RedShell
-
Posts
14222 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
84
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by RedShell
-
-
Managed a couple of SD KOs last night...
Not today, Yoshi:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2045604805?t=0h10m27sBeing cheeky as DK:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2045604805?t=0h49m52sAlways fun.
-
.png)
1
-
-
Hiiiiiiiiii!:
@Glen-i, give us a heads up on theme week next time if you can, and I might be able to make a matching stage.
-
.png)
1
-
-
This gave me a chuckle:
-
6
-
-
40 minutes ago, Helmsly said:Quote
Is Zelda coming to Universal sooner than we think?
That, or there's a new Wrecking Crew game in the works.
-
3
-
-
39 minutes ago, EEVILMURRAY said:
So what exactly is the endgame? Is there a plot?
I think you just have to find these towers that are scattered around the world and defeat a certain amount of bosses. I’ve only encountered 1 of them so far though.
As for plot, it seems pretty much nonexistent. There are some documents that can be collected, but I haven’t actually read any of the ones I’ve found yet, so don’t know whether they reveal a story or not.
-
So the curiosity just got too much for me to handle and I resubscribed to Game Pass to check this out.
Well, and Season 11 of Sea of Thieves has just arrived too.
Initial impressions were absolutely atrocious, the game wouldn't even start at first! I was stuck in this weird "cannot connect error" loop.
After trying several times I just gave up and played Sea of Thieves. 
After a while I tried again, this time I managed to get to the title screen and into a game, but I was greeted by a pretty badly optimised experience and some graphics settings that didn't function at all (DLSS greyed out
) even so, I was able to tweak other settings to get it running all right on my PC.
Heads up for anyone that may be considering the game on PC via Game Pass though, it turns out the Game Pass build is less refined than the Steam version.
Anyway, Palworld starts out super slow and boring (like every other one of these survival type games that I've briefly played before
) but once I'd harvested enough materials to build better tools and unlock more facilities it became a bit more streamlined and things got slightly more interesting. There doesn't seem to be all that much restriction regarding how you can build your base either, which is pretty cool but I've not had the chance to fully mess around with that aspect yet.
As everyone and their dog is already well aware, this game
draws a lot of inspirationtakes a lot of content from Pokémon but I actually find myself recognising so many elements from other games as well. Zelda (Breath of the Wild specifically), Fortnite, Animal Crossing, Xenoblade, even Dark Souls... oh- and Goat Simulator, although I don't think they meant to copy that one. It's as if the developers are going for a Guinness World Record on how many plagiarised assets and stolen ideas can be crammed into a single game!
It's too soon to properly evaluate, but Palworld appears to be a very unusual experience indeed. What I've seen so far is a glitchy and bizarre mixture of loads of other games (not just Pokémon!) that isn't particularly good, but at the same time there does seem to be something about it, and considering the gameplay mostly involves holding a button down to perform menial tasks and watching timers countdown, it is strangely addictive.
I shall continue to investigate...
BTW, here's an interesting vid with another angle on the copyright stuff:
-
.png)
2
-
-
16 hours ago, Julius said:
So, which of you crazies are jumping in this week?
-
1
-
3
-
-
27 minutes ago, Glen-i said:
Oh, well that sucks.
I never realised you could actually get the other DLC spirits without owning the DLC though. That's kinda strange.
Yep, I have some Minecraft spirits tarnishing my collection*, despite not owning FP2.
*I'm missing 15 in total, but like @Hero-of-Time, won't be able to complete because of the unavailable fighter spirits.
-
.png)
1
-
-
Oh shit, that was fast!:
2 minutes ago, Glen-i said:I'd argue that comparing the tech of a Switch game to a PC one is a bit silly in the first place.
Pretty unlikely that the next mainline Pokémon game comes out on Switch though.
3 minutes ago, Glen-i said:But nah, if anything, the lesson they'll learn is "Well, if they can rip us off, why can't we?"
It just gives the impression that they're wasting time and money designing these monsters in the first place. Why bother when you can just mash 3 Pokémon models together and be almost as appealing to people that way?
Let's hope not, ey? Damn it, Glen! I'm trying to find a silver lining here, yeah?
You of all people should be hoping for the Pokémon series to improve.
-
4 hours ago, Glen-i said:
As someone who thinks Scarlet/Violet are by far the worst titles in the series, I don't see why this game should be the one to do it.
It's a completely different genre. Plays nothing like Pokémon.
