Center starting in July. That building has always been "The Delta Center" to me, and this just feels like an old friend coming home.

77

General Gaming / Re: Games Beaten, Completed, or Played in 2022

« on: January 10, 2023, 06:20:17 PM »

Games I beat in 2022:
PlayStation:
- Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Games I played but did not complete:
PlayStation:
- Rive
- Pac-Man World Re-Pac

I am curious about these games. I am on the fence with Kena. Would you recommend it to others?
For Rive, I really enjoyed, enough so to go back and do some post-game challenges. What was it that made you fall off that one?  Sort of the same question for Pac-Man. I have it for Switch, so I will be giving it a try eventually, just wondering why you did not complete it.

I didn't enjoy Kena. It's a game that's heavily focused on exploration and collecting, and yet the only things you CAN collect are the occasional health upgrade; endless chests full of hats for your minions; and in-game currency to buy said hats. The hats are purely cosmetic, so it feels like the game is just wasting your time. Besides that, it's a game that bases its entire identity around being a relaxing, chill game for all ages...with combat as taxing and punishing as a Souls game. It's a game of 2 completely different identities that don't work together at all.

As for Rive, it's a game I started playing as filler between larger games, and I just didn't have the time I expected to have for it. Kinda the same for Pac-Man, though in its case I feel like the game just controls...oddly. For instance, jumping and doing the Yoshi-style mid-air flutter DURING a jump are 2 different buttons...because. It's a game I really expected to be in the mood for that ended up being a lot less casual and more technical in its execution than I expected. I'll get around to playing more of both games eventually, just not now.

78

General Gaming / Re: Games Beaten, Completed, or Played in 2022

« on: January 04, 2023, 07:43:46 PM »

Games I beat in 2022:

PlayStation:

- Kena: Bridge of Spirits
- Ghost of Tsushima (DLC)
- Ghost of a Tale
- Tails of Iron
- Cris Tales
- The Medium
- Demon Slayer - Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Hinokami Chronicles
- Beyond a Steel Sky
- Twin Mirror
- Fuga: Melodies of Steel
- Immortals: Fenyx Rising
- Ghostwire: Tokyo
- Spongebob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated
- Horizon Forbidden West
- Resident Evil 3 Remake (Replay)
- Bugsnax (DLC)
- Record of Lodoss War - Deelit in Wonder Labyrinth
- A Plague Tale: Innocence (Replay)
- Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising
- Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin
- Code Vein
- World of Final Fantasy
- AI Somnium Files: NirvanA Initiative
- Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl
- Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (Replay)
- Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One
- What Remains of Edith Finch (Replay)
- Kingdom Hearts 3
- Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory
- Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance
- TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection (All Games)
- Soul Hackers 2
- Infernax
- Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series (both Games)
- Shadow Warrior 3
- Inscryption
- Solar Ash
- Save Room
- Resident Evil Village (DLC)
- ShadowMan (Remastered)
- The Last of Us: Part 2
- Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (via the CV Advance Collection)
- Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 Reunion
- Demon Turf
- The Callisto Protocol

Switch:

- TLoZ: Skyward Sword Remastered
- Xenoblade 2: Torna - The Golden Country
- Shin Megami Tensei 5

Games I played but did not complete:

PlayStation:

- CrossCode
- Song of Horror
- NEO: The World Ends With You
- Returnal (DLC)
- Sifu
- Tiny Tina's Wonderland
- Super Perils of Baking
- Devil May Cry 5
- The Wonderful 101 Remastered
- The Sinking City
- Rive
- The Ascent
- Shin Megami 3 Nocturne Remastered
- Stray
- Valkyrie Elysium
- Resident Evil Village (Replay)
- Pac-Man World Re-Pac

As you can see, my main focus this past year was clearing games out of my backlog I'd either been meaning to play or meaning to finish. While I did play new 2022 games, I didn't play a lot of the big name games. I'm only now getting to GoW Ragnarok, and I don't know when I'll feel like giving Elden Ring a try.

