All Things Videogame Related: EXTREME VS!!

[kajnrig]

4 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

If you're into sticks, yeah.  Where I grew up, though, arcades didn't hang around long.  I remember playing a TMNT as a kid, a little bit of Street Fighter II at Kennywood (a local amusement park), and then suddenly they were all gone outside of Dave & Busters, which seems to have naught but racing games and light gun shooters.  I'm more at home with a controller.  Maybe I'm not the target audience.

Oh yeah, this is assuredly a super niche product in an already super niche subset of the market. That sucks (or, well, "sucks") that you didn't have any long-lasting arcades near you. I had one in the mall near me that managed to last well into the 00s, and it maintained some pretty good-quality cabinets while it existed. I was really sad to see it go. I remember playing Soulcalibur 2 arcade mode as a kid, getting challenged in the very first match, beating the guy fairly easily, then returning to that first arcade match and getting absolutely bodied. The guy watched, incredulous, and I shrugged nonchalantly and walked away in silence, not wanting to cop to the embarrassment.

4 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Their website says they're using Sanwa JLF-TP-8YT sticks, original dumps of the CPS1 and CPS2 roms, and Final Burn Alpha for the emulator.

Good to know, thanks!

[Tking22]

So I downloaded the new World War Z game, based on the Pitt film, it has nothing to do with the original book, and honestly, it's pretty damn good. Like everyone else has said, it's third person Left 4 Dead, which isn't a bad thing IMO. Special zombies are identical, there's four missions broken down into separate chapters, melee weapons, med packs for healing, you deal with a horde instead of individual zombies for the most part, it's unabashedly copying Left 4 Dead, but once again, not necessarily a bad thing. There's little chance LFD3 will happen, and this game really feels like a somewhat spiritual successor, so I recommend it. Also, at only $40 on console, and even cheaper on PC, it's priced accordingly. There's PVP as well, but no option to play as infected like Left 4 Dead, the PVP is nothing special but it works. I've been having a lot of fun in the coop campaign, four player, and each campaign takes place in a different country to try to drive home the WORLD part of World War Z.

[dizman]

The sequel to one of the best games ever made is out! One Finger Death Punch was great fun and so far 2 is good but I need to put a few more hours into to it to see if it can reach the highs that the first did.

 

[fenrir72]

On 4/15/2019 at 10:15 PM, kajnrig said:

I don't know if you're out of the loop so much as fenrir72 simply doesn't understand that they don't understand the words that they write...

https://archive.is/OBR1d

 

Yup. Out of the loop.

[fenrir72]

On 4/15/2019 at 10:15 PM, kajnrig said:

I don't know if you're out of the loop so much as fenrir72 simply doesn't understand that they don't understand the words that they write...

Uuuh you mean you don't know what it is you're writing or the other guy doesn't know what he's writing?

[Black Valkyrie]

 

https://gematsu.com/2019/04/the-ninja-warriors-once-again-launches-for-ps4-switch-in-july-in-japan

 

[kajnrig]

Well. So much for FBA.

[Focslain]

On 4/17/2019 at 12:23 AM, mikeszekely said:

If you're into sticks, yeah.  Where I grew up, though, arcades didn't hang around long.  I remember playing a TMNT as a kid, a little bit of Street Fighter II at Kennywood (a local amusement park), and then suddenly they were all gone outside of Dave & Busters, which seems to have naught but racing games and light gun shooters.  I'm more at home with a controller.  Maybe I'm not the target audience.

There is a Marvel vs Capcom (2?) machine at Games n At and have you checked out Victory Point in South Side also I saw a few fighting games in Ace Breakaway and Play on Smithfield. 

