• The Sixty Dollar Myth (The Jimquisition)
    80 replies, posted
Also just a recommendation from me, if you want to get into retro/older games avoid stuff you're nostalgic towards and try games from systems you never owned or played (or even knew existed). It's a lot more fun going into a game or game series with no existing impressions. Also if you mainly play console games, try playing some old PC games from the 80's and 90's (I will admit though most 80's pc games are pretty bad). Would PS2/gamecube/Xbox be considered "retro gaming" now? There's still a few early ps2 games I want to play through.
[QUOTE=Whomobile;52768343]Also just a recommendation from me, if you want to get into retro/older games avoid stuff you're nostalgic towards and try games from systems you never owned or played (or even knew existed). It's a lot more fun going into a game or game series with no existing impressions. Also if you mainly play console games, try playing some old PC games from the 80's and 90's (I will admit though most 80's pc games are pretty bad). Would PS2/gamecube/Xbox be considered "retro gaming" now? There's still a few early ps2 games I want to play through.[/QUOTE] Technically it's considered retro, but I don't blame others for not considering it as such. Either way, the great games for those consoles are really cheap (For the most part). They are definitely worth playing. Just make sure you pick up component cables for them (In the GameCube's case, use a Wii and get component cables for that).
Oh yeah I got component cables for my PS2, it's mod chipped too, still works fine after 15 so years but my PS3 carked it a year ago :v:.
[QUOTE=Mister Sandman;52765107]I would urge a lot of people dissatisfied and considering walking away from video games to get in to older games. [/QUOTE] MediEvil, KulaWorld and fucking BG: Dark Alliance, here I cuntfucking come, ya fucking cunts! Fetch me the fucking Framerate stretcher! Bessie and her fucking scaled as fuck tits!
My absolute favorite games in order are: 1) Doom 2: Hell On Earth (PC) 2) Shadow of the Colossus (PS2) 3) Mystical Ninja 2: Starring Goemon (Goemon's Great Adventure in the US) (N64) 4) We Love Katamari (PS2) 5) Star Wars Battlefront 2 (PS2) For a game to end up on my favorites list, I have exactly one criteria. That criteria is that "I must be able to boot the game in any Level with any loadout and still enjoy it. These are games that I can just boot up and enjoy no matter where I am. To this day, I have yet to find any non-indie game that's been released to fill this criteria. Far Cry 3 is probably the closest contender, but it's obliterated by the loadout criteria (many weapons just aren't fun to use). Doom 4 was the game that made me realize that I should just stop blowing money on big games. It's clear that games are just a hollow shell now, where all the fun conent is lcked behind a pay wall or is just made to appeal to the widest audience possible. With all the lootbox shit and/or DLC practicies, I'm very glad I took this approach. Probably what hurts the most is the fact that modding also isn't what it used to be. The reason Doom 2 is so high up is because you can literally have a completely new game with just a few megabytes of mods. Compare that to Doom 4's mods, which are pretty much just maps. No new weapons or monsters, just a map and nothing more. Another thing which really pisses me off about AAA games is how they're and endless cycle of overhype. The publishers overhype the game, then the critics do the same, then the audience is left thinking it's a great game because of some pre-implanted confirmation bias. Just as an example of what I mean, it was described by publishers that Doom 4 is "Bruce lee on rollerskates with a shotgun", and while the game was fun, it was nowhere near that feeling. Mystical Ninja 2: Starring Goemon takes the cake for a game that feels like that. Sadly the game is quite obscure so examples are difficult to find, but if you prop up a casual playthrough of the game, notice how players pretty much never stop moving. Your character is not extremely powerful nor that fast, but hell the game gives you that feeling of being on rollerskates with the fact that it's designed to just keep you moving forward. This is what I wanted, but didn't get from doom 4.
