Forgot_My_Account

This one is pretty nice - Devia_-_Tribute_to_DeviantART: Although, and it might seem drab, I just use the Winamp Modern skin in mini mode. It has a ton of color schemes to choose from and I just use it as a small task bar above my main one: EDIT: In the unlikely case my drab taste actually appeals to someone and I've won, I'll be unfortunately without internet access until next weekend due to circumstances that are out of my control.

While this is true - always-online games is a sort of DRM, and probably the most efficient one available today, it doesn't absolutely eliminate privacy. Once there is a server emulator it is essentially the crack - and as an aside, the same thing goes with games with DRM when their service goes down. Such a thing has happened multiple times in the past with Denuvo, or, hey - your Steam library! No connection, no way to login and play - although Steamworks is sort of a placebo DRM. All of that being said, it's a counterargument against Ross's point and it should be debated and addressed. Ross cannot feasibly make a foolproof defense against the absolute entirety of arguments against his point, and those who support it (or heck, even those who don't and want to debate) need to step up and fill in the gaps. This video is a call to action to make all consumers' lives better rather than a panacea. We, the consumers, need to fight for our rights and keep this topic debated until change is made. And as a counterpoint to what I've said, he did the research. While we can debate using logic and well known facts, Ross presented some lesser known and more indepth ones that can fuel our arguments. Piracy is such a widely debated and very wide topic that could've detracted from the video, while the pros and cons for it in this context can be googled pretty easily and are kind of known beforehand. I think the video should stay as-is, and maybe not even get involved in Ross's stance on piracy (can be seen in multiple RGDs where he used cracked games because they simply weren't available to purchase, or joined a server emulator session for Battleforge) but the discussions it will generate on the topic could definitely include it and every other subject under the sun, and we debaters should be prepared.

It's safely in abandonware territory. Soundtracks for video games and movies isn't a big thing in Israel, so even if it weren't abandonware - they likely wouldn't have cared about it much.

Oh hey, a game I recognize from my childhood. OK so to set the things straight - the game was developed in Hebrew, so a lot of the puzzles there have pun-logic. Of course this wasn't translated properly, but even if it was - it still had lots of instances of moon logic even in its intended language. The game's instability is not only due to it being intended to run on Windows 95, it's because that the developer (Makhshevet) isn't really a game dev studio - they mostly just translated games to Hebrew. They had maybe 5 games they independently developed, all except one (Master of Dimensions) very short. Going off topic a bit here, but as you can expect they've gone bankrupt immediately after releasing this game, been bought out - and the last I've heard of them they were translating Fable to Hebrew, and as far as I know it didn't release locally. The hidden reason for why this story doesn't really make any sense, is because you've been given the twist ending from the beginning. The game was called locally GrannyX, and at the time adventure games didn't really make any sense and critical thinking regarding the plot wasn't really common place - so players were expected to roll with its batshit plot. The twist ending was, as the title says it - that granny has been doing lots of stuff, dangering both others and herself, but isn't really lucid - she's been suffering from dementia all along, and has been committing some horrible deeds. She is completely detached from reality. If your granny steps into the washing machine thinking it's a spaceship, you might want to place her under supervision. By the way, I'm not a rabbit. I was a hippo all along!

pFQP-pWgWTw To everyone interested in it, a fan improvement to Deus Ex called GMDX has been recently released. It includes bug fixing, improvements to gun play and AI, graphics and audio improvements, and much more. Most of the things it fixes have been mentioned in Ross's video - for instance, you don't jump like an old lady anymore because now you can mantle objects. I think it's a straight-up improvement to the original game, which is a tall claim it being called the greatest game of all time. Regardless if you agree (or capable of agreeing) with that claim, I highly recommend everyone to check it out. It even fixes Leo Gold's hair color to "black" instead of "none".

Go with a quality build. Equal parts strength and dex - weapon requirements should guide you when to upgrade which. Big shields and spears/halberds trivialize most battles. That being said, Pyromancy is OP in DaS1, and isn't tied to any stats. It's always wise to upgrade the flame and to ascend it.