[davidwhangchoi]

lots of news today

castlevania collection list is revealed.

genesis mini 10 more titles revealed.

konami collection launches today on steam, switch, x1, ps4

 

[Black Valkyrie]

1 hour ago, davidwhangchoi said:

 

genesis mini 10 more titles revealed.

https://gematsu.com/2019/04/sega-genesis-mega-drive-mini-titles-11-to-20-announced

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/04/sega_mega_drive_mini_launches_worldwide_this_september_10_more_games_revealed_today

 

[kajnrig]

On 4/14/2019 at 11:37 PM, fenrir72 said:

MK series has gone woke. 'nuff said!

On 4/15/2019 at 2:21 AM, fenrir72 said:

The basis of my post is, if the game is M, then by all means ensure the contents as M. Anything short of full nudity and exchanging of DNA is of course a no go zone as far as consoles is a given.

If Teen, well, let them, the publishers release contents for Teens. So why allow decapitations and evisceration but suddenly go  full covering up the dignity of the lady characters yet allow the guys to be "exposed"? For an M game?

Again, if MK is rated Teens, then by all means cover the gals up. If M, then go for whatever the rating limit the creators from releasing.

On 4/18/2019 at 3:37 AM, fenrir72 said:

https://archive.is/OBR1d

 

Yup. Out of the loop.

On 4/18/2019 at 3:39 AM, fenrir72 said:

Uuuh you mean you don't know what it is you're writing or the other guy doesn't know what he's writing?

So I was just gonna ignore these posts, but it turns out that despite how odd and terribly-communicated their non-sequiturs of reasons are, there is the smallest grain of... I don't know, "logic" is too strong a word... in what they're trying and failing (or not trying and succeeding) to describe:

So, way back in the halcyon days of MK3, there were so-called "Nudealities." This was exclusive to the arcade version of the game, as Nintendo and Sega censors would not have allowed such things to pass in the home market. The input for it was so obscure that, to this day, no one REALLY knows how to do it; even though the ROM has been dumped and is easily accessible, no emulator devs, hackers, speedrunners, what have you, have bothered to do whatever sorcery it is they do to find out the input. Come MK4, though, Midway received so much public criticism that they dropped the Nudeality altogether, and even sent out technicians to arcades across the country to patch MK3 cabinets to strip that aspect out of them.

And of course, all of that is not true. There never were Nudealities in MK3, or in any other MK game. The "Nudeality" began as unsubstantiated (and indeed completely fabricated) rumor from as far back as MK2 two years earlier and persisted in one form or another before eventually becoming nothing more than a footnote in MK history.

Fenrir27's posts are... cryptic... enough to begin with, but any complaining about this or that rating because of the existence of nudity or lack thereof is especially, well, unfounded. There was never a time when MK either A) featured fully-nude characters, or B) was rated M because of full nudity. The original MK pre-dated the formation of the ESRB, though the Sega Genesis/CD home ports respectively received MA-13/MA-17 ratings from Sega's Videogame Rating Council (the latter because it featured uncensored blood and gore that had to be unlocked via cheat code on the Genesis version).

Certainly some games in the franchise have been rated M for "Partial Nudity," but the nudity was only ever one reason (and easily a secondary one at that) for that M rating. Even if nudity WERE the only reason for an M rating, once that rating has been achieved, the only "rating limit" to the depiction of nudity (ie what would net it an AO) is graphic sex. If all fenrir27 wants is fully nude females, then... well, there's no accounting for taste.

Fenrir27 links to this article by the Wall Street Journal (full text in spoilers below): https://www.wsj.com/articles/sony-cracks-down-on-sexually-explicit-content-in-games-11555427944

...which details Sony's efforts to impose stricter content guidelines for games releasing on their platform. These impositions chiefly affect Japanese game devs/publishers/games, which NetherRealm/WB/MK are very not. What point fenrir27 is trying to make here, I haven't the foggiest idea.

 

Sony Cracks Down on Sexually Explicit Content in Games

Move reflects concerns in the U.S. about the depiction of women, but it angers developers in Japan

By Takashi Mochizuki
April 16, 2019 11:19 a.m. ET

TOKYO— Sony Corp. SNE 0.25% is cracking down on sexual content in PlayStation 4 videogames globally, reflecting concerns in the U.S. about the depiction of women in games but also irritating some software developers.