79

Movies & TV / Re: Star Trek

« on: December 17, 2022, 09:53:45 AM »

Been slowly working my way through Seasons 1 & 2 of Voyager, and have now started Season 3, so I'm now passed the point in the show where I originally stopped watching it (which was Basics - Part 1, the Season 2 finale).

In general, I thought Season 1 was very similar to the much-maligned Enterprise Season 1: fine on its own merits. The characters still have a bit of edge to them, and there's some good character work. It's also surprisingly short at 16 episodes. I'm guessing Voyager was a mid-season replacement, because all the other seasons are standard Trek length.

Season 2 is where I started skipping or fast-forwarding through episodes, because oh my fucking god there are some boring and terrible episodes this season. And a good many of them prominently feature Neelix. I feel sorry for Ethan Phillips, because I know he CAN act and he CAN have good episodes like Season 1's "Jetrel". He's just saddled with this insufferable jealousy routine as part of the even-more-insufferable Paris/Kes/Neelix love triangle.

Season 2 features some of the worst episodes of Trek ever filmed, and that's saying something when we have Seasons 1 & 2 of TNG and Season 3 of TOS: the infamous "Threshold" (where Paris invents an engine that can go infinite speed, leading to him mutating into a salamander and fucking a mutated Janeway), "Elogium" (Kes goes into heat, a prelude to an equally-bad Enterprise episode with the same premise), and "Innocence" (which is both boring and incredibly stupid).

On the other hand, it also has some fantastic episodes like "Death Wish" (where Voyager finds a Q who wants to die, but John DeLancie Q shows up to try to stop it) and"The Thaw" (where the cast finds a family of colonists trapped in a computer world run by an incarnation of Fear). It also features the first actual multi-episode story arc with the Kazon, even if it does end in a rather anticlimatic fashion.

Overall, Voyager Season 2 reminds me a lot of TNG Season 2: a few great episodes, a few awful episodes, and a lot of bland episodes.

Then Season 3 starts off with "Flashback", which just pissed me off since Star Trek 6 is one of my favorite Trek movies and the episode keeps playing "Keep away" with the Star Trek 6 re-enactments in favor of a truly awful and nonsensical Voyager plot.

80

General Gaming / Re: 2022 NWR Forum Awards - Best PlayStation Game

« on: December 10, 2022, 01:01:24 PM »

Stray is exclusive? *laughs in PC*

Eh, laugh it up. I've heard about your version of Callisto Protocol, a version apparently screwed up by the patches being released in the wrong order, making the game nigh-unplayable. 

81

General Gaming / Re: 2022 NWR Forum Awards - Best PlayStation Game

« on: December 09, 2022, 06:18:16 PM »

As commented before, I've played none of these. However, I now see that Stray is one of the nominees so I voted for it because it is the game I'd most like to see come to Switch. It's been awhile since I've seen a game that I'm kind of jealous is PS-exclusive. If it had been released on Switch, it would have instantly been one of the most wanted titles I'd want to purchase and add to my library.

I wouldn't be surprised if Stray was a very limited timed exclusive. I expect it will probably be on Xbox and Switch as some sort of "Game of the Year" version by next Summer.

82

TalkBack / Re: United States Federal Trade Commission Suing To Block Microsoft Acquisition Of Activision Blizza

« on: December 09, 2022, 10:34:39 AM »

>Call of Duty alone makes more money than all of Sony's 1st party studios' games in a given year combined, and by a significant margin.

I mean, okay... but that's a Sony problem?

I think it's kinda all our problem if a console manufacturer purchases the marketshare of an entire OTHER console manufacturer, especially when that company is known to make their games exclusive as soon as the government agencies stop watching. I also think it's in our best interest to not incentivize companies to simply buy their competition

Activision is just too big to allow any console manufacturer to own. And I'd be saying the same thing if the long-rumored Sony acquisition of Square Enix were to happen.

