All Things Videogame Related: EXTREME VS!!

[TangledThorns]

1 hour ago, Tking22 said:

What's the price? I wouldn't pay one dollar above $20 for it, it's repetitive as hell and quite shallow, lots of "busy" grindy content and there's only a handful of actual boss battles, which are grindy and mostly unfun. 

$27

[Tking22]

1 hour ago, TangledThorns said:

$27

If you have a friend to play with, I'd bite at $27, if you're going in single player I'd pass until it's at $20. It's pretty barebones, there's a lot of repeated content, it doesn't run well on a lot of PCs, the story is terrible and predictable, the generic crime grind is pretty brutal at times, there's fun to be had but it's a lot of lows and just a few highs. 

[davidwhangchoi]

https://www.gematsu.com/2023/02/assault-suits-valken-declassified-announced-for-switch

Quote

developer M2 have announced Assault Suits Valken Declassified, an updated re-release of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game Assault Suits Valken, retranslated and uncensored for the first time. It will launch for Switch this spring worldwide.

 

Edited February 21, 2023 by davidwhangchoi

[Black Valkyrie]

 

https://www.gematsu.com/2023/02/ufo-robot-grendizer-the-feast-of-the-wolves-gameplay-reveal-trailer-screenshots

 

 

[Black Valkyrie]

 

 

 

[Old_Nash_II]

New Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League gameplay

 

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

Because of legal shenanigans, you can get a free digital book about the Mega Drive.  

[Tking22]

3 hours ago, Old_Nash_II said:

New Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League gameplay

Live service? Always online? Easy pass, Rocksteady, why would you do this? What a complete waste of the Arkhamverse, this is Conroy's last project? He'll be a boss that gets grinded for gear so you have a high enough gear score number to go grind a bigger bad with even bigger gear score numbers? What a joke. 

Also, what is happening with Batman in this? Five years after Arkham Knight, Harley called him Bruce in the Batman trailer from about a month ago, is the 100% Arkham Knight ending not a thing? Is it being retconned? Did Bruce just, like, keep being Batman even though everyone on Earth learned his identity? What about the fear toxin Bat-person thing we saw at the end of the 100% ending? Was that still just Bruce? No fear toxin involved? He's just Batman again? What a mess. 

[JB0]

4 hours ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

Because of legal shenanigans, you can get a free digital book about the Mega Drive.  

Dammit, Sega. Why you gotta be dicks? I expect this sort of asshattery from Nintendo, but you're better than this.

[mikeszekely]

Anyone here have a Steam Deck?  I finally bit the bullet and ordered one today.  My daughter's getting to that age where I have to run her to activities and then sit and wait.  I've been playing a lot of the Nintendo Switch, but I'm a PC gamer first and foremost.  Originally I thought I'd get the $650 512GB Steam Deck - PC games are getting stupid big, after all.  But after doing a little research it seems pretty trivial to upgrade the SSD in a Steam Deck yourself, and a 64GB Steam Deck plus a 1 TB 2230 NVME SSD looks to be around $560 so I'll end up with more storage for less money.  Pretty stoked to get it in hand, looks like a great way to play not only PC games on the go but it also looks like a very capable machine for emulating retro consoles, too.

[mikeszekely]

Well... my Steam Deck arrived.  I dunno if it's because the 64GB unit uses eMMC or what, but I was honestly appalled at how slow the thing is to cold boot from a totally powered-off state.  Fortunately, once it's up and running it seems responsive enough.  My first impressions were that it was noticeably heavier and thicker than the Nintendo Switch, but it feels pretty ergonomic and once I was playing a game I didn't really notice the size anymore.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do too much with it.  When I ordered it Valve was saying it'd take 1-2 weeks for delivery, and it turned out to actually take about 4 days, so it came much faster than I expected.  Sounds like a good thing, but the SSD I ordered won't arrive until late next week, and 64GB is really too small to do much with.  Some games I own wouldn't fit even if it was the only game I installed!