My experience with playing and buying Triple A games has stayed consistent over the years, I enjoyed a lot of my purchases, but one thing I have noticed since 2015, is that I will not buy a game that has Day 1 DLC that adds Story mission to the game. I am a bit lenient on Season Passes but even then it's rough. It's disgusting how it's getting now though, especially with the prices in Australia. A standard game is 80 dollars, Season pass 20 to 30 dollars, that's around 100 to 110 dollars. I ain't made of money. The only games I really buy are Nintendo Games, and games in Franchises that I really like. Long gone are the days I bought a game because I thought it looked like fun. I got a backlog of games to play for the next year, so I am not too bummed out. I mean I already beat 5 Games in the last 4 days (Splatoon 2, Spec Ops, Quantum Conundrum, Peggle and Peggle Nights) I also realized that I shouldn't be so strict on having to beat the games, I started Duke Nukem 3D today and while it was fun to play, I just wasn't really into it so I decided to not force myself, and I feel a lot better now, cause I can just play the games on my Backlog I enjoy. Basically what I am saying is, Gaming nowadays is getting Expensive, especially in Australia, and my Tastes over time have changed. I used to hate having a Backlog but now I am happy cause I get a bunch of games to play, for Free (even tho I paid for them years ago) Got a lot of old games to go through too, only recently did I sit down and beat SH1-3. It's quite sad seeing the industry end up like this. Nintendo, Indies, Games in Franchises that I already like, and my Backlog is all I got now. No more being wowed by a Triple A and impulse buying them. A good thing but also a sad thing cause it's anti-consumer practices like this that made me stop Impulse buying, not getting over it myself. I am sure that there are a ton of great Triple A games that I would fall in love with the instant I start playing it, but it's just too risky.
Tbh I can't actually think of any game purchases I've really regretted. I guess not having too much money to spend makes you consider things pretty carefully. I also rarely keep up with game news and almost never buy games on release. Even games I'd classify as "bad" like star wars battlefront I still got a lot of hours out of. [QUOTE=Zillamaster55;52763366]I'm trying to stick to Grand Strategy and non big-title games, but the problem is with those, is that Paradox Interactive (Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis and now Stellaris) have absolutely cornered the market. Your choices are to stick with them, go to Matrix Games (i.e i hope you like spreadsheets) or go down to 4X games like Civ. For those not in the know, here's one of the big controversies that happened about a year ago: Stellaris, a space 4X/GS hybrid has "portraits". These portraits represent species, blah blah, tend to be unique and add flavor. A while back, they released "Plantoids", which was a new set of portraits that had, you guessed it, plants. The thing is, it came with a handful of portraits, some city sprites and some ship models. Neat, right? Not until you saw the $8 price tag for something that they [I]explicitly[/I] said that modders could do with PS+Maya for free. How did they respond to the criticisms? [t]https://i.imgur.com/M7ehnDT.png[/t] Notice that this guy is the head of creative direction, and essentially the head of development. Besides that, Paradox is notorious for having lots and [I]lots[/I] of DLC. Worst example is Crusader Kings. [t]https://i.imgur.com/ds4qiDM.png[/t] $40USD for something that was released in 2012. It has remained at this price since release. [t]https://i.imgur.com/jM3PQ9k.png[/t] These are the DLCs. Many of them contain extremely important features for gameplay. Want to play as a Muslim? $10. Want to play as a Jew? $10. Want to play as a Pagan? $15. Want to play as a Hindu? $15. And that's just religious stuff, not to mention getting to use government types, diplomacy, interaction, character development, etc. Before you go "But what about those content packs? They don't seem necessary". They are if you want to be immersed, but I'm not going into that. tl;dr: AAA is not the only one at fault. The idea of getting everything on release is a lie and it's a disease plaguing all companies right now.[/QUOTE] The strange thing about Paradox DLCs, is I think the problem really boils down to price. In their older games they did expansions, which usually came out costing about $20 dollars and added substantial amounts of content. Having smaller expansion packs isn't really a bad thing, but $15 for new ones, and $10 for old ones, is goddamn ridiculous. Otherwise, I think their model is generally fine. Especially because A. They don't split the community since only the host has to own something in multiplayer and B. they do port several changes over to the base game with each expansion. Though sometimes its gimped which is the problem. I also think they're relatively lazy considering the resources they have now, they could greatly improve the engine such as making multiplayer more server based ergo faster and more stable, and improving modding capabilities (a lot of mods are p. hacky by necessity.) And they've still never solved their age-old problem of releasing games incomplete.