New in-house standards that limit sexually explicit content distinguish Sony from other game-hardware makers that allow more leeway as long as the software carries a rating from a national industry body.

A Sony spokeswoman said the company has established its own guidelines “so that creators can offer well-balanced content on the platform” and gaming “does not inhibit the sound growth and development” of young people. She declined to say when these guidelines were introduced or to discuss them in detail.

The Wall Street Journal interviewed more than a dozen developers and executives in the U.S., Europe and Japan at software companies that provide games for PlayStation 4. In confirming Sony’s new rules, some developers expressed dismay that their creativity could be hindered. They asked not to be identified because of nondisclosure contracts with Sony and fears of jeopardizing future business with Sony.

The PlayStation 4 is the world’s most widely used videogame console, with more than 94 million units sold around the globe. The machine has helped drive the Tokyo-based company’s turnaround during the past five years. About $11 billion in PlayStation 4 game software was sold in 2018, according to Sony.

Sony officials said the company has grown concerned that its global reputation could take a hit from sexually explicit content sold in a few markets. A big worry is software sold in its home market, which traditionally has had more tolerance for near-nudity and images of young women who appear to be underage.

Two factors last year combined to turn that unease into action, these Sony officials say. One was the rise of the #MeToo movement in the U.S., which pointed to the dangers of being associated with content that some might see as demeaning to women. The second was the emergence of channels on sites like YouTube and Amazon.com Inc.’s Twitch where gamers play in front of a camera and are watched by fans online. That means games meeting Japan’s laxer standards can readily get world-wide exposure.

“Sony is concerned the company could become a target of legal and social action,” a Sony official in the U.S. said.

Matthew Johnson, director of education at Canada-based nonprofit MediaSmarts, said Sony’s move was reasonable given the influence game content can potentially have on players in real life. It’s “similar to a TV network deciding what is appropriate to air in terms of violence, profanity [and] sexuality,” Mr. Johnson said.

Software makers in Japan, while acknowledging the global #MeToo trend, are less accepting of Sony’s shift.

Executives and developers at makers of sexually explicit games say Sony used to praise them as an important part of the PlayStation business strategy because their offerings added to the variety of the console’s games. But that support has faded, they said, with Sony telling them to find other platforms if they want to keep making such games.

“What they’re saying to us is basically go find a niche somewhere else,” said a top executive at a Japanese software company that makes sexually explicit games.

The Sony spokeswoman declined to comment on the outside developer’s comment, saying Sony maintains “responsibility to our users as a platform holder.”

In general, a company making a game for a platform like the PlayStation 4, Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox or Nintendo Co.’s Switch signs a contract with the platform maker governing royalties and other items. That gives the platform the ability to block games it doesn’t like.

Nintendo said it doesn’t regulate sexual content beyond requiring game makers to obtain a rating from national bodies. It said its game systems allow parents to restrict content based on the rating. Microsoft declined to comment.

U.S. ratings established by the Entertainment Software Rating Board range from “AO” for adults only to “E” for everyone, while Japan has a similar system by the Computer Entertainment Rating Organization. Sony’s game reviews add a step for approval, similar to the way app-store operators require advance review before apps get published.

Some fans in Japan noticed the shift last autumn when they saw changes to graphics in games known for showing young women in suggestive poses. The changes occurred in the PlayStation 4 versions of the games, and not those available for other machines. Developers said such changes followed requests from Sony.

In one game called “Nora, Princess and Stray Cat Heart,” available mainly in Japan, the PlayStation 4 version used white rays to cover up parts of a female character’s body. On other platforms, the game doesn’t incorporate such measures. The game in Japan is rated for players 17 years old and older. The game’s developer, a company called Harukaze, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Some Japan-based software executives also complain that they have been required to communicate in English because Sony’s global game business is based in California.