While I'm against bashing something, voicing negative critique isn't a bad thing. I believe games are an art form and by which they can inspire certain emotions and ideas, and if you think those are bad or clash with your perception it's a valid critique. As a whole I think games have surpassed being just for amusement and fun and have evolved to contain more feelings, some of which are disgust and shock, and that can both be intentional or unintentional by the devs. Because of that, even if you think something is bad, doesn't mean it doesn't serve its purpose - especially with games being dynamic and have the ability of being changed or fixed as time goes on. It just means that you should voice your opinion and be as focused and precise as possible, so everyone can learn from those aspects of the game, and for the devs to be able to fix it, if they wish to, to fit their original vision.

Deus Ex HR wasn't a UbiSoft title... It was published by Square Enix... You're completely right, had a brain fart.

It's not as much as a foul as it is publishers being dicks. For example, with the Wii U: It was supposed to get Metro: Last Light, but THQ went bankrupt midway through development and Deep Silver didn't keep THQ's promises. It was supposed to get recent EA titles, but they bailed pretty much immediately when they saw that it didn't sell as many consoles as they hoped and its weird control scheme and PowerPC CPU meant pouring a lot more effort into ports. It was supposed to get Ubisoft titles, and they tried at the start with Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Rayman Legends, but then bailed like EA. But as far as Nintendo knows, they have given dev kits to those companies and specific games were developed for it - they just weren't completed. So it isn't Nintendo lying to you, it's just giving you the information it has. The Switch fortunately has a far more common (AArch64) CPU and a more orthodox control scheme, so it should be alright, I hope.

The thing is, VR is the latest-tech. If I could play Deus Ex on VR I could because its framerate can be unlocked quite easily. If we get something that's more advanced than VR it's easily unlockable to that framerate, too. However, if I play on a game designed for 90FPS and that framerate ONLY it's going to be dated with no good reason why. The same goes for 30FPS, but 30FPS is already dated by current tech so it just receives the bigger backlash.

My cut-off is the SNES era. I cannot enjoy even the most advanced NES games because of three things - the limited color palette, the knowledge of "what could've been" due to seeing new technology, and the limited storage size making games dependent on manuals rather than being a complete all-in-one experience. Even standout titles such as Super Mario Bros. 3 are superseded by the far improved SNES collection Super Mario All-Stars (Luigi had his own sprite!). From that point on, everything is fair game. I even hacked my 3DS so I could play my old games on emulators, even though I'm not even close to trying out all of the DS and 3DS titles I've bought. When a new game proves disappointing I go back and play something old that I know that is good, because they make me feel the same way I did when I first played them after all this time. And it doesn't matter if it's a 16 bit RPG about killing God or a PS2 RPG about killing God, or any Atlus RPG in general.

That's like saying a movie is shit only because it uses practical effects in a day and age where CGI is commonplace. While it doesn't fit your allegory isn't 1-to-1, that happened. And in the other direction, too - there were movies that used excessive CGI when it was in it wasn't advanced enough instead of using practical effects, causing the movies to look like crap both at the time and in the long run. I'd say using CGI(/FPS locking) that might fit the era when cheaper and better practical FX exist(/unlimited FPS) is only acceptable if that technology is imperceptible in every single way, which might be very close(/500 FPS, I think I read that somewhere).

Agreed on the first part, it's a singleplayer game with no twitch reflex requirement so bombing it with bad ratings just because it lacks a certain specification is uncalled for. I do not agree with the last sentence, though, as it makes a difference in some games and makes things look unnecessarily dated (because VR games, for instance, require 90 FPS minimum to prevent nausea). A 30 FPS lock might be enough reason to deserve bad ratings, and in general FPS and resolution locking is a practice that just shouldn't exist anymore. Of course, the affects of such restrictions are judged on a per-game basis, but in the best-case scenario they're benign and in the worst-case scenario they're hurtful. So, removing these limitations should an industry standard instead of defending them, as Ubisoft tried doing with "30 FPS is more cinematic" to defend FPS locking on PC to conform with "current-gen console experience" of Watch_Dogs.

