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Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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Snak posted:

Who gives a poo poo about realism, especially in Far Cry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enb0zWbYUik

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Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬


:eyepop: ¡ay caramba!

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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I've decided to finally play through Hexen and its expansion, Deathkings of the Dark Citadel.

Jesus loving Christ Hexen is awful. It is just straight-up bad. It is a stupidly lovely game and its expansion did not improve on anything besides letting you know if a switch affected something in another dungeon (the base game did not and instead left it to you to go back and poke around).

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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corn in the bible posted:

hexen is a bad doom mod. skip

I thought FirstPersonShitter's old review rant was exaggerating for comedy, but no he in fact did not stress enough how loving awful the game is. It is actually worse than he leads you to believe with these posts.

FirstPersonShitter posted:

I do not like Hexen.

Heretic was my first ever FPS. It was awesome. My parents let me play it and not doom because doom had real guns and you shot people in it. The closest heretic got to people was yellow michelin men full of ghosts. But Heretic was and is pretty great, nostalgia aside.

Naturally I was just super jazzed when my dad got Hexen. It was like Heretic, but it had all this crazy new poo poo. Open world! New monsters! Three roided up todd mcfarlane badasses to choose from! Powerups out the rear end!

I thought it was awesome at the time, mostly cause I just cheated and warped around the levels, but playing it again now, all that stuff is the reason it sucks.

Hexen is not gritty, it is just ugly. Quake gets poo poo for being brown. Brown is a feature Quake lifted shamelessly from Hexen and ruined with the occassioanl brightly lit section. Hexen is muddy, foggy, dim, not even as interesting as dark. When I was a kid I found the game a little unsettling, I thought this was because of the scarier monsters and hanging corpses, but no. The game was just giving me seasonal depression. The art style is like something a van-airbrusher or metal album cover artist did in their off time using the colours they had left after they had used up all the colours that make people feel excitement.

The class system sucks too. More choice! More playstyles! No. 4 weapons per playthrough. gently caress you. And if the repetition of using 1 or 2 weapons all the time wasn't bad enough, those weapons suck.

The fighter's weapons suck. He doesn't get a ranged weapon till episode 2, so his extra health is offset by all the getting hit in the face he does. That ranged weapon being the hammer bros hammer from mario. Which I guess is cool. His ultimate weapon is a sword. A sword that you aren't even allowed to hit people with. It shoots green poo poo in a big wave, I guess because it's magic.

The mage's default grandma brooch is his best weapon, which means you'll spend ages plinking away with the most boring effect in history. His ultimate incorporates the exciting design elements of redness and skulls but its main power is using all your mana to shoot stupid fire grappling hooks into the wall either side of your enemy.

The cleric gets the best weapons, but they make no sense. A snake staff? I've not been to church many times but I've seen at least half of Witchfinder General and there was no snake staff in that. And Witchfinder General was awesome. His second weapon is I guess a spell the mage didn't really want. It doesn't even shoot holy beams out. Just basic fire. His ultimate is extremely rad however because it is a heavy metal crucifix that shoots ghosts. Angry ghosts with a lust for wrecking dudes. Sometimes they even turn around and wreck you. But you will never get to use it because it uses too much mana.

The hub system is terrible. Maybe it's just me. Maybe at the time there were a hell of a lot of dudes writing in to Raven saying "Heretic was AWESOME but what would really kick it OFF THE CHAIN (it was the 90s) is if you had to revisit each level three times to unlock one extra room with 3 imps in and a switch you will not see.". But that's what most of the game is. They don't even tell you what the switches have unlocked. You just have to blunder about. The levels are poo poo too. Nobody wants to go to a cave once, never mind three times. It's not even a cool cave with like, lava and skeletons and a hidden demon temple. It's just a regular cave. The monsters all wear northface clothes and want to talk to you about stalactites and quartz.

I guess to themeatically mirror the weapons, the enemies are poo poo too. There are like 5 of them and at least three of them are lifted from Heretic and made less fun. I guess they still had some lovely mechanics left over after they were done converting the Heretic monsters so the main other new monster is a fleshy centaur looking thing that blocks for like 2 seconds straight every time you hit them. It takes two hits to kill them of almost any weapon, so killing them is like being a cashier waiting for a senior citizen to find something in their purse then put it away again. There are 100 of them in every level and they all queue up behind the one that is currently wasting your time. Again like old people at a checkout.

That is the whole game. Killing inconvenient, boring enemies with inconvenient, boring weapons to find a switch nobody gives a gently caress about.

This post came out way spergier than intended so I guess i'll be chased out of here being whipped with model trains, but seriously gently caress Hexen.