Other software executives object to the lack of written guidelines from Sony.

“You don’t know what they will say until you complete the work and submit it for review,” said the chief executive of a small game developer in Japan. “And if they are not happy, even if they allowed the same degree of sexuality a few days before, we need to take it back and ask our staff to make adjustments. That’s very costly.”

Industry consultant Hisakazu Hirabayashi said smaller companies had little power to argue on behalf of their creations. “This is representative of the recent trend of players with a big voice trying to set up the world the way they like under the name of political correctness, fairness or human rights,” he said.

The Sony official in the U.S. said he is aware of what outside developers have been saying, but that he hopes they would accept how the world has changed.

“We don’t have criteria in written guidelines or that sort of thing because the policy was introduced kind of suddenly in the wake of the #MeToo movement,” the official said.

Write to Takashi Mochizuki at takashi.mochizuki@wsj.com

Edited April 19, 2019 by kajnrig

[TheLoneWolf]

On 4/18/2019 at 12:19 PM, kajnrig said:

Well. So much for FBA.

That's a pretty fascinating case. From the information in that video, it looks to me like Capcom is in the clear. The problem with the FinalBurn Alpha team is that the proverbial right-hand doesn't know what the left-hand is doing.

The first thing to check is FBA's Articles of Incorporation (assuming they have one). The Articles of Incorporation should state whether Barry Harris is empowered to make legally binding decisions on the behalf of the team. If he doesn't have that power, then the contract he signed with Capcom is as worthless as used toilet paper.

If Harris has the authority to make such decisions, then the next step is to determine whether the rest of the FBA team are legally considered employees who are producing code under a written "work-for-hire" agreement, or whether they're independent contractors. If they're employees producing code on a "work-for-hire" basis, then Harris can license their code to whomever he wishes. But if they're independent contractors, then they legally own their respective portions of code that went into FBA, so Harris has no right to license their work to anyone without their permission. Since the team is comprised of volunteers who are working from home using their own hardware, compilers, etc., they're almost certainly independent contractors.

If my analysis is right, then the lesson here is to hire a lawyer before signing any major contract. Unfortunately for Capcom, they're going to take the brunt of the blame for Harris' mistake.

Anyways, that's the kitscshiest arcade stick I've ever seen. Someone's going to make big money selling a decal to cover up that thing. 

 

[fenrir72]

MK11 tanks!   MK11 is deader than a door knob. Just google the subject. Keyboard is your friend.

[Mazinger]

3 hours ago, fenrir72 said:

MK11 tanks!   MK11 is deader than a door knob. Just google the subject. Keyboard is your friend.

Um, well considering the last version, MKX sold 10 million units over its life, I'd say it's a bit early to call it tanking.  As a genre, fighting games don't sell in the kinds of numbers that today's most popular games due.  My sense, as someone who spends time on fighting games, though not MK, is that the game has a strong current of hype supporting it and so will do well for NetherRealm Studios in the end.

NRS seems to be in the habit of cannibalizing its own game sales by releasing competitors to them in fairly short time spans. MKX is still being played as is Injustice 2, but chances are many of those players will migrate over to MK11.  Compare that to Capcom which seems to give each modern entry in the Street Fighter franchise no less than 6 years on its own before releasing a successor. Mind you, SF5 might just be passing 3 million units sold at this time, 3 years after it's release!

There have been complaints, mostly due to the grinding involved to earn in game currencies to unlock features, but otherwise I think most people are happy with it, at least from what I read around.  They do seem to have crafted a compelling single player story and no doubt this will supplant Injustice 2 are NRS's most popular game at fighting game tournaments.

Edited April 29, 2019 by Mazinger

[Mazinger]

On 4/18/2019 at 10:21 PM, kajnrig said:

These impositions chiefly affect Japanese game devs/publishers/games, which NetherRealm/WB/MK are very not. What point fenrir27 is trying to make here, I haven't the foggiest idea.