[QUOTE=buu342;52768629]Probably what hurts the most is the fact that modding also isn't what it used to be. The reason Doom 2 is so high up is because you can literally have a completely new game with just a few megabytes of mods. Compare that to Doom 4's mods, which are pretty much just maps. No new weapons or monsters, just a map and nothing more. [/QUOTE] To be fair, Doom 4 and other newer titles don't have those mods because the devs don't give people the tools necessary to create them. That's probably what you meant with "modding isn't what it used to be" but I thought I would bring it up. I think if games give people the tools to mod them, then they still get some neat mods. Fallout 4 is the first more recent example to come to mind mostly because I've been playing it...but it has modding tools and there's a ton of mods for it, some of them adding a ton of new things.
Not to mention due to the nature of id Tech 6 even if mod tools existed probably only a small percentage of people would be able to utilize them
[QUOTE=Whomobile;52768373]Oh yeah I got component cables for my PS2, it's mod chipped too, still works fine after 15 so years but my PS3 carked it a year ago :v:.[/QUOTE] Reminds me, been on the lookout for a modchip for my phat PS2, but they're really hard to find. Meanwhile network+ disk dock adapters are still on the market, but about as pricey as a mint PS2 in itself. Alternative is PCSX2, but that doesn't have the same feel + it's still a bit buggy.
[QUOTE=kariko;52768928]To be fair, Doom 4 and other newer titles don't have those mods because the devs don't give people the tools necessary to create them. That's probably what you meant with "modding isn't what it used to be" but I thought I would bring it up. I think if games give people the tools to mod them, then they still get some neat mods. Fallout 4 is the first more recent example to come to mind mostly because I've been playing it...but it has modding tools and there's a ton of mods for it, some of them adding a ton of new things.[/QUOTE] And that to me is something publishers should really look into. I know quite a lot of games that wouldn't have had the lifespan they did if it wasn't for modding. But nowadays with stuff like Creation Club and the cease and desist on GTAO are just constant reminders that publishers don't want people messing with their IP's unless they can make a profit off of it. [QUOTE=Van-man;52768998]Reminds me, been on the lookout for a modchip for my phat PS2, but they're really hard to find. Meanwhile network+ disk dock adapters are still on the market, but about as pricey as a mint PS2 in itself. Alternative is PCSX2, but that doesn't have the same feel + it's still a bit buggy.[/QUOTE] How much is a PS2 nowadays? Last year my one died, so what I did was I disassembled it, tracked the motherboard's ID, and I bought an exact same one for just 30 bucks. Machine's working great. Also, what's the benefit of getting a modchip if something like swap magic works just as great, without the danger of potentially destroying hardware?
[QUOTE=chemo;52768961]Not to mention due to the nature of id Tech 6 even if mod tools existed probably only a small percentage of people would be able to utilize them[/QUOTE] I was thinking the same thing. Custom Doom .wad's (of which I have hundreds sitting on my hard drive) can be written in notepad. Modding tools nowadays are extremely complicated by comparison.
[QUOTE=Aetna;52769839]I was thinking the same thing. Custom Doom .wad's (of which I have hundreds sitting on my hard drive) can be written in notepad. Modding tools nowadays are extremely complicated by comparison.[/QUOTE] Many game engines have become more open nowadays, partially to attract indie and semi-indie developers, which helps in developing community mod tools, but often the companies being anal about user mods are using their own engine.
I've been buying fewer and fewer AAA games as time goes on because of the BS pricing schemes and lack of content/interest. I think I stopped paying attention to AAA games around the time of Civilization's Beyond Earth coming out (2014). I've also been perfectly content with paying half of much if not less for amazing indie games such as Banished, Crawl, Darkwood, Domina, Don't Starve, Factorio, Kerbal Space Program, Foxhole, FTL, Kenshi, Mini Metro, Mount & Blade, Prison Architect, Project Zomboid, RimWorld, Software Inc., Space Engineers, Terraria, and much more. Also in Canada the AAA games are no longer $60 but now $80 because of exchange rates.
I'm just going to start playing older games and go through the rest of my library I never touched. With services like GOG focused around older games and making them compatible with new hardware who would waste money on these AAA sinks.