Heliocentrical, all of the things you've mentioned already have a clear-cut answer (the way I see it) - not having someone having the other opinion might be considered a flaw of this discussion, but it might also point to a consensus and to the fact there is no discussion, only abuse by devs. Higher FPS = game feels smoother. Twitch reflex games necessitate higher FPS. FPS lock creates a skill ceiling for genres like shmups, brawlers, fighting games. A skill ceiling most won't reach, but a skill ceiling nonetheless. That being said, it's not like there's nothing to talk about. Alyxx Thorne made a right comment about FPS consistency being important than the FPS itself, which I agree partially. There are games that run like a slideshow and I just can't enjoy them as they feel too bland, but I might do them with something else in the background. On the other hand, I remember playing Onimusha 3 on the PC (horrible, horrible port) and being annoyed to no end when FPS inconsistency made me miss a block. They both matter - but they can also be temporary. Given enough time, there'll be a computer powerful enough to be able to run them at a constant high FPS, unless (1) the engine is shit or (2) there's an imposed artificial limit to fit the PCs/consoles at the time of release. That's why I think that in the large scheme of things FPS consistency might not matter very much, although for a single experience it might be a very significant factor of the enjoyment.

I think I figured out why the controls are so bad - they're trying to simulate an analog controller (like a joystick or a steering wheel) using a digital input (your keyboard). I'm guessing that's because analog inputs (such as steering wheels) weren't popular when most input was digital - this isn't the Magnavox Odyssey or a Pong console, with their weird prototypes for analog sticks. I came to this theory because the framerate is low, but the polling rate for the input is the cycle rate. Meaning that the player can input multiple keystrokes, and the game can process them before showing an actual change! I started thinking about this after I saw this video: So how do you play? Only with a keyboard, unless you want to program a macro that's tied to your joystick/steering wheel input and the emulated CPU speed and converts them to really fast taps. You cannot hold the direction you're driving in - that'll cause you to break the wheel in that direction. You have to tap in rhythm to the steering. Faster taps mean harder steering. Once you start driving this way you'll get used to it and get a feel for the rhythm for each angle. The same also applies to your acceleration! How do I know this is really the case with this game? First of all, because I tested it and IT WORKS. And because the angle cursor doesn't jump back to the middle when you release the input. And because you can add and subtract from it gently with longer presses and longer pauses. And (I think) that while the game world runs at 6 FPS, the HUD's FPS is actually higher - so you can actually predict your input before they happen. And that's how you make a precise racing game in a time you the range of your input was 1 (right), 0 (mid/no input), and -1 (left)! So what was the issue with Ross's steering? When he played it at a higher FPS, the polling rate was so high every small tap was registered as a button hold and just sent the steering wheel flying in that direction. Same goes for acceleration. Also, when using a steering wheel that essentially gives the game a 0 or a 1 in the direction he is steering, he thinks he has control of the angle with it when he actually only has control of the direction, and this made him "correct" the input only after he has gone too far. To properly play this with an unmodified controller input would mean shaking it very fast between the middle and slightly to the side, which is torture and I think that the keyboard or a d-pad is a far more fitting tool for the job. So, if anybody wants to try Test Drive 3 out, be prepared for a control scheme you've never seen before, and vigorous tapping. Also, don't try OCing the emulated CPU, it'll only end badly. EDIT: Also,

