video games (was Re: UFCS for D)

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:evxliildxhaodnbmqkjw at forum.dlang.org...
> On Saturday, 31 March 2012 at 06:14:03 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> That's kind of another thing: If I need to be doing work, it's going to 
>> be
>> damn hard if I have a bunch of games two clicks away.
>
> This is why Windows can kill me... I get addicted to
> those stupid built in games.
>

Heh :)

They need to bring back Hover and update it (to be more than, what was it, 
like 32x32 resolution? ;) )


>> Really? Cool!
>
> http://worms2d.info/Worms_Armageddon
>
> There's a familiar name in there :)
>

Heh, I'll be damnned :) Our Vladimir's been doing a lot of really good 
stuff, hasn't he? Between that, and DustMite, and some D pull requests. 
Kudos!

>
>> It was a short, minor  thing like that, but it
>> was frequent enough that it just felt like I was
>> being really slowed down.
>
> heh, that's the way I feel about most animations, in
> games or not. "get on with it" is what I say.
>

Same here, word for word. It annoyed me in the Metroid Prime series, too. 
Every time you get one of the many, many, many missle upgrades and other 
such upgrades, it *has* to give you a little fanfare and fade in a message 
box during which time you can't do anything but wait. Every...single...time.

Maybe we're just impatient gamers ;)

> But, in many of these games, I really like the
> background music, which makes it more awesomer.
>

The phrase "more awesomer" itself is inherently more awesomer than anything. 
:)

> In a game with bad music, everything gets more annoying.
> With good bgm, it can take its time, to an extent.
>

That's why I always hated stuff like EA Trax. "Let's cram our games full of 
whatever crap the RIAA is currently trying to shovel out. Great idea!"

>> Although, I was always more of a Lunar fan
>
> omg, not every day I see a Lunar fan! Silver
> Star Story: Complete is the reason I wanted
> a playstation.
>
> That's a beautiful game.
>

Certainly is. But *I* grew up on the original SegaCD version :)

Both versions are great though. And it is worth playing both, because they 
are different enough.

I can't believe I've still never gotten around to finishing either version 
of Lunar 2: Eternal Blue. I need to do that sometime. (All the Lunars after 
that sucked though, which is very unfortunate. Every play "Lunar: Dragon 
Song"? Trust me: Don't.)

> I don't think Working Designs has ever published
> anything less than great too.

Yup. Working Designs was great. And if you like them, Atlus seems to be the 
modern equivalent. Actually, that's exactly show I'd decribe Atlus: "The 
modern Working Designs, but with more games being released."

> My first game
> of theirs was Popful Mail on the sega cd, and
> that was awesome back in the day too.
>

I never actually played that until a couple years ago. *Definitely* a very 
good game. I keep meaning to go back and actually finish it.

It's kind of sad, there was a lot of *really* good stuff on the SegaCD, but 
nobody ever knew because they kept pushing the "games" from Digital Pictures 
too hard, so that's all anyone ever knew existed. (Although I'll admit, I 
did enjoy Sewer Shark, especially it's over-the-top B-movie cheesiness. And 
Night Trap is actually kinda clever.)

Some of the real standouts on SegaCD off the top of my head:

- Sonic CD (One of the two best Sonic games ever made, the other being Sonic 
2)
- Final Fight CD (The best version of Final Fight)
- Lunar 1 & 2
- Popful Mail
- Willy Beamish
- Silpheed (Very different from the PS2 version, but both are fantastic)
- D (Heh, that's right. If the name is "D" it has to be good :) )
- Wolfchild
- Puggsy (although this was on Genesis, too)

The funny thing about D in particular (the game) is that it breaks 
practically every rule of good game design, and yet, that's exactly what 
makes it so fantastic. And not even in a "so bad it's good" sort of way, 
just genuinely good.

(Ermm...wait no...D was on Saturn not SegaCD. Nevermind ;) )

>
> Something awesome though: my brother emailed them
> to send his condolences when they went out of business,
> and actually got a personal reply from Victor Ireland,
> the president. I doubt any other game company out there
> has such a connection with their fans.
>

Heh, cool :)

> But, what sucks: one of my Lunar SSSC discs is broken!

