All Things Video Games Thread: II

[bob joe mac]

Thats crazy news about miyamoto the guy never made a bad mario... although sunshine was just ok.

In other news Xenoblade Chronicles has been finally announced for NA localization this april. As a big RPG fan I imported it from England during the summer and it is one of the best RPG experiences I've had since the PS1 days I highly recommend if you want to obtain a copy pre-order it or else its going to be hell to find as NOA has already said it doesn't expect the game to do well and will have a crazy low print.

[TheLoneWolf]

I'm not surprised by Miyamoto's "retirement." After working on so many big budget titles with impossibly high expectations, he must've found himself longing for the old days of simple games and smaller staffs. For Miyamoto, returning to smaller games is the equivalent of a well-deserved, and long overdue, sabbatical. I've got a feeling that he'll "unretire" if Nintendo ever comes out with some slick new hardware that he won't be able to resist.

[Radd]

The "Miyamoto retirement" story was denied by Nintendo by the time I first heard of it around 8am EST today. Sounds like he was joking about retiring but the interviewer took it seriously.

I know at several jobs I had I went around yelling, "I'm quitting" on a weekly basis for years on end.

[Graham]

Err.......this part of the forums is for discussion of Macross games.

Graham

[TheLoneWolf]

Heh, that'll teach me for actually doing work at my job and neglecting the internets.

[mustang1]

Sorry. Can you move this topic to the proper thread?

[Wanzerfan]

Well, guys, Yhatzee is at it again.

This time he reviewed both The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Saints Row: The Third. Need I say veiw at your own risk? Especially in the case of Saits Row the The Third.

[JB0]

First, a link: http://system16.com/hardware.php?id=903&page=2#19049

Okay, now why did no one TELL ME that Taito was still making Darius arcade cabs, and with the traditional "build the biggest kludged-together screen you can think of" mentality that made Darius famous in the first place?

I want this. I don't care how irrational this is, I don't even care if the game's utterly terrible. I MUST HAVE THAT SCREEN.

[Shaorin]

well, i finally joined the 21st century, about as much as i ever feel i'm about to, anyway;

yes, it's an Effin' SAMSUNG, LCD type.

it really does the job for me quite handily though; with the proper picture settings,

and ALL of the DNR functions OFF, all my SD sources-

(S-VHS VCR, LD, vintage Video Games)

-look better than ever.

after being used to CRT tech my whole life, it took a little getting used to,

but as soon as i adjusted to the idiosyncrasies of the technology,

i was in heaven.

yes, this thing lets all of my SD sources' shine their deficiencies right through, but it also displays all of their strengths in high relief as well.

you adjust, and get used to it, and you find that it, on the whole,

is a far superior way to roll in SD than CRT tech ever was.

now, as far as my DV-09 DVDP is concerned? i can finally use COMPONENT VIDEO connection, and, of course, it has never looked better...

[frothymug]

You're always looking for excuses to show off your A/V equipment and other related accessories. I think we all can tell you have a love affair with your electronics... especially Pioneer equipment.

[Keith]

It's about damn time. BTW, if that's your PS3 on the lower left, you may want to move it up to a higher/highest shelf. They breathe better, and pick up better wifi if you stick them up higher than lower.

[frothymug]

When looking for this PS3, I noticed the two Gamecubes, NES, SNES, and N64 neatly stacked in the corner of the room.

[JB0]

Oddly, I've had the opposite experience. My vintage game hardware looks ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE on my LG LCD.

NES and 99/4a both looked like grossly over-compressed JPEGs. I didn't feel like hitting it up with the rest of the collection after the sheer horrors of those first two tests.

Now, admittedly, both of those systems have questionable video signals to START with, and the artifacts inherent to their video paths probably provided a sub-optimal test situation, but... meh. I'm keeping my NTSC-targetted hardware on relatively high-end CRTs for as long as possible.

Now if only I could get everyone together long enough to move this old Mitsubishi presentation monitor out and replace it with this Toshiba I dragged home.

I really do want to keep Screenzilla, but as well-regarded as the old Diamondview displays are, this one is in desperate need of some serious maintainence that I'm not qualified to give it. Bad caps, at least, possibly a failing transformer, flaky input switch on the back, and at least one bad input.