I did install The Messenger on it and play it a little.  The good news is that Steam Big Picture mode has come a long way, and it works pretty great on the Steam Deck to really make it feel like a console OS.  Proton seems like it's doing its thing just fine under the hood and I was having a good time with it.

Things started to get a bit iffier when I decided to poke around in desktop mode.  In Valve's defense, I didn't spring for their official $90 dock when I had a perfectly good hub already, but with the hub trying to use an external display was a frustrating mess that would cause odd aspect ratios and rotated screens on both the external monitor and the built-in display, and even then only on battery power.  If I plugged in the AC adapter the Steam Deck would stop outputting to the external display.  So, I was forced to squint at the Steam Deck's little screen, but I was otherwise able to navigate the desktop (KDE, for the Linux gurus in the audience) with a mouse and keyboard.

Of course, the whole purpose of using Desktop mode is to use programs outside of Steam, and that's where I figured I'd try my hand at running some emulators.  I tried using a program called EmuDeck that's supposed to automate the process of setting up the emulators, and it's even supposed to use a tool add your ROMs as non-Steam games within Steam so that you can launch and play them from Big Picture mode without going into Desktop mode.  I say supposed to because, while it did download some emulators, it mostly made a mess downloading Retroarch, every imaginable core for Retroarch, and several standalone emulators on top of that, then threw up parser errors when I tried to get it to register the handful of test ROMs I'd copied over.  Long story short, I think I'd have been better off just downloading a standalone emulator or two and adding it to Steam manually.  Or, maybe go one step further and setup a bootable microSD with something like Batocera, or maybe even Windows for the utility of running other PC games that aren't SteamOS compatible.  I will say that at least it seems reasonably powerful.  I was able to get Metroid Dread running smoothly in Yuzu on it.

Anyway, if you want the TL;DR summary, it'd be this- check the games you want to play to see how well they run on the Steam Deck (and don't always trust Valve's own ratings, because some stuff they say is unsupported will actually run with a little tinkering).  If you have enough compatible PC games you want to play, then go for it.  It's a nice piece of hardware.  But, if your primary intent is to emulate retro games there's probably a better option for you.  And, if you do decide that you want a Steam Deck, make sure you're comfortable replacing the hard drive, and if you're not, consider spending the extra cash on the 256GB or 512GB models, because unless you're just into retro-style plaformers and smaller indie games 64GB is totally inadequate.

[azrael]

14 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

 But, if your primary intent is to emulate retro games there's probably a better option for you.  And, if you do decide that you want a Steam Deck, make sure you're comfortable replacing the hard drive, and if you're not, consider spending the extra cash on the 256GB or 512GB models, because unless you're just into retro-style plaformers and smaller indie games 64GB is totally inadequate.

I still think the 256GB model is the sweet-spot model, unless you plan on modding it after the fact (If you're going to upgrade the storage, spend the money and upgrade to a 1TB 2230, which brings the price into the same ballpark as the 256GB).

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, azrael said:

I still think the 256GB model is the sweet-spot model, unless you plan on modding it after the fact (If you're going to upgrade the storage, spend the money and upgrade to a 1TB 2230, which brings the price into the same ballpark as the 256GB).

Yeah, I have a 1TB drive on the way.  It just won't be here until next week.

I also have a 1TB microSD card.  I thought I'd just use it to add to the Steam Deck's storage, but I'm starting to think that using it to dual boot Windows might be a better choice.

[jvmacross]

Purchased a PS VR2....but no games yet....anyone here get it and can recommend a few?

Also...on the previous PS VR set....were there any games released that were jet fighter or perhaps WWII fighter VR game?  Would love something like that...or maybe even Star Wars Squadrons in VR

 

 

[Tking22]

10 minutes ago, jvmacross said:

Purchased a PS VR2....but no games yet....anyone here get it and can recommend a few?