Ouch!  One of my Driver 2 discs got broken in college, but I'm somewhat less 
bothered by that.

> But, great game. Those are cutscenes I couldn't get
> enough of.
>

Same here. I had a ritual (and still do to this day whenever I play it) of 
watching the entire intro song before every play session (Actually, I'm 
talking the SegaCD version here). I used to love that song, even 
had...no...*have*...it memorized:

---------------------------
When all the land is peaceful,
And there is no real threat to us at last,
Then comes the time for love,
Two hearts colliding into one great hymn.

But there are winds forboding,
And there is a dark storm that soon will pass.
Kiss me my love and go,
The time for valor has returned again.

All through the night...
Keep marching on...

Fighting...Through the darkness...
All is evil...Still we must press on...
Fighting...Toward the the power...
That enslaves us...Yet we are not done...
Racing...To the climax...
Of the battle...To return to love...
Valiant...
[Uhh, ok I forgot what goes here,
and I think I may have screwed up
this section anyway]
Evil forces...Take heed
---------------------------

Yea, it's pretty cheesy, but I was probably only about 12 at the time ;)

>
> While I'm talking about great games, another good
> one is Phantasy Star IV on the Genesis. II and III
> were ok too, but they moved too slowly. Literally,
> the character walking speed was abysmal. But, IV
> bumped up the speed big time, and it was amazing.
>

Yea. While I never really played Phantasy Star at the time, I did play 
through at least half of...one of them...about a couple years ago. 
Definitely a good game. It might have been the first...Regardless it wasn't 
Genesis, it was Master System, so whatever that could have been. I remember 
shuttling between three different planets, if that narrows it down.

I think that may have been another game where the "increase speed" button 
helped ;)

> I hate the way "phantasy star" now refers to some
> shitty MMORPG though. Fuck that noise, the Genesis
> is where it's at.
>

Yea. I always liked the Dreamcast, but I never really got into Phantasy Star 
Online. Or any MMO for that matter (Unless you count Sierra's "The INN" - 
way back before online gaming meant the internet!)

>> Actually, that reminds me, have you seen that
>> YouTube video of Sonic 2006's hub-world "gameplay"?
>
> Nay, but a friend bought some sonic game for the PS3
> recently. I played it Wednesday, actually.
>
> The loading was annoying, but only at the start of
> a stage, so not disruptive to most the play.
>
> What got me though was the bizarre 3d stuff and
> seemingly sluggish controls. It was the same levels
> from Sonic 2, but it felt slow and unresponsive in
> comparison to the original.
>
> idk though, I haven't played the original for a long,
> long time.
>

I wonder which one that was. Maybe Sonic Generations? My brother and I have 
always been big Sonic fans even through the long period of admittedly crappy 
Sonic games. Sonic 2006 is the only one we haven't really played much of, 
and don't really plan to. But the PS3 ones he does have are:

- Sonic Unleashed: Daytime leves are fantastic, the puzzle sections on the 
Wii/PS2 version are great, but everything else is crap - and the PS3 version 
has framerate issues that are completely unforgivble considering the PS3 is 
*more* powerful than the Wii or PS2 hardware.

- Sonic Colors (Actually, this one's Wii). He likes this one, I hate 
everything about it. It pretends to be "Sonic Unleashed Daytime" gameplay, 
but everything about it's botched, IMO. And the music is "Mario 
Galaxy"-style orchestrated crap.

- Sonic 4: I love this one, despite how short it is. The physics are a 
little different from the Genesis games, and most people hate that, but I 
actually like it. It's a totally 2D game. Only the "sprites" are 3D. The 
upcoming second episode is looking fantastic. But I'm pissed that episode 2 
won't come to Wii like episode 1 did.

- Sonic CD: Same game as the SegaCD one, but you can switch between the 
Japanese and US soundtracks, and play as Tails.

- Sonic Generations: The *allegedly* "Classic Sonic" levels are OK: not bad, 
but not fantastic. The "New Sonic" levels are fantastic though: They're 
"Sonic Unleased Daytime" gameplay, and some of them are 3D versions of 
classic older levels, like Chemical Plant from second level of Sonic 2.