I don't think the OoT/MM to FF7 comparison is fair, because of the differing artistic direction. FF7 went it in a more realistic direction than the LoZ games - for example, look at the backgrounds of those three games. FF7 usually used pre-rendered 3D backgrounds with a more grounded look, while the LoZ games used a more cartoony and abstract style that didn't push the graphics in every way, but did manage to keep it all consistent - Link doesn't feel like a total outsider to the world, while Cloud does. Because of the pre-rendered backgrounds he seems like he's floating in most screenshots, and the characters' art design doesn't match the steampunk world. That being said, LoZ also had its missteps - Hyrule Town is a case of pre-rendered backgrounds, and it does look bad. So do some of the shops. But those are single cases the are usually very quick - you don't spend more than a minute in a shop, or 2-3 minutes in Hyrule Town. In FF7, that's the entire game. In general, you can say that pushing for realism is only a good idea if you have the means of achieving the same amount of realism across the entire game - sound, models, and textures. Miss one, and your game will turn out to be odd and dated, like many PS1 games. The pervasiveness and differing technical capabilities in the execution of the art direction is what makes FF7 seem dated, in my opinion. But to be honest, I don't even think FF7 aged that badly, but I also don't really like it or any of the Final Fantasy games. I played Final Fantasy VI, 7 and X and they all numbed my brain so hard I couldn't complete any of them. Anyway, I'm guessing that the clickbaity articles were probably paid by Square Enix as it's typical of them to ready the ground for when the FF7 remake ships, and will be radically different than the original "because it was aging".

I'd like to mention it doesn't even have to be games developed with PC in mind, it just has to be a competent port. Case in point: Valkyria Chronicles. Beautiful port, can run at an unlimited resolution and in unlimited FPS, and even the keyboard controls aren't that bad! It's a port actual effort was put into, and it proves that even if you weren't developing exclusively for PC or with the PC in mind, it still doesn't excuse a shitty port with limited and hindered performance.

I'm not saying that the puzzle/game was well designed, taking it from the RGD it really isn't. I'm just saying that it isn't total insanity - it just has you in the role of an 8 to 3 demux. That makes me wonder if this game was designed by programmers for aspiring programmers, like a more primitive and visual TIS-1000, as the logic seems like moon logic at first.

The puzzle with the switch you have to press 8 times is binary. Every flip of the switch adds 1 to the counter. 0 = close, 1 = open. 000 001 010 011 100 101 110 111 It's a cool little puzzle if the game introduced the idea of using other numerical bases beforehand. Otherwise, it's just the programmers fucking with you because they know binary and most people think in decimal.

You are correct, outputting variable FPS animations might take more time then 30 FPS animations, but it's the same amount of work at its base. They're getting flak because they aren't doing things quick and dirty rather than the proper way. The most notable case I can think of is Dark Souls II, as it was released originally. It was locked at 30 FPS, and even when they unlocked it, the weapon durability was tied to the FPS (as they assumed it was locked) - so when the PC version had an FPS unlocking mod, it essentially broke the entire game balance. Other than that, there were no issues - so it's just a case of shoddy programming that should and did get criticize, like tying in-game mechanics to the CPU's clockspeed. So, when there shouldn't be any cases of FPS interfering with the actual gameplay (if they don't cut any corners), and generating 30/60/240 FPS animations doesn't require any work, just more time - I don't see any excuse to limit the players. And it is an arbitrary limit, as you can see in VR titles nowadays that anything lower than 90 FPS can cause nausea and still games are being released with a lock framerate, meaning there simply is no justification for limiting FPS artificially to both 30 FPS and 60 FPS.

As a long time PC gamer, my perspective on it is that it's an artificial limit. You should have no problem playing games at 10,000*480p and 500 frames per second if your computer can do it, and if you'd like it. And FPS is tied to response time, so having an action game that has that handicap hurts everybody. It is also tied to graphical fidelity and fluidity of the game, so even if a game looks good but is released on 30 FPS instead of 60 FPS without the knowledge of the consumer it's essentially pulling a fast one on them. Especially since, again, it's an artificial limit that just shouldn't be there.

You can make the argument of form vs. function only if it's a trade off. There are better videos on the same subject which do better in both style and content. Anyway, Digital Homicide is down with its hopes of getting out-of-court settlement deals smashed. They'll probably keep pumping shit down the Steam Store in a couple of months under a different name, because the Steam Store is so easy to abuse it's ridiculous.