Also, component video inputs are more useful to me than RGB inputs are, and the composite/s-video switch being on the BACK instead of the front seriously hinders usability. An NTSC tuner also brings the first-era stuff back into play.

And GOD DAMN 32-inch CRTs are heavy. I may be a staunch supporter of Rube Goldberg's vacuum tube, but seriously, panel displays are worth it just because you don't have to get a football team together to help you move The Herniator.

[Keith]

Make no mistake, analog media, like old composit cable NES systems & such will look like crap no matter what you do. One dilemma I've come across is that the PS1 port of DYRL will not output through component on my modded PS2, it 'll only go out through composit. This makes the game look "extra" sh!tty. Unfortunately, Sony region locked PS1 games in the PS3, so it'll be a while before I know what this game looks like upscaled. These things don't look like crap because of HD, they look like crap because SD hid the low resolution of it. One of the first things I did was replace every matted widescreen non-anamorphic DVD I had with an anamorphic DVD or bluray counterpart.

Regardless, the best results I've had are to turn off most upscaling features, and if your HD TV has a game mode, make damn sure that's turned on. All the smoothing/etc features that are standard left on cause miliseconds of dispaly lag that will get you killed in any online game.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Keith

[David Hingtgen]

Game mode often introduces other things though---I leave it off. Game mode may try to increase response by disabling some things, but it has other nasty effects many times. (like super-saturated color/contrast etc).

Turning EVERYTHING off is often the best bet---"doing nothing" has the TV processing as fast as it can.

[JB0]

Make no mistake, analog media, like old composit cable NES systems & such will look like crap no matter what you do. One dilemma I've come across is that the PS1 port of DYRL will not output through component on my modded PS2, it 'll only go out through composit. This makes the game look "extra" sh!tty.

That's likely due to the system design. PS1 isn't emulated on the PS2, there's actually PS1 hardware in there. My bet is, since an original PS1 couldn't do component, neither can a PS2 in PS1 mode.

RGB is better anyways, but poorly supported in the west.

S-video is a nice compromise, but requires another cable.

Personhally, I prefer PS1 games through composite, though. I've found s-video makes the PS1's terrible pattern-dithering on almost everything entirely too visible. Even lovely games like Valkyrie Profile and Symphony of the Night have dithering speckles everywhere.

So of course, they go and do the same thing for the PSP, without even the option of reintroducing blur to the display to hide the checkerboards.

These things don't look like crap because of HD, they look like crap because SD hid the low resolution of it. One of the first things I did was replace every matted widescreen non-anamorphic DVD I had with an anamorphic DVD or bluray counterpart.

Eh, it's a little of column A, little of column B.

Yes, composite video and poor CRT quality made things look a bit less jaggy and dithered than they actually were, but most TVs have terrible upscaling routines(due in part to the need to get it done fast to reduce the amount of lag that's going to be introduced). A high-quality CRT with a decent feed will look better than an upscaled-via-TV image. I can make my SNES through s-video look remarkably close to an emulator.

As far as DVD VS BluRay, I've been preaching this since before BluRay existed. I noticed the resolution limits of DVD early on(make no mistake, it was still a huge step up from VHS).

Regardless, the best results I've had are to turn off most upscaling features, and if your HD TV has a game mode, make damn sure that's turned on. All the smoothing/etc features that are standard left on cause miliseconds of dispaly lag that will get you killed in any online game.

That varies a lot by television.

There are some TVs where game mode actually RAISES the overall response time. No, I don't know what they're doing there either.

Really, what TV you have means a lot more than whether game mode is on or off. Some displays have single-frame lag, some can lag by as much as a half a second.

And even for non-gaming situations, I recommend David's advice. Turn everything off. Most of it only exists to crap up your image.

And for the love of Althena, find the option to kill overscan! There's simply no excuse for a 1920*1080 display being fed a 1920*1080 image to rescale the image and then chop a fifth of it off! If your TV stations still display garbage in the "overscan" area, then call them up, share your opinion of their technical incompetence, and stop watching them! This is supposed to be the shining bright point of a pure-digital display, we aren't supposed to NEED to deal with questionable geometry and overscan compensation anymore!

*sigh*

This is what I REALLY miss about CRT.

A bad CRT would still give you dark blacks and bright whites, virtually instant response, and could generally be bullied into producing accurate color, though it may never have the beam focus needed for a truly good picture. No amount of tweaking will ever make a bad LCD behave tolerably.