Also...on the previous PS VR set....were there any games released that were jet fighter or perhaps WWII fighter VR game?  Would love something like that...or maybe even Star Wars Squadrons in VR

 

 

My buddy got one last weekend and I messed with it for a few hours, definitely pretty cool for plug and play straight out of the box. Gran Turismo 7 is insane in VR, I'd also recommend Horizon Call of the Mountain and Resident Evil 8 Village, all of RE8 is playable in VR and it's pretty neat. 

No Man's Sky is getting a PSVR2 update eventually, that's space flight in VR, could be pretty cool eventually. 

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

2 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Purchased a PS VR2....but no games yet....anyone here get it and can recommend a few?

Also...on the previous PS VR set....were there any games released that were jet fighter or perhaps WWII fighter VR game?  Would love something like that...or maybe even Star Wars Squadrons in VR

 

 

For the PS4 VR there is a Star War Squadrons game, and there is also EVE: Valkyrie for VR.  I only played a couple of missions for each one, and they seemed decent.  The Ace Combat 7 VR missions are short, but well done.  Also Star Wars Battlefront for PS4 had one lone VR mission that puts you in a squad of X-Wings.  This was my first VR experience on the PS4 and I remember having a blast with it.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Valkyrie Hunter D

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Purchased a PS VR2....but no games yet....anyone here get it and can recommend a few?

Also...on the previous PS VR set....were there any games released that were jet fighter or perhaps WWII fighter VR game?  Would love something like that...or maybe even Star Wars Squadrons in VR

 

 

I have to second @Tking22's suggestions- REVIII, Horizon, and GT7.  Because...

32 minutes ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

For the PS4 VR there is a Star War Squadrons game, and there is also EVE: Valkyrie for VR.  I only played a couple of missions for each one, and they seemed decent.  The Ace Combat 7 VR missions are short, but well done.  Also Star Wars Battlefront for PS4 had one lone VR mission that puts you in a squad of X-Wings.  This was my first VR experience on the PS4 and I remember having a blast with it.

The problem, my biggest problem with PSVR2, is that you cannot use it to play the games for the original PSVR.  You can run the games on the PS5, but you need the original PSVR hardware, which in my opinion was a huge mistake.  I don't know if there were technical hurdles or what due to the different controllers or whatever but this means that stuff like the Transformers VR game that just came out did so on a platform that was already dead, players with large PSVR1 libraries can't sell their old units to defray the cost of the new one, and the new one's starting with a pretty limited library.  That's kind of a kick in the teeth for a headset that costs more than the console it runs on, and more than the technically inferior but more user-friendly Quest 2.  Everything I've watched and read about the PSVR2 is glowing praise for the hardware with a wait-and-see attitude toward actually buying one.

[jvmacross]

Thanks everyone!

I probably will only have myself to blame if I can't find something to play on this new system eventually....I haven't played any of the GT or RE games since PS2! LOL....so it will probably be a shock once I try these newest versions...also...the only games I find myself playing these days are combat flight games....I was glad to find out that the Air Conflicts games were compatible with the PS5...so been playing those...I also like the Call of Duty type games, so hope something like that gets the VR treatment...but I'd be so glad if there was a WWII fighter game in VR...

[kajnrig]

Yeah, I bought a whole raft of games when I purchased a VR2 last week, though I've been busy with work and the ones actually enjoying the fruits of my labor are the rest of the family.

That said, RE Village is great in VR. Making the gun handling fairly elaborate does so much to ramp up the tension, aside from being fun in its own right.

Kayak VR Mirage is... alright... but it really shines when you just want to paddle around, relaxed, in any of its various open-world settings. It also made me a bit nauseous occasionally.

Tetris Effect and REZ Infinite, similarly, are still good games to just sit down and vibe to. REZ has a new-to-PSVR2 eye-tracking mode where the targeting reticle follows your eye focus, and that alongside the ability to look around in general allowed me to blitz through the levels with zero problems whatsoever. VR has really broken that game.

RUNNER is an 80s anime-skinned arcade bike shooting game. Its gameplay is fairly basic - you ride your Akira bike along a highway, and you take out enemy police with your bike's autocannons and handheld SMGs. It's very hard and very fun.