Makes no difference. I reckon the majority of people still just see a game that looks like Pokémon but with better graphics and superior performance than anything Game Freak has released. The next Pokémon game to be revealed by Game Freak could easily find itself getting compared to Palworld as a result, which has the potential to put some additional pressure on them to improve how their next game will look and run.
-
1
-
-
I tell you what though, Game Freak are in such need of a kick up the arse, hopefully all the buzz around Palworld will at least get them to improve the presentation and technical aspects on their next offerings.
Can't see how they'd get away with chucking out another lacklustre Pokémon game after this. Although, having just looked up the sales figures for Scarlet/Violet, they blatantly could.
-
Looks... intriguing.
Anyone playing it?
It released a few days ago (early access) on Steam and Game Pass. Apparently it's doing very well indeed, 4 million copies sold already.
Wonder what Nintendo/Game Freak make of this. -
Man, that is greedy.
I'm not a fan of this multiple edition malarkey at the best of times, but locking a once standard feature behind the most expensive edition? Not cool at all. 
In this particular case (NG+) it's not something that I'd personally miss, but even so, I'd hate for this type of practice to become the norm.
Not sure if I'm going to get this at launch or wait for a sale.
-
If there's one thing I hate more than the Brinstar Depths stage, it's the Brinstar Depths stage when random select has given me Incineroar.
19 hours ago, BowserBasher said:I see what you did there. Anyway knowing your stages I can't wait to see what crazy gimmick this has.
Nothing too crazy this time, I'm trying to make stages that are a bit more normal in terms of layout. Not sure how long that will last.
-
3
-
-
I've cooked up a new stage...
-
11 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:
@RedShell did you ever play Tinykin? Think it was on Game Pass at some point. Cute, chilled out, colourful platformer seems right up your street.
Nope. The last game I played on there where you have little creatures following you around was The Wild at Heart.
Cheers for the recommendation though, will try to check it out at some point.
-
8 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:
This is where I'm at now. My subscription ran out at the start of the year and I really want to play Golden Sun but I can't purchase them outright and if I do want to play them again I'm going to have to subscribe for a year. I was also halfway through a playthrough of Jet Force Gemini when my sub ran out. Sucks.
I was just thinking there's no way that you would need a year to play through those games
why not just resubscribe for 1 month? Then I remembered that isn't actually an option for the Expansion Pack. So yeah, that does indeed suck.
Anyway, if you do plan to subscribe again, ShopTo have it at a much better price than the eShop:https://www.shopto.net/en/ndo10009344-nintendo-switch-on-line-expansion-pack-365-p1179195/
-
1
-
-
GOG taking a dig at Ubisoft:
DRM-free is indeed a big plus for GOG.
Which reminds me about some of the shenanigans that Capcom have been pulling recently on Steam, patching in new and (by the sounds of things) pretty sketchy DRM to their games, even much older titles.-
2
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:
I remember Matt Damon talking about this and how streaming services had changed things for the worse.
https://blog.son-video.com/en/2022/09/matt-damon-is-worried-about-the-end-of-dvd-and-blu-ray/
-
4
-
-
Wasn't aware there was a demo up for this, will check it out later.
-
4 hours ago, Dcubed said:
Now, ironically, video games did once have their own equivalent of the box office… the arcades. Games would come to the arcades and make their money there before coming to home consoles (and eventually handhelds too). But by the mid 2000s? The arcades were virtually dead, and DLC/microtransactions began in lieu; especially as arcade developers died out and PC focused western developers really began to dominate the market from the Xbox 360 onwards.
Interesting. I've not thought about it like that before, but makes a lot of sense.
Also, I miss the arcade scene.
-
1
-
-
Hey N-E, here's to another year of great gaming!
Just realised that I didn't actually finish updating my 2023 gaming diary
oh well, here's my first games of 2024...
Bramble: The Mountain King:
Wow, what a messed up game.
Really cool though, if you can stomach the content. It starts out like a nice fairy tale and then all of a sudden transforms into a absolute nightmare! Awesome way to enhance the horror though. 
It also has that kind of weird/creepy old European film vibe going for it, you know, the kind of stuff that'd be on late night TV back in the 80s. So yeah, the concept is spot-on. Unfortunately aspects of the presentation (and more importantly, the gameplay) are a little bit rough around the edges, it's mostly fine, but there are several moments (mainly insta-death stealth based sections
) where it felt like it could've done with a bit more polish. But I did enjoy the game, it's not that long (only around 5 hours) so the bits I wasn't that keen on didn't detract too much from the overall experience.