83

TalkBack / Re: United States Federal Trade Commission Suing To Block Microsoft Acquisition Of Activision Blizza

« on: December 08, 2022, 10:25:54 PM »

Maybe it's because I just don't care about Activision, but I don't see the big deal.  Microsoft will leverage Activision as an exclusive studio?  Okay?  Every company has their exclusive studios.  If I were Activision and I wanted this deal to go through, I'd just say "Well, we're not going to make any more Playstation games anyway".  I don't think they can be compelled by the legal system to do so?

The problem is that Activision is a major publisher with 15 studios under its belt, not to mention all the IP. Just as a point of comparison, according to Google Sony has 19 studios currently under its PlayStation umbrella. Microsoft currently has 23 under Xbox. If Microsoft were to be allowed to purchase Activision, they would have literally almost double the number of studios Sony has. While that is nowhere near the record right now (that belongs to the Embracer Group at 131 studios), it's a considerable advantage.

According to the documentation Sony provided the UK Government, Call of Duty alone makes more money than all of Sony's 1st party studios' games in a given year combined, and by a significant margin. It's bad enough that Microsoft has been artificially propping up its failing Xbox division with profits from the PC division all these years without giving them an even more substantial financial advantage.

While I don't have hope that this will pan out, this acquisition absolutely should be stopped. Purchasing a studio or 2 is one thing, but allowing Microsoft to continue to simply buy its way into market dominance is absurd. Even more absurd is allowing it just because Microsoft has been utterly incompetent at managing their studios so far.

84

TalkBack / Re: Microsoft Announces Ten Year Agreement To Bring Call Of Duty To Nintendo Systems If Activision A

« on: December 08, 2022, 06:57:08 PM »

To steal a line from a friend of mine, perhaps in 10 years Nintendo might have a console capable of actually running today's Call of Duty titles.

That's perfect! In 10 years, there may finally be a Call of Duty game worth playing.

Hey, at least Infinite Warfare was excellent. That's the last one I cared enough to play, before these games became even more "games as service" than they already were.

85

General Chat / Re: NBA Thread: Brought To You By The Tampa Bay Raptors Of Toronto

« on: December 08, 2022, 06:55:47 AM »

So...how about those last 13.3 seconds in last night's Warriors-Jazz game? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uYpmVapL8Y

I've watched that Clarkson sequence in the last 30 seconds, and I still don't understand what the Flagrant 2 was for. Sure, Technical him up if you want to toss him from the game for trying to start a fight, but I can't see any "unnecessary contact above the shoulders" with him wrapping up a player from behind to stop the clock.

86

TalkBack / Re: Microsoft Announces Ten Year Agreement To Bring Call Of Duty To Nintendo Systems If Activision A

« on: December 07, 2022, 03:01:23 PM »

To steal a line from a friend of mine, perhaps in 10 years Nintendo might have a console capable of actually running today's Call of Duty titles.

We all know what this is about and what, if anything, it would lead to: Cloud titles.

87

General Gaming / Re: NWR Forum Awards

« on: November 29, 2022, 12:14:50 AM »

Can we add a category for "most backlogged" game? An award for the game we all wished we played but never got around to?

That would definitely be Elden Ring, God of War Ragnarok, or Xenoblade 3 for me.

I'd add 2 more games to the Multiplatform list, although both could essentially be on the PlayStation list considering the target audience: Stranger of Paradise: FF Origins and Soul Hackers 2. Neither will get any traction with the larger community, but I played the hell out of both those games and they'd be in my personal Top 5 of the year.

Hell, Stranger of Paradise might be the most surprising game of the year, as everything about it up to release screamed that the game was utter trash, and yet it is both surprisingly good (so long as you're willing to give up micromanagement of your gear & just keep hitting "optimize") and surprisingly heartfelt. Despite the very low budget that Square Enix clearly gave Team Ninja, Team Ninja clearly gave a ****. Now that I think about it, that could basically sum up most of the Square Enix releases this year.

88

General Gaming / Re: NWR Forum Awards

« on: November 26, 2022, 01:32:21 AM »

I would also strip Tunic from Xbox and throw it into Multiplatform, considering that game's out on everything now.

I've mostly played backlog games this year, as very few of the "new" games have interested me enough to spin them up so far. To me, this has been a pretty poor year in general.