[VT 1010]

I'd hypothesize that most classic video games look like crap because of the unusual display resolution they used. IIRC, wasn't it some sort of psuedo-240p? In addition, you have to take into account the display (or receiver or video processor) may not have good enough deinterlacing/video processing to handle the signal well.

Case in point, I just got a new plasma HDTV (Panasonic VT30). Surprisingly, the NES doesn't look as bad as I expected, but it still doesn't compare to the 32" CRT in the game room. The NES looks worse through the reciever (Pioneer VSX-1121k), utilizing its processing capabilities. This seems to be unique to video games though. LaserDiscs, on the other hand, look excellent (for LaserDiscs). Indeed, they actually look better than ever. LDs have a standard 480i signal and can be deinterlaced with IVTC. This is obviously different from video games, hence my hypothesis in why there's such a quality difference on modern displays.

And as an aside, what happened to S-Video inputs? Neither my TV nor my reciever have them...

[Shaorin]

Oddly, I've had the opposite experience. My vintage game hardware looks ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE on my LG LCD.

and therein lies the problem; LG. "LUCKY-GOLDSTAR" yes, the VERY SAME "GOLD STAR" of the 1980's,

that tossed out all those terrible, low-grade products in their bid to try to dominate the low-end of the U.S. CE market.

admittedly, SAMSUNG was pretty much playing in the very same field back then, but, judging by the performance

of this new LCD of mine, which was a $600.00, 40" "upper-entry-level" model, SAMSUNG is at least trying hard.

i might be very mistaken on this, but i have, and have always had, a very strong suspicion that LG has always been

third fiddle in everything they do... and even now in the 21st century they haven't changed much at all.

make no mistake... i resent BOTH companies; as BOTH have played leading parts in the rapid recession

of the great old Japanese giants from much, if not most of the U.S. CE industry...

And GOD DAMN 32-inch CRTs are heavy. I may be a staunch supporter of Rube Goldberg's vacuum tube,

but seriously, panel displays are worth it just because you don't have to get a football team together to help you move The Herniator.

EXACTLY.

when me and my mother's BF moved my old 32" TOSHIBA CRT out, which, according to the manual,

is slightly over 100lbs. the last bit of love and loyalty i had for CRT video monitor tech evaporated

along with the sweat shedded in the effort of moving my particular overweight beast out of the house.

indeed, with this new LCD, which is specified to weigh in at around 40lbs.

there is now no single element of my AV system that i cannot easily pick up and move on my own,

and i like that very much indeed...

Game mode often introduces other things though---I leave it off. Game mode may try to increase response by disabling some things, but it has other nasty effects many times. (like super-saturated color/contrast etc).

Turning EVERYTHING off is often the best bet---"doing nothing" has the TV processing as fast as it can.

that's exactly what i have found to be the case. i have ALL SD enhancements OFF on mine,

and this provides the best performance, which, to my eyes, is actually BETTER than how it looked on CRT.

BETTER, i contend, because, like KEITH here says;

These things don't look like crap because of HD, they look like crap because SD hid the low resolution of it.

exactly that. SD on a quality HD monitor is, simply put, Brutally Honest.

whatever looks bad about your SD source looks bad on an HDM, and whatever looks good about it looks just that; good.

for my part, i have long since gotten used to the strengths and weaknesses of all my SD sources, and they simply don't bother me.

it took a few days to get used to how this new monitor displays everything without apology,

but, much like how an audiophile learns to hear "Musical Truth" for what it is,

i have come to accept and appreciate seeing all the SD sources i spent my childhood with through a crystal-clear window...

Edited December 15, 2011 by Shaorin

[eugimon]

HAHA.. you're going to blame Samsung and LG for the decline of the big japanese electronics zaibatsus?

get real, samsung and LG invested heavily into the panel market and they won big while Sony played it safe and kept pushing CRTs long after the market left that technology. Sony shot themselves in the foot by not investing back into R&D and banking on their name just like the American CE industry before them. Samsung and LG are no more to blame for the decline of Sony than Nintendo is to blame for the decline of Atari.

If you really want to look at people who don't "play fair" then look no further than vizio who buy OEM parts and rebadge it, reaping the benefit of all the R&D that companies like samsung, panasonic and sony pour into the industry while contributing nothing. They epitomize the race to the bottom mentality.