FirstPersonShitter posted:

Wait hold up I knew there was something I forgot to talk about :

Hexen's powerups. They are bad.

A lot of them are from Heretic. Heretic was a good game. Being able to hold on to powerups to use later was cool. Most of them were just the powerups from doom reskinned, but the real deal was the Tome of Power. The Tome of Power was cool as hell. It made whatever weapon massively powerful and changed what it did, it was like a berserk pack for every weapon. The kickass skull plasma rifle started firing red rain clouds that killed whatever was under it. The gold rocket launcher bird stick became a flamethrower. It made every weapon into two weapons and that was really awesome.

What could Hexen, with its 4 weapons per character, really use? Something that could effectively double that weapon count?

Nope. More Quartz Flasks. Quartz Flasks are purple flasks that give you health. Pretty useful yeah. They weren't that common in Heretic but in Hexen you can get like 40 of them no problem. I guess they had to cause the hub design meant they couldn't do regular health pickups cause you'd get them all when you first went through the lovely level, then be hosed when you went back to and a room full of bullet hell wizards or green versions of that devil guy from spawn opened up. But with quartz flasks you could just hammer enter and your dude would chug five and you could just heal through the barrage while backing down an extremely narrow corridor that makes it impossible to dodge projectiles. Making gently caress you traps more survivable means you can use more of them instead of appealing, fair level design elements.

The other main thing was flechettes. Now in the real world a flechette is kind of a dart thing, but in Hexen they are bottles of green poo poo. They work differently for each class. The fighter uses them as extremely bouncy grenades that bounce off scenery and explode on his own face, the mage uses them as the timebomb from Heretic, and the cleric has them explode into a gas cloud. This gas cloud is great because it traps enemies in pain animations and lasts forever, so you can trap the annoying centaurs and spend 20 seconds watching them die while machinegun grunting. If you trap a couple of them in a cloud anyone passing will think your computer has locked up while you were watching gay porn.

Then there was some kind of gold coaster that moved every monster back 3 feet, another thing that teleported you back to the start of the level because I guess even the designers realised that backtracking is boring as gently caress. Also boots of speed that made you move so fast you fell off a ledge, a pig version of the chicken-polymorph egg from heretic, and a small statue of a minotaur that you throw out and it stays as a small statue of a minotaur. Sometimes it will turn into an extremely unhelpful minotaur that kills enemies much slower than you would and also hits you with friendly fire.

gently caress Hexen's powerups.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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Nierbo posted:

Wrong. speedruns are fascinating

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5tyMXXDPX4

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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Ciaphas posted:

I was gonna post a sick rebuttal of a good Shadowrun Genesis track but then I ran into a problem so have some Gauntlet 4 music instead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGd395iSD80

The only Gauntlet game I've ever played was the NES version and that had an original soundtrack full of some really catchy tunes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFoTRFgVImQ


Anyway everyone I finished Hexen and its expansion. It was bad. So very bad. Moved on to Hexen 2 now and so far it's not bad!

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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raditts posted:

Hexen 2 is the third person game that doesn't resemble Hexen at all, right? Or was that Heretic 2? I think they made a Heretic 2 at some point.

That was Heretic 2, yeah. Hexen 2 is more first person stuff.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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FirstAidKite posted:

Those data logs in metroid prime about the space pirates trying to reverse engineer the morphball and loving it up hilariously

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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Plan Z posted:

After Prime, I honestly can't imagine a good non-first-person fully-3d Metroid game. I can't think of too many great 3d exploration-based games that did it first-person, though I'm fine with being corrected.

I feel like they were on the right track with the action/shooty gameplay in Other M. It needed some fine tuning, but it could work for traditional Metroid gameplay in 3D.

One thing I felt they got wrong though is that Samus is supposed to be a tank and not a ninja. Maybe I'm misremembering but I remember QTE combos and poo poo where she does quick fluid vaults over enemy heads and stuff like that and it seemed a bit out of place. Sure, she can run fast and wall jump, but overall when playing any Metroid game she still feels heavy and fridge-like, even considering all of her abilities. Samus' fleet-footedness in Other M just felt a little... off.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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Motto posted:

Samus was pretty nimble in the 2D games by Zero Mission and Fusion.

Even in Fusion and Zero Mission she felt somewhat like a truck with legs, especially when compared her Other M self.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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Lurdiak posted:

The federation betraying Samus and all the melodrama with the computer is totally unnecessary bunk.

Less "betraying Samus" and more "Samus discovering they are essentially Umbrella Corp. but In Space." It still felt a bit forced, though... But! It did create an interesting scenario where Samus destroys a GF research station, damages a planet (SR388) within Federation space, and then proceeds to escape using a stolen GF vessel and AI unit, thus becoming a fugitive in the eyes of the Galactic Federation that could have led to a really cool fifth mainline installment in the series!