AFAIK the MK franchise has never been legal to sell in Japan due to it's depictions of gore, evisceration and the like, so I'd agree NRS doesn't care about any Japanese further regulations on nudity.

A segment of the gaming audience seems to have taken offense to at least one of the character's endings as it deals with the topic of racial relations.  They seem to interpret it and the mentioned visual changes regarding the appearance of female characters as part of a trend towards "wokeness" in society and take exception to it.

Perhaps fenrir27 ranks among their number.

Edited April 29, 2019 by Mazinger

[JB0]

19 hours ago, fenrir72 said:

MK11 tanks!   MK11 is deader than a door knob. Just google the subject. Keyboard is your friend.

No results found for "mk11 is deader than a door knob".

 

It is near the top of the Steam bestseller list right now, so... that's something.

[Tking22]

4 hours ago, JB0 said:

No results found for "mk11 is deader than a door knob".

 

It is near the top of the Steam bestseller list right now, so... that's something.

Game seems like it's doing fine, I haven't picked it up yet, I grabbed Days Gone instead. Dude has a weird axe to grind against MK11 for some reason, indirect, nonsensical, non-descriptive complaints of "wokeness" were a dead giveaway. I can't wait to see the pro competitive scene, from the gameplay I've watched, it looks like it will be great for competitive play like always.

[kajnrig]

2 minutes ago, Tking22 said:

I can't wait to see the pro competitive scene, from the gameplay I've watched, it looks like it will be great for competitive play like always.

From comments on the beta versions, competitive players seemed kind of torn on the gameplay. I don't know how it's been tuned in the time since then, though, so maybe everything's been ironed out (or as much as possible, anyway) by now.

Me, I've never liked the MK franchise. (Except for the movie, the movie is the frakking best video game movie ever.) Even though all the characters are polygons now, they've never been able to shed the feel of the old live-action animation. There's a series of videos on Youtube talking about bad character animations in MKX, and the guy had some nice things to say about MK11 improving upon that, but me, I still see dumb, awkward fighting stances and attacks. Especially kicks, I don't know what it is about kicking that the devs consistently get wrong.

If they just watched a few Youtube videos or got a few martial artists to come in and demonstrate moves for reference, they could avoid having characters do dumb arm windmills for everything from an overhead chop to grabs.

Plus the brutality has never done anything for me. It was a gimmick to set it apart from Street Fighter back in the day in lieu of improving the actual gameplay, and that's remained largely the case through to now. That's not to say I don't like brutal games. Killer Instinct, from the original to the reboot(?), those have managed to have both great gameplay and wonderful brutality.

...which is all to say that I'm sure MK11 will sell gangbusters, it always does, but it's not my cup of tea.

[Mazinger]

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

From comments on the beta versions, competitive players seemed kind of torn on the gameplay. I don't know how it's been tuned in the time since then, though, so maybe everything's been ironed out (or as much as possible, anyway) by now.

NRS added a few combo systems so the big question is which to allow for tournaments. The player who won last years Evo tournament for Dragonball FighterZ is already "labbing" with it and naturally MK11 is the hot topic of conversation in the fighting game community at the moment.

MK11 will probably have a lot of attention at ComboBreaker, one of the largest US tournaments happening at the end of May:

https://combobreaker.org/games/

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

Me, I've never liked the MK franchise. (Except for the movie, the movie is the frakking best video game movie ever.)

Yeah NRS is known for it's strange, blocky movements so I'm glad to see that they've improved a bit.  I would have gotten into the Injustice series but just couldn't get passed the animation and a few other things.  If there was a way to turn off the gore, I'd jump into MK11, but I can't have my kids watching me eviscerate people.

Now while MK the movie might be the best fighting game movie to try to take it self seriously, nothing will ever beat SF the movie for pure joy.  So bad and campy it was great.  RIP Raul Julia:

Also Street Fighter 5 is free to play for 6 more days should anyone want a taste.