As for your reasoning that LG makes crap products today because they made crap in the 80's... again, hilarious. "Made in Japan" used to be synonymous with cheap crap back in the 70's, much like "made in China" is today. Times change and companies, like nations, rise and fall.

Edited December 15, 2011 by eugimon

[Shaorin]

"Made in Japan" used to be synonymous with cheap crap back in the 70's, much like "made in China" is today. Times change and companies, like nations, rise and fall.

would you consider any of the 1970's-era Japanese products shown in here as "cheap crap" ?

http://silverpioneer.netfirms.com/

further, do you possibly think you could find a single chinese product,

made in the last 40 years to present, that's even half as well made as these?

Edited December 15, 2011 by Shaorin

[JB0]

I'd hypothesize that most classic video games look like crap because of the unusual display resolution they used. IIRC, wasn't it some sort of psuedo-240p? In addition, you have to take into account the display (or receiver or video processor) may not have good enough deinterlacing/video processing to handle the signal well.

Oh, that's definitely part of the problem. Pretty much everything pre-Dreamcast outputs some variant of semi-NTSC that's only loosely compatible with the standard and does horrible unspeakable things to the spec.

But part of it's also the problem of scaling 256*224 up to 1440*1080. It's just not going to look good unless you have the compute power available to apply something more complex than nearest-neighbor scaling and still get the image up in 1/60th of a second.

And part of it(depending on how smart the parts inside are, possibly the largest part) is that my chosen test platforms have notoriously BAD composite video outputs. Even on an old TV, the 99/4a exhibits a terrible amount of ringing.

And as an aside, what happened to S-Video inputs? Neither my TV nor my reciever have them...

They aren't cool anymore.

Remember, they were never mainstream. They were reserved for higher-end gear. The home theater boom coincided with DVD and *blech* component video inputs, so THAT'S what everyone wants. S-video is some unloved bastard child in most people's eyes.

and therein lies the problem; LG. "LUCKY-GOLDSTAR" yes, the VERY SAME "GOLD STAR" of the 1980's,

that tossed out all those terrible, low-grade products in their bid to try to dominate the low-end of the U.S. CE market.

Companies can change.

I have no problems buying Western Digital hard drives nowadays, but back in the day, they were better used as paperweights instead of data storage devices.

Similarly, I actually spent a few months doing research before pulling the trigger, and the LG set I have is a rather good one. This particular model even avoided the panel lottery issues LG is somewhat infamous for.

Though it cries when fed the dark horrors of semi-NTSC, that is far from an uncommon problem with digital displays.

admittedly, SAMSUNG was pretty much playing in the very same field back then, but, judging by the performance

of this new LCD of mine, which was a $600.00, 40" "upper-entry-level" model, SAMSUNG is at least trying hard.

i might be very mistaken on this, but i have, and have always had, a very strong suspicion that LG has always been

third fiddle in everything they do... and even now in the 21st century they haven't changed much at all.

LG tries very hard these days too. They make quite nice hardware in most of the markets they're in.

The big problem with their TVs, and make no mistake, I think it's a serious ethics issue, is they have a bad habit of changing the LCD panel they use mid-run.

Several of their TVs the past few years have launched with very nice panels, and a few months after the new models have been released and the positive reviews have come in, they start snaking other panels of vastly different quality into the supply line alongside the good ones.

On the up side, the panel used is coded into the model number on the outside of the box, so you can sift through the pile to find the right revision if you know that they aren't actually all the same TV. On the down side, it's a fairly blatant bait&switch attempt.

SD on a quality HD monitor is, simply put, Brutally Honest.

whatever looks bad about your SD source looks bad on an HDM, and whatever looks good about it looks just that; good.

for my part, i have long since gotten used to the strengths and weaknesses of all my SD sources, and they simply don't bother me.

it took a few days to get used to how this new monitor displays everything without apology,

but, much like how an audiophile learns to hear "Musical Truth" for what it is,

i have come to accept and appreciate seeing all the SD sources i spent my childhood with through a crystal-clear window...

I have to take complete and unmitigated exception to this.

