BadgerFarmer

I'm certainly tempted to get a Switch but haven't quite been able to justify it yet. Zelda, Mario Odyssey and Bayo 2 are a strong draw (and I don't have a WiiU either), along with a few smaller games like Octopath and Hollow Knight (unless it gets a PS4 release). Part of the reason I haven't gone for it yet is that I'm not really fussed about most of the other current games - MK, Splatoon, Arms - and because I just don't have much need for a portable console at the moment.

Other than that though it's definitely the price. I don't buy hardware at launch because I can rarely see the point. When I got the PS4 it had been out nearly 2 years, by which time it was slightly cheaper and had a solid catalogue of reduced price games. With the Switch now I'm looking at a similar initial outlay (more if I want a classic controller and memory card) and then still £40+ for each of the big games.

I still think I'll get one in the end, especially with Fire Emblem coming and Metroid somewhere down the line, but mainly because I know I can borrow some of the games.

22 minutes ago, Flub said:

You can put bells on her nipples. That's...new

Presumably there won't be any stealth sections then.

Some stuff I can recommend in the social theory area:

Utopia for Realists - Rutger Bregman

The Happiness Industry - William Davies

Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies - Jodi Dean

Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump - Asad Haider

Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism - David Harvey

Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work - Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams

How Will Capitalism End? - Wolfgang Streeck

Kill All Normies - Angela Nagle

Dead Man Working - Carl Cederstrom and Peter Fleming

1 hour ago, Smitty said:

 

So what? That's a valid artistic choice as any other. Most games killing involves fun/carthasis.

So any reflection on violence in games it might have caused is accidental. 

Been ahead of the leader a number of times after sector 1 now, but my overall time is still nearly 2 seconds down. My last sector is nearly always a mess.

10 minutes ago, Mike S said:

 

I love a FROM multi phase boss.

 

Just when you think you've beaten a boss, and maybe feeling a little cocky at doing so well, they regenerate into a whole new form or escalate into new, more aggressive, moveset. YOU DIED. 

 

 

Then you have to do the first phase over and over again until you learn the new one. YOU BORED.

45 minutes ago, robdood said:

Done right, they can be awesome. See Ornstein & Smough & Father Gascoigne. 

 

In From we trust. 

Those are two good examples, of course. Used sparingly it can be a great way to change things up, but man was it overused in the later games.

Everything seems to be going just right with Sekiro so far though, so fingers crossed.

3 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

Stealth being a part of the gameplay would definitely imply the former. But the actual combat being more dynamic and maybe closer to something like Ninja Gaiden would imply the latter. Sooo maybe both?

 

Ha. Probably.

More than anything, I just hope they ditch the multi-phase bosses. Making them get a bit more aggressive is one thing, introducing a new moveset or even a new life bar just spoils it for me. DkS3 really made me dislike it towards the end. 

My only possible reservation so far is this question of difficulty. Is it more like the DkS1 difficulty, where it's more about being observant and figuring out an effective strategy, or DkS3/BB difficulty, where you really need some sharp reactions and skills? I'm hoping for the former.

Yeah. It's very much tied to the status quo and therefore keeping certain social/economic hierarchies in place, so that 'permissiveness' is always qualified.

2 minutes ago, Mr Cochese said:

Super Smough has a massive area of effect attack - I've never got why anyone prefers him. Ornstein has only really got the leaping thrust to worry about.

I only ever did super O once, and struggled to get through it. Perhaps I just never figured out the right strategy.

With super S (I guess this is what we're calling them now)

16 minutes ago, robdood said:

I love how people keep saying it 'isn't really a souls game', whereas it's sounding pretty clear that the core philosophy & heart of the game is definitely Soulslike!   People obviously have different ideas about what makes Souls Souls!

 

Maybe we should call them simply 'Miyazaki games'

 

Yep. And this is what's so perfect IMO. That same design philosophy, but transferred into a new setting and game mechanics, because the formula was getting too familiar. Exactly the right balance of Souls and not-Souls.