Next up, a game that I should've played a long time ago, but inexplicably have waited until now to play. Yep I finally got around to playing...
Stray:
Mind-blowing!
OK, I'm one of those crazy cat people, so obviously I was always going to adore that aspect of the game no matter what, but I wasn't prepared for just how much I would love it. I cannot believe how accurately the developers have managed to portray the movement and more amazingly the behaviours of a cat! That is no mean feat but they've done such an amazing job, it's crazy how good it all is. I was completely enthralled by the main character from the very second it first appeared on screen, all the way through until the credits rolled. 
I've heard comments about how if you were to remove the cat from this game it wouldn't be anything particularly special, and honestly there's some truth to that, but doing so would also require the entire game to be drastically different. I mean, everything has been so meticulously designed around the limitations and advantages of being a cat... the need to often move vertically, or to squeeze through small gaps, even the way the cat jumps. I recall being disappointed when I first discovered that jumping was context sensitive in this game, but it makes perfect sense for animation purposes and also maintaining that illusion of authenticity around the cat's behaviour.
The game is very linear as a result of the level design and constrained jumping mechanics, but the atmosphere and visuals are so stunning that you just get sucked right into the world and it feels like a much bigger adventure than it actually is. I was especially amazed by the quality of the lighting in this game, absolutely phenomenal considering it's not utilising ray tracing.
Soundtrack is awesome as well, fits the setting perfectly, but what I probably loved the most concerning audio in this (apart from being able to make the cat meow at any time, even during cut-scenes ) were the little ditties that play on the radios! If there was anything I found disappointing about Stray, it would be that outside of going through the story there isn't more to do. With such a cool playable cat to control it would've been great if they added some extra modes or something to be able to mess about with after completing the game.
Anyway, glad I eventually played it.And finally, a game that I started playing in 2023, but continue to play every night. In fact I've clocked almost 800 hours now and I'm still nowhere close to completing it! This might just be the most epic and hardcore game I've ever attempted, I am of course referring to the one and only...
SpoilerPokémon Sleep!:
It wasn't a dream, it really does exist!
I'll go into details next time though, because I need to go and
"play" this soon or Snorlax might eat my Pikachu.
-
2
-
2
-
2
-
-
Yes. But also, (increasingly) no.
My opinion on this tends to vary quite a bit to be honest. While I do enjoy owning a collection of games, in reality it's become incredibly rare that I replay them. I'd rather be playing something new, so in that sense, keeping physical copies is pretty much pointless as they're just packed away and taking up space.
I guess the possibility that I might want to revisit some in the future is always there in the back of my mind though and that's why I hold on to them, but it's pretty unlikely, even more so for the really retro stuff where condition of the games themselves or console lifespan becomes an issue over time as well. I think shifting over to mainly PC gaming a few years ago had a big impact on the way I see this too. As far as I can tell, digital is the only option on PC these days, even if you buy a physical copy of a game (the last one for me was Cyberpunk 2077) it's just a download code inside the box. Hell, my current desktop doesn't even have any kind of optical drive.
Another contributing factor is Game Pass, which just like PS+ before it has given me the opportunity to experience many different games, some of which in genres that I would not usually play. It's a fantastic option for expanding your gaming horizons and making new discoveries. I don't stay permanently subscribed to the service, usually just a couple of months a year or whenever a game I particularly like the look of gets added. The fact that I then don't actually own any of those games just isn't a problem in my eyes, I simply enjoy whatever stuff I play through on there and then move on to something else.
I own the memories, man! Anyway, that's my take on it, I can definitely see it from both sides. Hopefully things will remain similar to how they are at the moment, with the option to purchase and own games alongside the option of streaming/renting them. I mean you can still buy physical copies of films or music, despite the existence of Netflix, Spotify, etc. so gaming should theoretically follow the same path, right?
-
2
-
-
2 hours ago, Glen-i said:
It's up there. But I don't think anything will ever top the Smash 4 Hocotate Bomb incident.
It's made me hyper aware of that item since.
Thought the clip of this had been lost for a second there
but fortunately I managed to find and preserve it (albeit without sound):
Yep, nothing can top that.
-
1
-
3
-
Your 2024 Gaming Diary
in General Gaming Discussion
Posted
Did you ever get around to playing Nobody Saves the World? That's a fun game which isn't too long (took me around 12 hours or so IIRC) but still has a decent amount of content to it, could be a good one to check out.
Cocoon is a really interesting game as well with some very unique gameplay mechanics, but only takes a few hours to play through.