Horizon: Call of the Mountain is the VR2's mascot game, and you can really tell. It really gets the most out of every bit of the VR2 hardware. It's also a lot of weightless climbing, which can cause a whole bunch of vertigo (though mine wasn't bad).

Swordsman VR costs $20, and the kids wanted it and paid for it, and it's the VR game they've played the most by far. I... I don't even know, man. Hey, if they're having fun, who am I to judge, right?

Pistol Whip is the closest of these to Beat Saber so far. It's an on-rails shooter, with an optional rhythmic timing mechanic. Your character basically runs straight through a level, and you shoot enemies and dodge their shots and obstacles. You get a bonus for shooting on the beat. It's very fun. Really scratches my lightgun shooter itch, too, and makes me wonder how possible it would be to bring any number of those back with VR support. Time Crisis again, but in VR? Yes, please.

IIRC, No Man's Sky has already been updated for PSVR2, but I haven't installed it to try yet. I got it hoping to get to the flight part ASAP, because IIRC there is literally no other VR2 game with a flight component. Oh, how I wish AC7 would come out with an update...

 

As far as emulating a VR1... I wonder if it would be possible with relatively minor headaches. I think the biggest hurdle would be mimicking the different camera setup; couldn't the VR2 just (well, "just") designate an arbitrary point in space to act as the "camera" and reverse calculate tracking relative to it? You could do the same with the controllers; use their positional data relative to the inside-out tracking of the headset and translate that to positional data relative to the "camera."

I can't imagine it would be THAT hard for the software engineers at Sony to reverse engineer back compat. But what do I know, I'm just armchair developing.

[mikeszekely]

53 minutes ago, kajnrig said:

Pistol Whip is the closest of these to Beat Saber so far. It's an on-rails shooter, with an optional rhythmic timing mechanic. Your character basically runs straight through a level, and you shoot enemies and dodge their shots and obstacles. You get a bonus for shooting on the beat. It's very fun. Really scratches my lightgun shooter itch, too, and makes me wonder how possible it would be to bring any number of those back with VR support. Time Crisis again, but in VR? Yes, please.

Oh, I didn't know this was available on PSVR2.  I have the Quest version, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.  I'd say it's one my my top three or four favorite VR games.

The others contenders, BTW, would be Beat Saber, Walkabout Mini Golf, and Superhot VR.  I have no idea if any of those are on PSVR2, though.

[Chronocidal]

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

The problem, my biggest problem with PSVR2, is that you cannot use it to play the games for the original PSVR.  You can run the games on the PS5, but you need the original PSVR hardware, which in my opinion was a huge mistake.  I don't know if there were technical hurdles or what due to the different controllers or whatever but this means that stuff like the Transformers VR game that just came out did so on a platform that was already dead, players with large PSVR1 libraries can't sell their old units to defray the cost of the new one, and the new one's starting with a pretty limited library.  That's kind of a kick in the teeth for a headset that costs more than the console it runs on, and more than the technically inferior but more user-friendly Quest 2.  Everything I've watched and read about the PSVR2 is glowing praise for the hardware with a wait-and-see attitude toward actually buying one.

This... is utterly baffling.  Why on earth would they forcibly kill off the games the original PSVR headset was used for?  Think I'm sticking with PCs for anything VR related.

I can vouch for Squadrons at least being a fun diversion for short bursts, but there's barely any single player content in the short campaign, and if you don't like online pvp matches, that's... about all there is to it.  I've been having fun with it on PC just enjoying flying around and shooting stuff in the training mode, but it feels like a demo for a much larger game that never got made.  It might be the best thing EA has put out for Star Wars, but it's also the biggest wasted potential I think I've ever seen.

[JB0]

34 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

This... is utterly baffling.  Why on earth would they forcibly kill off the games the original PSVR headset was used for?  Think I'm sticking with PCs for anything VR related.

I am assuming that the PSVR1 API exposes too many low-level details about hardware that functions very differently. I'm sure Sony didn't want to break compatibility, especially as it is a major feature of the PS5.