89

TalkBack / Re: RWBY: Arrowfell (Switch eShop) Review

« on: November 26, 2022, 01:28:07 AM »

I'm not sure that being familiar with the material would have helped you here, considering this game takes place during a montage in Season 7 of the girls just doing random jobs for Atlas. And considering we're in Season 9 now and the show's now not only in a whole other continent but an entire other dimension as well...yeah, the events of this game are no doubt pointless. This game should have been out 2 years ago if Rooster Teeth and WayForward really wanted fans to care about it.

Unfortunately, the long and tortured history of bad-to-mediocre RWBY games continues on, though this is clearly the best of them so far.

90

Movies & TV / Re: Star Trek

« on: November 11, 2022, 07:01:54 PM »

So yeah, reviving this old thread.

Haven't been in much of a gaming mood lately, so I started watching Star Trek: Voyager on Paramount +, a show I originally abandoned back when it was airing at the conclusion of Season 2. And boy have I heard plenty about it courtesy of SF Debris.

Granted, I'm very early in Season 1 (Episode 5: "The Cloud"), but is it weird to say this show is better than I remembered? In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Enterprise's 1st season: people like to hate on it, but it's actually pretty decent when taken on its own merits. It probably helps that I'm entering this show again with very low expectations, helped a great deal by what passes for Star Trek now.

It certainly helps that in these early episodes, there's at least an attempt to give characters like Chakotay and Paris a slight edge and humor to them. Janeway at least seems to have something approximating a character arc with her starting off rather distant from the crew. Harry Kim has nothing to do, and that will never change. Robert Picardo steals every scene he's in as The Doctor (no, not THAT one).

It is very concerning, though, that the 1st 2 episodes after the Pilot involve time travel and spacial anomalies, something I've heard Voyager is particularly bad about abusing.

91

TalkBack / Re: Tales Of Symphonia Remaster Confirmed For February 17 Launch

« on: November 10, 2022, 03:56:41 PM »

Somewhat tempted. Would be more hyped if they remastered Tales of Destiny.

Ask Vesperia fans how hard it is to get Bandai Namco to remaster even a relatively recent Tales game, and at this point BN probably regrets doing that since I don't think the remaster sold well.

Unfortunately, Symphonia bears the distinction of being not only the 1st successful Tales game in the West, but one of (if not THE) most successful game in the series outside Japan, so trying to get an earlier title like Tales of Destiny is a long shot. Personally, I'd like them to capitalize on the Symphonia connection and release a remaster/remake of Phantasia that isn't utter ****, but that's probably not going to ever happen.

Symphonia is an absolute classic, though the 30 FPS forced upon them by this being a decade-old remaster of the PS2 port is unfortunate. It's by far my favorite game in the series. Releasing this remaster in mid-February, though, only makes sense on the Switch, where it has next to nothing else going on at the time. This remaster is going to bomb everywhere else.

At least we can all be satisfied that The Game That Does Not Exist isn't part of this collection. There is only 1 Symphonia game. Yes, only one.

92

General Chat / Re: NBA Thread: Brought To You By The Tampa Bay Raptors Of Toronto

« on: November 10, 2022, 03:37:36 AM »

Nets promoted their Asst Coach up to Head Coach, to avoid the Ime Udrama.

Anyone else see the Nets imploding this year?
Simmons refusing to shoot, Kyrie can't stay on the court... and none of it so far is injury related (unless we talking social and financial injury), a Durant... well, I'm sure he could find better support elsewhere.
Is this perhaps the biggest "Super Team" failure in NBA history?

Yeah, probably, and I hope it deters future "super teams".

I had to laugh when I looked up who the Nets promoted to head coach: Jacque Vaughn. Now THAT'S a name I haven't heard in a LONG time. A long time. 