While it was a towering accomplishment at the time (and on the PS1!) and it hasn't been incorporated to Abe's Oddysee on PC, the issue of quicksaves can be easily sidestepped by emulating those games, which you can do on every PC and phone nowadays. Heck, I think the PS1 version were always superior since the ports were so shitty. I think you can say those games improved as time went on in that regard, although they are still very dated - why can't I can only call one Mudokon at a time? (fixed in Abe's Exoddus) Why do I have to chant for like 10 seconds before I can control a Slig? Why is the fastest and most accurate way to move around is to roll around like a jackass? Don't get me wrong - I love the puzzles which aren't bomb-diffusal, manipulating and running away from Scrabs, etc. But it all has a very clunky movement to it which detracts from the entire experience. It's still good! If you play it on the original XBox, that is. I think the PC port is kind of horrendous, but that might be just a bad experience on my part. But that's game preservation, I don't think I'll mind playing Stranger's Wrath again if given an actual working copy - I meant that Abe's Oddysee/Exoddus and Munch's Oddysee didn't age well. Also, I started a whole game and didn't buy anything so I could have enough moolah to pay the doc during Stranger's only visit to him. I was disappointed, especially since it took quite a bit of grinding to get the moolah out of infinitely spawning outlaws in one of the bosses.

I know it’s a bad habit due to its general low quality content, but I’ve started watching a lot of YouTube videos lately. A lot of them were Let’s Plays to replace traditional reviews, as I found most of review sites either too forgiving, or just flat-out ads. On the other end of the spectrum there are bashings camouflaged as reviews which only focus on negative aspects and not on the experience as a whole. So I decided I know better, and there is no way better to learn than to experience yourself – enter Let’s Plays. I quickly learned there were 2 mainstream approaches to Let’s Plays: (1) Talk about the game as you’re playing it, and (2) Do a podcast with the game there as something to react to, with varying amounts of attention being paid to it. While the first kind is more of what I leaned towards, the second kind also deserves mentioning as it has spawned the very successful Game Grumps and all of its derivatives and knock offs – so I’m going to start with it. The general idea of a podcast has always been weird to me, as it has evolved from something almost universally looked down upon – radio talk shows. But it has fans, even though the topic of a particular podcast doesn’t appeal to most of the fanbase. So what’s the selling point? The personality of those starring in it. I think it’s determined by if you find their opinions, life experience and way of thought interesting and unique. But the thing is that it isn’t tied to the game – it’s only a Let’s Play because the game provides a background and a spotlight for the players. In that way, that type of Let’s Play could’ve been done with a film in its backdrop (if it weren’t taken down by a DMCA notice) – it isn’t uniquely game oriented, it’s just something animated to put on the screen while you talk. The other type is where things get complicated. You can talk about a game in many ways – how it makes you feel, how it makes you think, how every part was created from a designer’s perspective, which tricks the coder did to make the game actually work the way it does, etc. But it always puts the game in the foreground – it is the focus of that video. And that creates Let’s Players who are have channels that are specialized for specific types of games, because those are the things that attract the most viewers: 1. New or rare games – I group those together because they give the watcher a taste of something unseen or unknown until now. 2. Popular games – games that appeal to a large fanbase of that game, and who cannot play the game at that moment. 3. “Exclusive Experience” games – games that offer a unique experience for each player, and that may include multiplayer games, RNG-dependent games (such as Rogue-lites), or games that have way too much content (such as Super Mario Maker), in which case you’re expecting to see a cherry-picked videos of that experience. The watcher is trusting the Let’s Player to waste their time and only present the best that game can ever be, or typical gameplay, or edge cases such as ultra-hard levels. This is most often not the case, but since it’s random – they are likely to hook viewers by chance. These all have a certain common ground – by talking about their thought process while playing, they make you sympathize with them and more prone to agreeing with them, allowing their analysis to be more legitimate as you’re also witnessing proof of their claims as they happen – whether right or wrong, because you as a watcher have no direct input and control of the game. Despite all of the inherent legitimacy the Let’s Player has, it’s still expected he’ll be on-point and in-depth in order to hook the watcher. Since it needs to happen all of the time, most of the Let’s Players start talking about completely unrelated things as the Let’s Play progresses, or deal with responding to chat, leading to the Let’s Play coming off as unfocused and to the Let’s Player as bored. For what it’s worth, though, it’s generally better than most reviews – at least when something monotonous, you can see it as it happens instead of finding out that a game is boring only after you bought it – but I don’t think we’ve reached the absolute pinnacle of game reviews just yet. They are also appealing to a more massive audience by lowering the skill floor to the absolute minimum, which is why Let’s Plays have become more appealing to most. By lowering the skill floor of difficult yet popular games, such as the Soulsbourne series, they make a unique experience more common, which I don’t think is necessarily bad – but it cheapens and dilutes the experience and essentially robs the player of it. Horror games Let’s Plays are a peculiar in particular, as it seems like anyone watching them doesn’t want to be afraid but does want to experience those games? It just misses the point for me. On the other end of the spectrum, there are Let’s Plays that are essentially a skill showcase – games with an unusually high skill floor, or a specific run of those games that necessitates it – speedruns, bug showcases/breaking the game runs, and the weird runs of Final Fantasy with only 1 white mage and no items all fall under that term. I feel like those are the truly “exclusive experience” Let’s Plays, as it stretches both the game and the player to their limits. Aside from the inherent entertainment value of watching how things work under extreme conditions or watching a record being broken, those also provide info on how the game works of a fundamental level – and thus are essential for every review. By showing you how the game works and even breaking it, but not imparting the skills to do it, they are essentially prodding the watcher to try and do those things on their own. They can still ruin a game for me if done badly. To summarize, putting aside the podcasts-in-disguise – I feel like seeing multiple Let’s Plays of the same game is the closest thing we have to honest game reviews on a large scale, with specific elements, issues and features being acknowledged and analyzed as they come up from different perspectives. Being the best method available, means it’s also going to be more successful. I also feel like certain Let’s Plays are inherently fun to watch due to amazing skill, uniqueness and education value. However, I feel like this format is still developing – watching an entire Let’s Play (as intended) essentially destroys a game for me (not as intended). A lot of the content out there isn’t focused even within the same Let’s Play, or done out of obligation to the watchers, with the Let’s Player and the game simply not being compatible. It’s a brave new world, and by not analyzing it and defining what makes it tick and work for large audiences we cannot make it better, not to mention more profitable for both the Let’s Players and their watchers. Does anyone have another take on why Let’s Plays have caught on? Or another dissection of that kind of videos? Or how to make Moon Gaming work?