But I also know that pretty much every aspect of the PSVR2 is fundamentally different. They don't even have the same number of screens(PSVR1 had a single LCD, PSVR2 has independent OLED panels). Unless they were careful with the design of the original API to abstract every facet of the hardware away, it could easily be impossible to make hardware that is back-compatible while also being a meaningful improvement.

[Chronocidal]

I think I'm more baffled that whatever they're doing at any level is purposefully not adhering to any other standard that makes VR work across multiple platforms.  Maybe the PSVR2 is correcting that?  I don't know.  PC hardware is pretty much compatible across the board, with some minor background software management to do the necessary translations. 

If this headset is so much better, I think they're losing out on a lot of sales by not making it just work with PCs from the start.. but that assumes they're interested in sales that don't push PS5 demand along with it.  When it comes to these huge corporations, I have to assume they have some kind of background analysis that is designed to maximize their margins, regardless of how beneficial it is to the end user.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Chronocidal

[JB0]

1 hour ago, Chronocidal said:

I think I'm more baffled that whatever they're doing at any level is purposefully not adhering to any other standard that makes VR work across multiple platforms.  Maybe the PSVR2 is correcting that?  I don't know.  PC hardware is pretty much compatible across the board, with some minor background software management to do the necessary translations. 

If this headset is so much better, I think they're losing out on a lot of sales by not making it just work with PCs from the start.. but that assumes they're interested in sales that don't push PS5 demand along with it.  When it comes to these huge corporations, I have to assume they have some kind of background analysis that is designed to maximize their margins, regardless of how beneficial it is to the end user.

PSVR1 has a SteamVR driver, despite being kinda weird. But it was developed by hobbyists, not Sony.

 

I expect to see a PSVR2 driver for SteamVR, but no telling when. It's nice hardware, and I'd like to see it liberated. I do understand why Sony doesn't have an interest in supporting this themselves, though they did put out packages for developers wanting to support the PS4 and PS5 controllers if I recall correctly. They clearly aren't COMPLETELY indifferent to Windows gaming.

[mikeszekely]

I dunno, as much as I dislike Meta as a company, I bought a Quest 2 figuring I could use it for both untethered and PC VR... and then never played a single PC VR game.  Sure, the Quest 2 isn't the most powerful hardware, but not being tethered to anything turned out to be a bigger deal than I thought.  If the PSVR2 gets Steam support and a better library on the actual PlayStation I'd maybe consider it, but mostly I'm hoping that Meta makes a comfier Quest 3 with some of the better PSVR2 features, like eye-tracked foveated rendering.

[sh9000]

 

[TangledThorns]

Looks slick but the gameplay and Peter Weller's voice seem tired.

[Old_Nash_II]

1 hour ago, sh9000 said:

 

Well, that's not a New Rambo The Game

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

On 3/7/2023 at 12:17 PM, jvmacross said:

I'd be so glad if there was a WWII fighter game in VR...

 

[jvmacross]

17 minutes ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

 

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

1 hour ago, jvmacross said:

Quick, now say you'd be so glad if there was a Bloodborne sequel!

[jvmacross]

11 minutes ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

Quick, now say you'd be so glad if there was a Bloodborne sequel!

LOL....no idea what that is but sure!

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

1 minute ago, jvmacross said:

LOL....no idea what that is but sure!

If you ever have a desire to play a grisly action game that acts a love letter to Lovecraftian horror, please do give it a try.

[Dynaman]

On 3/9/2023 at 8:12 PM, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

 

This has also been out for the Quest 2 for a few months now as well (along with the older WW1 game)  (video only chosen at random...)

 

[jvmacross]

59 minutes ago, Dynaman said:

This has also been out for the Quest 2 for a few months now as well (along with the older WW1 game)  (video only chosen at random...)

 

This reminds me of the Air Conflicts Pacific Theatre games I am playing on PS5 (actually a PS4 game)....looks grate...but now way I am joining Facebook so glad PSVR2 is coming up with their own WWII combat fighter game