Impressive win by the Jazz over the Hawks tonight. Gotta say, it's getting increasingly annoying to listen to the commentators online regarding this team. In one breath, they'll praise how entertaining this team is to play, and in the next they'll talk about how all the good players need to be sold off because this team is "too good." Yeah, the Jazz have been stuck in a rut for a long time now, but they were stuck in that rut with crushing salaries and aging players. Can't we just build from here instead of looking for the next way to blow the team up and start over? 

93

General Chat / Re: NBA Thread: Brought To You By The Tampa Bay Raptors Of Toronto

« on: November 02, 2022, 06:58:02 PM »

I really don't get the Nets firing Steve Nash. It certainly wasn't his fault that Durant's custom-made Superteam bombed. Durant was constantly injured; Harden was out of shape; and Irving/Simmons were useless. And replacing him with the guy fired from the Celtics for having an affair with the staff (and who knows what else)? Yeah...yikes.

Incidentally, the Jazz are doing surprisingly well so far, though I'm curious how long this honeymoon period is going to last. It's increasingly looking like we got a real steal out of the Gobert trade, since he's been next to useless on their team. Meanwhile, Malik Beasley, PWalker Kessler, and Jarred Vanderbil have been huge for us. It's looking so far like we might have broken even on the Mitchell trade, as Collin Sexton and Lauri Markkanen have been outstanding so far.

Still not a fan of that Bogdanovic trade, despite how well Kelly Olynyk has played so far. That still feels like a trade Ainge made because he owed someone in Detroit's head office a favor.

94

General Gaming / Re: Shocktober III: Season of the Witch

« on: October 29, 2022, 06:59:22 PM »

Been playing a handful of "horror"-adjacent games before and since finishing Infernax (which, btw, I don't recommend after having finished it a few times. It definitely has a weak/bullshit last 1/3). Just to summarize...

Shin Megami Tensei 5 - Been playing this off an on for months. To be frank, this game should be on a better console, because it's downright pathetic how poorly it runs on the Switch. That aside, I've been all over the place with this game. IMO, the game has a severe difficulty balancing problem, as the 1st area is WAY too punishing considering for many this will be their first experience with the (bad) mainline SMT series. I came very close to quitting the game after my 20th time of being one-shot by a death spell in that 1st area. If you CAN push past that first area, though, the game kinda gives up and just lets you walk all over it until you reach the final area of the game, where it spikes right back up again.

I'm currently in that final area, Taito, currently trying to find where the game expects you to go since it just dumps you in a giant area full of demons 20 levels higher than your party and says "do whatever."

Inscryption - Highly recommended, but the 1st act is by far the best part of the game. The 2nd act just downright sucks, and the 3rd act tries to get back to what the 1st act did but isn't as interesting.

Shadow Warrior 3 - It's Doom Eternal, but for people who don't appreciate the strategy of that game's combat. There are maybe 2 enemies in the entire game you need some sort of strategy to take out. The rest are just "shoot your biggest gun at them until they die", which led to me becoming really bored with the combat by the end. I really wanted to like the platforming, but I found wall running in particular to be very buggy. There are sequences in that game where I just couldn't get the wall run to trigger for the life of me, and I had to find a way to glitch through it.

Resident Evil Village (DLC + main game replay) - The DLC is alright, but it's not worth the $20 asking price nor the 1.5 years of development time it took the devs to create it. It's almost entirely re-used environments, the enemies are pure bullet sponges, and there just isn't a particularly interesting hook to it.

I'm currently doing my 1st replay of the main game, as I only ever played it once before.

95

General Gaming / Re: The morality of piracy and not buying games new

« on: October 25, 2022, 07:14:35 PM »

When I was in high school, NES & SNES piracy was starting to become more prevalent and standardized, and yeah I downloaded my share of SNES RPGs. They were typically games you could not get in NA at the time, such as fan translations of Tales of Phantasia; Final Fantasy 5; Terranigma; etc.

When the SNES & NES Classics came out, you bet I loaded those things up with games that looked like they'd never get an official re-release, like Clash at Demonhead; Ogre Battle; Aladdin SNES (oh, how little I knew); Goof Troop; etc. My Wii was modded to play import games like Disaster: Day of Crisis and the Operation Rainfall games (which I do all have legal European copies of, btw). My Wii U is modded to play Baten Kaitos Origins & Skies of Arcadia Legends, both of which I could play on my GameCube or Wii but it's such a pain to drag those things out of storage.