>> So I don't think I've ever managed to get more than a couple hours into 
>> those.
>
> People call me a heretic for this, but I say FFs 1, 7, and 8
> are the best of that bunch (and FF Tactics on the Playstation
> mixed in there too).
>

Really? I thought 7 was universally considered the best one. Although 8, and 
the NES ones, are fairly unpopular.

> The SNES ones were ok, but I didn't love them. Yes, FF6
> has the opera scene. Yes, it is amazing.
>

I'm not sure I've even heard of that scene. Maybe I'll have to give it 
another chance and try to get to that.

>> In the PSX era, I was more into PC gaming and didn't have a PSX, so I got 
>> the PC FF7.
>
> I've heard nothing but bad things about the PC versions.
> Never played it myself, but I'm told it was slow, buggy,
> and annoying...
>

Back then, any time you had a PC port of a console game, you *knew* it would 
be a bit rough around the edges. So it was just kinda expected. And it *was* 
a little rough around the edges, but I didn't have any major problems trying 
to play it. Seemed to work fine, though I don't doubt other people had 
problems.

Thanks to my 3DFX Voodoo card, It *was* definitely better-looking than the 
PSX version: 640x480 instead of what I'm pretty sure must have been roughly 
comprable to 320x240. And of course, you have to keep in mind that was 
loooong before anyone had even heard of "HDTV". (Probably part of why I'm so 
unimpressd with HDTV now - I've already been using HD resolutions on my PC 
for ages and already got used to switching back to SD whenever I'd use a 
TV.)

>
>> I realized I was only playing it to see what happens
>> and was genuinely dreading/rushing-through the battles
>
> I put 8 among the top for a few reasons: 1) I liked
> the story and the main character. People call me a heretic
> for this too, but "then go talk to a wall", I cheered
> that line! That was sexual harassment, and Squall didn't
> have to take it.
>
> Just generally though, 8 has a fine story.
>

Yea, I did kinda like that about it.

> 2) Enc-None. You can turn off most the fights and just
> fly through the game if you want too.
>

Huh, really? I never new that. If I had, I probably would have finished it. 
How do you do that?

>
> I barely played the PS2 at all; almost everything I've
> seen of it was my brother playing it. It was just
> after my time.
>

I was always more a GameCube/XBox1 guy, but there's some good stuff on PS2:

- Contra: Shattered Soldier and Neo Contra (The main reasons I got a PS2 in 
the first place, and still two of my all-time favorite games.)

- Silpheed (totally different from SegaCD version, but still great)

- MegaMan Collection / MegaMan X Collection / MegaMan X8 (Best on PS2 b/c 
it's the only system with a non-crap DPad and, the GC version has those 
stupidly-reversed shoot/jump controls)

- God Hand (f*ing CRAZY)

- Stretch Panic (Also f*ing CRAZY, kinda unfinished though)

- Some others: Rez, Devil May Cry 1, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus (crap 
framerate though), Katamari Damacy


> I think the problem was as the tech advanced, they
> were no longer limited in their use. The designers
> before used them sparingly because that was the
> most they could.
>

That's how I feel about *many* things in modern games. Or even modern 
software or devices. Just because the "can" they think that they should.

> Blah. I'm not a big castlevania fan (I watched my brother
> play a lot of SOTN - yea, I watched my brother play a lot
> of stuff, happens when you share rooms for 16 years! and
> it was ok but seemed to drag on and on for me.

Oh, man, I'm a total Castlevania fanatic, especially the "Metroidvania" 
ones. But those ones (SOTN being the first - and the only non-portable one 
unfortunately) *would* probably be boring to just watch. Open-world games 
are great, but they don't always make for great spectator games.

> Changing
> cape colors only goes so far in making up for repetition.)

Heh, well, that's more of an "extra little touch" easter egg kinda thing 
anyway.

>
> Game critics are bought and paid for by the publishers,
> all of them, and the sheeple buy their crap hook, line,
> and sinker.
>

Yea. That's actually become publically-known now, even though a lot of 
people will still never beleive it.