Digital image scaling will NEVER produce a perfect, crystal-clear image, especially not when working from an analog source intended for home use(professional analog sources are MUCH better than the ones available for home use). The only time you get a perfect image out of an LCD is when it's fed an image at it's native resolution through either RGB or digital input.(and even THAT'S up for grabs sometimes).

Given enough time and post-processing, you can get very close, but when you're doing it on a very minimal computer in real-time, with 0.017 seconds to sample the analog waveform, create a digital image, resize that image to the native resolution, analyze the result, apply any of a number of post-processing effects, and get it on the screen... there's a lot of work to do in very little time, and corners are cut to keep component costs under control.

PCs and game consoles can get away with it because they have much more complex hardware that costs a lot more. Which is why I use system-side scaling on my 360, PS3, and PC instead of trusting the TV or monitor to do it.

Claiming a flat-panel HDTV is always providing a cleaner image than the CRT it's replacing is like claiming the camera never lies.

It sounds good on the face of it, but once you learn a bit about what's going on, it rapidly becomes obvious that it's a bald-faced lie.

I won't say CRT is purer without qualification, but all other things being equal, it gets MUCH closer to what an SD source is outputting since it skips all that image processing. No A-D. No image resizing. No post-processing. No lag. No chroma encoding glitches. Just picture in, picture out.

Certainly a bad CRT will hide a lot of detail due to poor focus, but a bad LCD will hide a lot of it too due to poor blacks and blown-out whites and 6-bit color channels.

Optimally, I'd be playing my old games on a healthy multisync RGB monitor. 256*224 on a display capable of doing razor-sharp 1024*768 isn't a bad deal at all. But as I don't HAVE a healthy multisync monitor, I'm settling for healthy high-grade CRT TVs.

Both my current tube TVs are SD CRTs from the peak of that market. At the time they were made, they were a step or two down from top-end, and consequently don't support progressive-scan inputs, but are still sharp enough that you can see the individual scanlines easily, and have more jacks on the back than you can shake a stick at(composite, component, and the lonely, unloved s-video). Young enough that the capacitors haven't dried up and the tube phosphers are still in good shape.

They're also both too damn big, but beggars can't be choosers. But the next time I move a 32-incher, it better be because I found a freaking XBR-960 for cheap.

[reddsun1]

what's that about video games fostering increased hostility? nah, that's all rubbish, I'm sure...

TROLLOLOL!!!

that first gamer was the fun-niest. now that's how you cuss somebody out: "...f'ing play the game properly you little sh*t!"

Edited December 16, 2011 by reddsun1

[eugimon]

would you consider any of the 1970's-era Japanese products shown in here as "cheap crap" ?

http://silverpioneer.netfirms.com/

further, do you possibly think you could find a single chinese product,

made in the last 40 years to present, that's even half as well made as these?

Oh please, we get that Pioneer gives you a hard on, I'm talking about the way "made in Japan" was regarded as whole. It's easy to cherry pick out a few good products but for the average consumer, made in japan was cheap and disposable.

And let's put things in perspective. When Sony's patents on the trinitron ran out, it was other JAPANESE companies that cannibalized them, like Mitsubishi. And while Samsung was off developing LCD panels, Sony was still pushing CRTs with their WEGA line.

And yeah... considering pioneer was founded in the 30's, let's see what some home grown Chinese companies will be releasing in the next twenty years. Companies like huawei are fast becoming important players in the technology market, or should I be angry at them for stealing cisco's thunder?

[VT 1010]

But the next time I move a 32-incher, it better be because I found a freaking XBR-960 for cheap.

I'm almost disappointed that my old Sony HDTV didn't bite it sooner. At the time, they had recently stopped making the 960, so I wasn't able to get it to replace my old tv. Instead I ended up with the 970.

[mikeszekely]

Companies like huawei are fast becoming important players in the technology market, or should I be angry at them for stealing cisco's thunder?

I doubt he cares about that, since Cisco's not a Japanese company.

make no mistake... i resent BOTH companies; as BOTH have played leading parts in the rapid recession

of the great old Japanese giants from much, if not most of the U.S. CE industry...

You want sales, you do one or a combination of three things. You innovate, you make a superior product, and or you sell your product for less. At some point, those "great old Japanese giants" stopped doing all three. Sony's televisions are a great example. They've failed to innovate, they've charged more, and they've done so without the benefit of being able to claim a superior product. That's not to say that Sony's TVs are bad, mind you... there's just no compelling reason to pay more for a Sony when the quality is as good on an LG or a Samsung.