The Oddworld games. They were all clunky on release, and it's only got worse as time went on. Abe's Oddysee is frustrating, Abe's Exoddus is slightly less so - but the movement is just so clunky you don't have any fun solving the puzzles. Abe's Oddysee got a remake a couple years back which improves on a lot of things, but it really lacks the atmosphere the original had - is having the same graphics, but in a rebuilt engine too much to ask for? The same goes for Munch's Oddysee, only in the opposite direction. The movement is so imprecise and you feel like the characters are on rocket skates, which is kind of important for a puzzle-platformer. All of the environments were built for what I figure is a very precise input, and the controls just mess that up completely. Not to mention squad mates have a habit of ignoring orders due to buggy engine or buggy port of it on the Windows version. It's just a mess, but I still recall having fun with it on the original XBox release. In general, I find myself hitting the turbo button when emulating a lot of old RPGs, with the worst case being Pokemon. I don't know why game designers think they need to load every letter by itself, or load text after/before the attack animation is taking place rather than in parallel. It's incredibly annoying to me, but I think I was too stunned as a kid when I could take videogames to school on my monochrome Gameboy to notice. Eternal Darkness is certainly dated. I'm not sure millennials would even get most of the sanity effects they used there - turning down the sound (in a CRT overlay), saying you've reached the end of the demo (there aren't any game demos anymore), etc. It was meant to fuck with the player, unfortunately the medium has changed drastically since its release and its prediction of players is now inaccurate. Also, sanity effects shouldn't force you to reload the room unless they're very extreme - on a low sanity run, you'll find yourself playing every room twice, and it's a chore when the jokes and tricks it pulls on you just don't land anymore. @Psychotic Ninja - can also recommend Chaos Theory. Installed it for a friend who has never played the Splinter Cell games and he's having a blast.