[kajnrig]

3 hours ago, Mazinger said:

nothing will ever beat SF the movie for pure joy.

Oof, you're not wrong. I need to get my hands on that again.

[kajnrig]

Apparently MK11 has REALLY gone down the microtransaction/free-to-play route. Heard this on a podcast, they're doing everything from premium currencies to loot boxes, with the old standby strategy of snail's pace drip-feeding rewards for grinding through the game's challenge modes to encourage the player to spend on those in-game currencies. Then when everyone's mad, step back juuuust enough to be "tolerable."

Oh, bother. For a moment there I'd forgotten that WB was publishing this...

Anyway, the recent patch, in case you're interested:

 

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, kajnrig said:

Apparently MK11 has REALLY gone down the microtransaction/free-to-play route. Heard this on a podcast, they're doing everything from premium currencies to loot boxes, with the old standby strategy of snail's pace drip-feeding rewards for grinding through the game's challenge modes to encourage the player to spend on those in-game currencies. Then when everyone's mad, step back juuuust enough to be "tolerable."

Oh, bother. For a moment there I'd forgotten that WB was publishing this...

Anyway, the recent patch, in case you're interested:

 

MK 11 is a sloggy grindfest, which had led to the understandable assumption that it's to encourage players to spend real money to speed up progression. Apparently, though, a lot of the unlockable content can't be purchased that way and it really is just an insufferable grind.

https://kotaku.com/you-cant-actually-buy-your-way-out-of-mortal-kombat-11s-1834311465

[kajnrig]

10 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

MK 11 is a sloggy grindfest, which had led to the understandable assumption that it's to encourage players to spend real money to speed up progression. Apparently, though, a lot of the unlockable content can't be purchased that way and it really is just an insufferable grind.

https://kotaku.com/you-cant-actually-buy-your-way-out-of-mortal-kombat-11s-1834311465

Ah, I see. Watching the latter parts of Max's video revealed the same thing. Seems like NRS are just bad at RPG-style progression systems, then. Can't say I'm surprised that's the case, either.

[Shadow]

I've decided to hold off on MK11 until I can get for a good discount or may even skip it altogether like I did MKX after all I've heard regarding microtransactions along with the cosmetic decisions.

On the cosmetics, I can honestly live with the new female designs but with so much customization, I wish they would've provided older costumes as an option. It just seems odd to see Ed Boon and NRS treat the female legacy outfits (MK2-UMK) like they never existed while the male characters get their legacy outfits. All out of some false sense of morality that they suddenly adopt because of the #MeToo movement and some puritan SJWs they hired. I'm not saying go back to MK9 designs but I find it hard to believe that they can't find a middle ground and provide an option for the players. On a personal note, I hated Jade's human redesign in MK11.

Would've gladly taken this instead.

Edited May 1, 2019 by Shadow

[sh9000]

 

[TangledThorns]

About damn time. I only hope it's coming to PC too.

 

[kajnrig]

Still don't believe in this anymore, not after the train wreck that is KH3.

[sh9000]

 

[AN/ALQ128]

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

New Ghost Recon game announced. I hope they try to stop the Ubisoftisms and try to stay more to the roots of the franchise.

[sh9000]

 

[Old_Nash]

Death Stranding – Release Date Reveal Trailer | PS4

Nonsense is the key word for this game

[anime52k8]

frakking ps4 exclusive.

[AN/ALQ128]

6 hours ago, Old_Nash said:

Death Stranding – Release Date Reveal Trailer | PS4

Nonsense is the key word for this game

Quite excited for this, Kojima always brings something interesting to the table, even if it doesn't always pan out.

[Gerli]

21 hours ago, anime52k8 said:

frakking ps4 exclusive.

It's announced for PC too.

Anyway... Kojima go home, you're drunk.

[anime52k8]

1 minute ago, Gerli said:

It's announced for PC too.

Anyway... Kojima go home, you're drunk.

I don't game on PC.