The Total Warhammer games have to be the worst for this. Not only it total warhammer 1 still £40 despite the new one already being out, all the DLC brings it up to about £100, then to get the full map in Warhammer 2 you have to own Warhammer 1 as well. So you're looking at about £140 for the full experience really. Fucking atrocious.
[QUOTE=MrJazzy;52762848]I'm just glad that I still have steam sales and indie titles.[/QUOTE] What Jim doesn't mention is that games depriciate in value rather quickly. This is true with digital games (sales, bundles, more sales) but doubly so with games that have physical releases. I got the Gears of War 4 steelbooked-special edition for 60 I recall (if not a bit less) in about august of this year. A game that was originally released around now last year. And keep in mind, Gears 4 goes a bit crazy with its lootboxes, both offering standard ones for about a doller, better ones for... well, more, and occasionally drops super-specialized ones on events. These loot boxes and microtransactions that people like Jim are up in arms over are little more then a way to try and squeeze a bit of cash on games that otherwise are almost completely depriciated in value way down the line. While there are some really good recent examples of it utterly bungling up, I think the alternative of introducing this kind of crap way down the line is [I]even worse[/I]. The whole safes and drills thing in Payday 2 made me completely quit playing it when it was introduced, and I'm someone who goes out of his way to buy all the weapon DLCs when they pop up.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;52777255]The Total Warhammer games have to be the worst for this. Not only it total warhammer 1 still £40 despite the new one already being out, all the DLC brings it up to about £100, then to get the full map in Warhammer 2 you have to own Warhammer 1 as well. So you're looking at about £140 for the full experience really. Fucking atrocious.[/QUOTE] This is probably the main reason I haven't bought it. The game looks fun, but I don't want anything to do with all the baggage.
[QUOTE=Biohazard99;52779264]What Jim doesn't mention is that games depriciate in value rather quickly. This is true with digital games (sales, bundles, more sales) but doubly so with games that have physical releases. I got the Gears of War 4 steelbooked-special edition for 60 I recall (if not a bit less) in about august of this year. A game that was originally released around now last year. And keep in mind, Gears 4 goes a bit crazy with its lootboxes, both offering standard ones for about a doller, better ones for... well, more, and occasionally drops super-specialized ones on events. These loot boxes and microtransactions that people like Jim are up in arms over are little more then a way to try and squeeze a bit of cash on games that otherwise are almost completely depriciated in value way down the line. While there are some really good recent examples of it utterly bungling up, I think the alternative of introducing this kind of crap way down the line is [I]even worse[/I]. The whole safes and drills thing in Payday 2 made me completely quit playing it when it was introduced, and I'm someone who goes out of his way to buy all the weapon DLCs when they pop up.[/QUOTE] Every piece of visual/audio entertainment deprecates in price extremely quickly nowadays, it's not just a video game thing. And those publishers release well enough games every year to ensure their survival so throwing loot boxes and microtransactions on top of them is just raw greed which hurts the quality of the games in the long run and pollutes the experience for the player.
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;52777255]The Total Warhammer games have to be the worst for this. Not only it total warhammer 1 still £40 despite the new one already being out, all the DLC brings it up to about £100, then to get the full map in Warhammer 2 you have to own Warhammer 1 as well. So you're looking at about £140 for the full experience really. Fucking atrocious.[/QUOTE] I have to disagree with this. TWW1 had a shitty DLC policy on launch with a core faction being locked behind a preorder (Warriors of Chaos, later on you could get it if you bought the game within a week of release as well). Bretonnia was free and the rest of the faction DLCs were solid. All had unique playstyles and Norsca especially was a labor of love. The rest of the DLC is pretty weak but you can readily ignore the legendary leader packs anyway as they add nothing of real substance. TWW2's launch campaign is rather weak I'll admit but all the factions have more unique playstyles than any of the TWW1 factions and the updates to the game mechanics are great. I don't know why you'd expect to get the combined map by owning just one game though, why would CA hand over the other game basically for free? Buying the games and DLC at full price does cost a lot but it goes on sale often enough and I got TWW1 and all the DLC for some 60€ a few months back which I'd consider a good deal.
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