I don't believe in pirating modern software, but something like PS2 and GameCube-era stuff that companies don't seem to give a **** about anymore should be fair game. It's not like these companies are making any effort whatsoever to preserve their back catalog. I currently have Wild Arms 4 & 5 and Shadow Hearts 2-3 on my computer to play at some point. You can bet we'll never see them again in a remastered collection.

And yes, I am a backer of Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood. Why do you ask? 

96

NWR Forums Discord / Re: Pokepal148 is a 450 million dollar brand.

« on: October 24, 2022, 06:42:56 PM »

I am hereby calling for a boycott of the NWR forums. Who's with me?

I think almost everyone already beat you to it.

97

TalkBack / Re: Bloomberg Report Claims New Details On Bayonetta 3 Voice Acting Pay Controversy

« on: October 24, 2022, 05:52:31 AM »

Well...there it is. Taylor has now changed her story on Twitter. She's now claiming that she was offered $10,000 total for voicing Bayonetta in the 3rd game, later upped to $15,000 after she complained to Kamiya. She then confirms Bloomberg's reporting that she was then offered $4,000 to voice a cameo appearance. She denies she demanded $250,000 (though not the "6 figure salary + royalties aspect of the Bloomberg report itself), as well as the number of sessions. She also claims to have only been paid 3,000 Pounds for voicing Bayonetta in the 1st game and "a little more" in the 2nd game.

She also renewed her calls for a Boycott of the game.

Taylor, get off Twitter. You just admitted at the very least that you lied by omission in your boycott video, despite starting this Twitter thread stating you wanted to debunk the claim that you were a "liar and golddigger". I don't think you realize what you just did, even assuming you're telling the truth NOW.

https://twitter.com/hellenataylor/status/1584417050994221056

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TalkBack / Re: James Bond 007: NightFire

« on: October 20, 2022, 02:57:58 PM »

Ok, seriously, what is it about this Nightfire article that triggers the bots? This has to be, like, the 3rd or 4th time bots have bumped this ancient story.

99

TalkBack / Re: Bloomberg Report Claims New Details On Bayonetta 3 Voice Acting Pay Controversy

« on: October 18, 2022, 10:10:25 PM »

I'm just going to pull up a chair for another fun talkback thread. Anyone want popcorn?

Nah. I'm good. 

Supposedly, Schreier's seen actual documentation from Platinum employees proving these new assertions (and other outlets have corroborated his assertions with their own contacts), and if that's the case Hellena Taylor needs to do herself a legal favor and stop talking before she triggers a defamation lawsuit (let alone the damage this has and will do to her professional reputation).

It was speculated in the previous Talkback thread that perhaps Taylor simply misunderstood the contract that was offered her (or it was mistranslated). Whether that is true or not, it would be in Taylor's best interest going forward to pretend it was and issue an apology. Then everyone can pretend it was just a simple misunderstanding, and perhaps bridges could be repaired with the community and Platinum so Taylor could return in a later project. That would be the best outcome for everyone involved at this point.

100

TalkBack / Re: Role Of Bayonetta Recast For Bayonetta 3, Original Voice Actress Calling For Boycott

« on: October 18, 2022, 04:28:19 PM »

I don't like Schreier personally, but he has an excellent track record of vetting his sources and accurate reporting. If that's what his sources are saying, I see very little reason not to trust that his depiction of events is accurate. If Taylor was demanding a 6 figure salary + royalties for a series as relatively small as Bayonetta, that would finally clear up the longstanding Jennifer Hale question. Very few, if any, game developers could afford that, and certainly not Platinum.

One thing I do want to stress is that you and I have always agreed that voice actors should be paid more than they are. Taylor's story just never made sense to me. That said, this shouldn't deter voice actors from pursuing reasonable salary increases. Because this is such a high profile story, though, it probably will.