@Alan Stock Worth noting the black iron armour slows stamina regeneration a bit. Munch on some green blossom perhaps.

Also, I always found super O much harder than super S. There's a very cheap but reliable strategy for the latter that makes it fairly safe.

You know when something sounds too good to be true? I mean, it's like they made a list of all the things I would've wanted from the next From game. There got to be a catch, right?

Both left and right are more complex terms than they used to be. Which is why blanket statements about either rarely ring true (edit: if they ever did).

For example, there is still that conservative, traditional values, prohibitive right that presumably would want to censor extreme violence in games, but also that 'neoliberal' right which is far more focused on individualism and permissiveness. What's interesting (for me anyway) is how they both contradict and support each other, especially visible in US Republican politics of course.

3 hours ago, partious said:

Whether accidentally or not, Hatred actually made people think about what a crass form of entertainment simulated gory and graphic portrayals of the killing of people is, as opposed to games like TLOU or whatever which give these glimpses of nuanced stories and realistic characters in cutscenes but then have those cutscenes attached to gameplay where we sneak around stabbing people in the head or bashing their brains out in ridiculously over the top and farcical numbers because Naughty Dog are content to just make every game a third person violent shooter/head stabber. It's ok though. We only stab and shoot bad men and women (which means everyone on the other side) so there's no need to reflect on the thrills of excitement people derive from this simulated ultraviolence. 

In Hatred's case, I think any reflection is purely accidental, since it seemed to be very much aimed at making murder fun/cathartic for its target audience.

As for TLOU, I largely agree with the point. The first one felt to me like it was a violent videogame first with a story fitted around that. To be fair, it makes the relationship between the two main characters reasonably interesting, but it still felt overly contrived. Like, how do we come up with yet another situation where Joel gets to murder everyone? TLOU2 could potentially be much more interesting if the kind of killing we've seen was a rare occurence - something that you were really forced to do on a few occasions only. But I guess that would mean rethinking the game template too much. 

29 minutes ago, Danster said:

I can stay within .5 of a second of Spatular until I hit that middle section and then i fall behind by about 4 seconds not sure what I'm doing wrong, apart from not driving fast enough....!

For me it was braking too much on the yellow corners. On the second one especially you barely need to release the accelerator (if at all?). And even the red isn't too sharp.

Another session - frustration for about half an hour then knocked 1.5 seconds off in the space of 2 laps.

Reasonably pleased with that now. Will hopefully squeeze a bit more out, but doubt I'll bridge the big gap to the next position. Those 1.37s are almost certainly out of my league.

Didn't get as much time on the last one, what with the World Cup starting. Don't think I could've made up enough time to make a difference to the standings anyway.

I like the new track and car combo. Had a brief session and there's plenty I need to learn.

RE Motion sickness. I often get it when starting a new FP perspective game and have to switch off after 20-30 mins. But, I generally find that if I try it again later it's much milder, and a third time it's gone completely. Seems to just take a while to adjust each time.

I assume there's a good reason for making this game FP. Just hope it doesn't stop too many people from playing it.

Yeah, I don't see this going full on action game at all. Still seems very much survival horror from the little bits I've seen.

Hmm. Was about to buy this but I think I'll probably skip it now. It'll probably turn up on Plus at some point anyway.

28 minutes ago, JPL said:

They’ll all be better on X.

Can't say I'm bothered about that sort of stuff, certainly not enough to think about buying a new machine. Half the time I'm not sure I can tell 30fps from 60 TBH.

The one thing I would say about the MS one was that it was also enjoyable from my perspective as a PS4 owner, because I got to see a load of games that I'll be able to play as well.

In that sense, it wasn't a good conference if the aim was to make me want an XBox 1.

The MS conference was the best in PR terms because they needed to say 'look, we've got games' and that's exactly what they did.

Overall, it was a solid but unspectacular E3, with probably more games I'm interested in than the last one at least.

As for individual games, for me Sekiro and Resi 2 were easily the highlights, and both multiformat.