...instead we got Other M. Oh well lol

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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Lurdiak posted:

I just don't find any of that compelling. Evil aliens and exploring weird untamed planets with mysterious ruins was a formula I was totally happy with.

I don't disagree with you. I love Fusion, but I can see why people don't like it. I don't mind the idea Metroid being a bit more narrative-driven so long as it isn't interrupted by any more dialog than Fusion is.

IMO Fusion's biggest problem isn't the computer and the cinematic presentation but rather that the game's point of no return is kind of loving mean because it really sneaks up on you. To avoid it and keep exploring you have to travel between the different research decks via secret passages, some of which can be hard to find. Once you approach an exit elevator everything gets locked down and you're forced to go to the end boss.

Just gonna post this now cause it owns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxJkSDXagrU

Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 13:30 on Apr 9, 2016

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

raditts posted:

In game news that isn't some dumb fedora bullshit, somebody found another crowd-related cue in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out related to when you can one-shot Piston Honda and Bald Bull.

This is awesome

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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Paladinus posted:

Nice. I didn't even think there could be a wiki page specifically for that.

If there is any recurring concept imaginable, especially in media, you bet your rear end there will be a Wikipedia list for it.

e.g.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ninja_video_games
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_based_on_cartoons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_notable_for_negative_reception

Here are some fun non game-related ones:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sexually_active_popes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_Vice_Presidents_of_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States_with_facial_hair

My personal favorite:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_with_fraudulent_diplomas

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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of course after saying hi it's customary to introduce yourself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4Fmk3dUYu8

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnBt5x4ZeW4

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

😎🐗🚬

Ahundredbux posted:

Help I started playing Torchlight II again

I bought Torchlight II a couple years ago after finishing the first game, but by then I was kind of burnt out on the gameplay. Maybe I should fire that fucker up now that I'm done with Hexen 2. I don't know what class I want to go with. Maybe an Engineer? Because I always go Rogue in the first Diablo game I went with the Vanquisher in Torchlight and had a lot of fun with it.

But even after getting through the class options I'll still be faced with the most difficult decision of all: choosing/naming a pet :ohdear:

E: I don't think playing Torchlight is good right now though because my mouse is on the fritz :argh:

Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Apr 11, 2016

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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Ahundredbux posted:

make sure you download some mods (steam has workshop support) so you can respec and all that poo poo

I usually try playing through a game vanilla before modding, but for the sake of QOL improvements I'll be happy to get some. What do you recommend? What do they do?

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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I decided to play through Link's Awakening again for the first time in at least 15 years, but this time... with a twist!


:sweden:

I forgot how bittersweet the story is and man that final boss is a fucker to kill. Game still good though!

Man I do not miss playing games with unusual translation hacks. Some of the map data was messed up (Madame MeowMeow's house was in the river rapids area way on the other side of the map, for example). The game also crashed so hard it would bring up the emulator debugger every time I try to make a save. Thankfully the saves worked, though. My favorite and most bizarre was the text shown after you pick up the Thunder Drum that I neglected to take a screenshot of:

quote:

AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAA OUI
NON.

Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Apr 16, 2016

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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I saved up and bought that bow with my hard-earned rupees like a good boy, thank you very much :colbert:

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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The real Doom 3 was Doom 64 and it ruled.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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Nasgate posted:

bees lose their stingers and die.

True only of honey bee workers. Other species of bees and honey bee queens do not lose their stings.

Nasgate posted:

Also hornets are cooler because they're the closest of all hymenoptera to their rad ancestors.

Incorrect. There are many more basal groups. In fact hornets are among the most derived of the hymenoptera.

It's me. I'm the biologist posting in the video games thread.

Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Apr 19, 2016

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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bloodychill posted:

Bees are objectively better than hornets because they're less agressive, kinda cute, they dance, and their hive social behaviors are more interesting than the "bro out" that is hornet and wasp behavior.

Can confirm.

Lurdiak posted:

Those bees that fight giant hornets by surrounding it and vibrating until the hornet overheats and dies are awesome. Can you pass that along for me?

Fun fact: only Japanese honey bees can kill their several-times-bigger-than-them predators by slow roasting them to death. Pleb-tier European honey bees are defenseless against giant hornets and Japanese honey farmers that use them have to Fort Knox the poo poo out of their hives because any accessible to giant hornets get ruined in literal hours.

Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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The Kins posted:

It's also fascinating to see Adrian Carmack again.

Especially without the mullet

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Mak0rz
Aug 2, 2008

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i'd play duck soles

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