You work hard for your money. Do your research, and buy what you feel is the best value. Don't waste money on brand loyalty, and if you do find yourself inclined to support a particular brand, do it because they make a good product, not because they're based in the same country your anime comes from.

[Vegas]

So anyway...... anyone gotten a MOAB in MW3 here already? I havent yet.

[anime52k8]

what's that about video games fostering increased hostility? nah, that's all rubbish, I'm sure...

TROLLOLOL!!!

that first gamer was the fun-niest. now that's how you cuss somebody out: "...f'ing play the game properly you little sh*t!"

Oh lordy, that was absolutely beautiful. No seriously, if I ever actually get a copy of BF3 this is all I'm ever going to do.

So anyway...... anyone gotten a MOAB in MW3 here already? I havent yet.

Earned one? nope, not even close. I've only ever been hit by one twice, both times on outpost when it was still possible to glitch under the map.

[Wanzerfan]

what's that about video games fostering increased hostility? nah, that's all rubbish, I'm sure...

TROLLOLOL!!!

that first gamer was the fun-niest. now that's how you cuss somebody out: "...f'ing play the game properly you little sh*t!"

...

Now that is an example of a total douche-bag. I could understand doing that to the tank, if it was an enemy, but the jets and choppers? In those cases you should wait until they've flown for at least 15 seconds after take off to drop the hammer.

If those were all team kills, I'd hate to be that poor son of a bitch.

[anime52k8]

If those were all team kills, I'd hate to be that poor son of a bitch.

the entire point is to TK people, that's why it's trolling.

[dizman]

the entire point is to TK people, that's why it's trolling.

I remember when people did that all the time in BF2, some things never change. People just love blowing up a plane and ruining someones game.

[BeyondTheGrave]

Oh lordy, that was absolutely beautiful. No seriously, if I ever actually get a copy of BF3 this is all I'm ever going to do.

I would do the same. Don't really care for the BF series.

[JB0]

I'm not surprised by Miyamoto's "retirement." After working on so many big budget titles with impossibly high expectations, he must've found himself longing for the old days of simple games and smaller staffs. For Miyamoto, returning to smaller games is the equivalent of a well-deserved, and long overdue, sabbatical. I've got a feeling that he'll "unretire" if Nintendo ever comes out with some slick new hardware that he won't be able to resist.

Missed this earlier. It's not that he wants to stop making big-budget games and start making smaller games. It's that he wants to make games.

The position he's stepping down from had elevated him far enough that he was no longer able to actually make games.

He got to sit at a desk and do paperwork, and talk to the project leads who WERE making games. But he's been insulated from the process, and while he's had an indirect hand in many games these last few years, he's had a direct hand in almost none. Super Mario Galaxy seems to be the last game he actually WORKED on, if the credits at MobyGames are any indication.

Supervisor and general producer aren't directly involved in production is my understanding. And I know Miyamoto said several years back that anything he's credited as general producer on isn't a Miyamoto game, it's just something he put a signature on some paperwork for.

From what I gather, it was a crappy position for someone who genuinely enjoyed making games to be in.

He's done his noble sacrifice for the business and worn that mantle for several years, but it's time to kick sacrifice in the nuts, get back to doing what he wants, and show some of these whipersnappers how it's done in the process*. And he's important enough to the company that he can get away with it.

*I think that's how he's justifying it to the company, and the important thing long-term. He said he wants to work on lower-budget projects with a small team of recent hires. That's projects that can afford to fail, made with people that need room to make mistakes and find their own style.

And cutting things down to small budgets with small teams means there's more time for actual mentoring. He didn't create Donkey Kong or Mario Bros. in a vacuum, he had Gunpei frickin' Yokoi showing him the ropes.

[BeyondTheGrave]

Idk if anyone has or was keeping up with aliens colonial marines. BUt he's a game play demo.

Also you get to do the

[anime52k8]

Idk if anyone has or was keeping up with aliens colonial marines. BUt he's a game play demo.

Also you get to do the

Does this have anything to do with that Aliens vs predator game that came out last year?

Edited December 19, 2011 by anime52k8

[VT 1010]

Fortunately, no. Unlike the recent AVP game, this one actually looks to be good.