Lurker > CyborgSage00x0

adjl posted...

Yep. We are well overdue for a new 3D Mario.

Honestly surprised that a new one wasn't used as a launch title. MK will be huge, but a new 3D Mario felt like a given.

adjl posted...

The Virtual Game Card mechanic, revealed in the Direct last week, allows you to treat digital games as though they were physical game cards. If you pair two Switch systems locally, you can loan a virtual game card from one system to the other (once paired, this can be done online) on a temporary basis, which means the original owner won't have access to it, but the other person will. You can also do this with any people with whom you share a Switch Online family plan, regardless of whether or not you've paired systems locally. Virtual cards can be loaned for up to 14 days, though I'm not sure if that's 14 days per card per person as a total maximum (effectively a 14-day free demo), or just limited to 14 days at a time with indefinite options for renewal.

GameShare, revealed today, is similar to the Download Play option the DS had. If one person has a compatible game, they can share it with up to 3 other Switch or Switch 2 systems locally or online for the purpose of playing multiplayer. They don't actually get a copy to use for themselves, they just get to play the game while the host system is running it. Revisiting the Direct to refresh my memory, they don't actually mention MK9 as a compatible title, so I may have been mistaken to bring it up here, but they seem to be leaning pretty hard into promoting game sharing and MK9 would be an excellent place to start for that, so it wouldn't surprise me if it gets added to the roster (if not at launch, shortly thereafter).

Gotcha, thanks! I missed the Direct due to driving for work, and trying to read re-caps while at work, but some news sites are bad at explaining this. Glad they are bringing GameShare back.

Yeah, kids at school via the TCG. I hadn't heard about the game or show before that.

Someone game me a free Goldeen, my first card. Somehow, after a week of trading and whatnot, I had amassed about 24 cards, including a holo Vaporeon. Despite still not fully grasping what Pokemon even was, lol. I didn't even both learning how to play the TCG properly until like, 7 years later.

Roachmeat posted...

Mario Kart deluxe has become Mario Kart world, among other things.

Huh? They are 2 completely different games.

Mario Kart 8 (released on the Wii U) became Mario Kart Deluxe (on the Switch, which is just MK8 with built-in DLC). Is that what you meant?

But yeah, no clue what the TC is talking about.

adjl posted...

Thinking about it, if you only need one copy of Mario Kart to play with a few friends online and can pass the virtual game card around a family group as desired, that does help to offset the extra cost. It's still worse than buying a single copy at $60 and being able to play with four people locally, but it's a lot better than all four people needing to buy their own $60 copies, so I guess that's a plus.

$80 is still pricey, though. Gotta love global trade being totally upended because reasons.

I gotta look into the digital sharing thing more, but you're saying once you do, the same game can be played at the same time, by different people on different consoles? And there's no limit to how many shares you can do?

And while I agree re: global trade, tbf, there's no reason the *digital* version should cost $20 more than current game costs.

Yeah, it's not a great sign that MK and DK have at least $10+ prices higher than the current norm.

Hardware and specs seem nice, I like the bigger size and feel. I don't use it unplugged from the TV all that much, but still annoying it's not an OLED screen (to be sold later, I'm sure). MK World looks great, DK Banaza, too. Seems MP4 won't be a launch title. I'll definitely get it, but for the first time, I may not at launch. I have a birthday later in the year, and am behind on my game catalog anyways.

I doubt it, mostly because I almost never use voice chat at all, unless it's my buddys playing Civ 7 or whatnot on the PC. It's a welcome feature, tho, could definitely use it playing friends in Smash or MK.

Seems like one of the biggest leaps forward for the franchise, between open world, the idea of racing between next courses, 24 racers at once, and wall-hoping/grinding.

Damn, this one was sadly coming. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang may still be my favorite movie he's in.

Wait, are there new Futurama episodes being made now? Or is that run already done?

Lokchan posted...

Bigots need shittin on

Then it doesn't sound like you're actually confused about your moderations, no?

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Remember when infant mortality was somewhere around 50%, and you'd spend most of your time praying that a plague or a famine won't wipe out your entire town?

Remember when you had to spend most of your time doing backbreaking labor in the fields because if you didn't farm you didn't eat? And if you got injured or sick you'd pretty much die?

Perspective can be a fantastic thing.

The only perspective here in your example, though, is that technology has made medicine and work efficiency better. That is mutually exclusive, in this scenario, from the economic situation.

But what's worse, while medicine and labor efficiency was bound and restrained due to the limitation of those times, our economic situations are artificially worse. They don't *have* to be worse than the past.

Pretty apples and oranges, there.

Glob posted...

The world is full of problems and some of them are getting worse, but the past was not, on the whole, better.

Depends on what you mean. "The past" is a pretty darn big category.

No idea these days. I rarely bench at the gym anymore (using various other machines meant for pec exercises and whatnot). Lats time was 3x10 of 135lb sets. That's what feels comfortable for that set range, no idea what my max 5 would be currently.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Or maybe I'm mixing it up with Blood Bowl or similar derivatives.

Yeah, Blood Bowl-like I think was what inspired the thought originally. I was thinking each player has like, strength, speed, etc. stats, and then could spec into like, better blocking ability, agility, 50/50 ball catchability, etc. Which to me, all sounds cool on paper, but would probably never balance well.

But, since actual NFL plays like a TBS game anyways, I figured there must be *some* way to make it work.

I always just assumed it was because they were one of the two standard teams for the Thanksgiving games every year.

Yeah, that's likely it.

I've long mused about a turn-based NFL RPG game, with stats and unique abilities of each player. Can't figure out how that would not be a total mess, though.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's like when they call the Dallas Cowboys "America's Team", when it really hasn't been that since the 1970s.

IIRC, some announcer called them that out of nowhere during a game in 1979, and it stuck. Which is really weird, namely because the Steelers had 4 Super Bowl wins at that point, so how Dallas of all teams got that moniker and not Pittsburgh was super odd.

The Pac-Man horror one, Shadow Labyrinth, has me intrigued. A few others looked mildly interesting, but not much else big aside from some great looks at MP4. And a few of those games have a 2026 release. Feels like the Switch will get the PS2 treatment, in that it may have light support even after the Switch 2 comes out.

Virtual game card sharing is pretty awesome.

EvilResident posted...

Probably gonna shadow drop some stuff, like MP2R? Hopefully something good

That'd be nice. Replaying MP1 was such a treat. MP2 is underrated.

Something something hotdogs are sandwiches something

ParanoidObsessive posted...

God damn it, the moment I read this the scene literally flashed in my head where three twentysomethings are doing something spy-ish, the dopey white one who looks like he hasn't gone through puberty says something stupid, and then the sassy half-Black/half-Asian girl turns to him and says "Oh behave" in the totally wrong tone of voice to completely change the implied meaning of the joke.

Embrace it, this is 100% what will happen.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Also, that movie would totally have a kid/teen actor done up to look like Doctor Evil who turns out to be Scott's kid.

NOW we are talking.

Since this inevitably will be what they make the script about anyways, I say we beat them to the punch, write the script, shop it to WB, and split the cash. Hell, we could basically have an AI write it, it'll be so formulaic.

keyblader1985 posted...

I can't think of anything in particular, except I'm not fond of needles.

Kinda this. I don't have any fears/phobias, but while I'm fine with needles, I don't like having my blood drawn. Mostly due some bad experiences as a kid/young teen where I was pretty sick with just a flu or whatever, but bad enough and long enough that my mom took me in, and they drew a ton of blood for tests. Nurses always have a hard time hitting my veins, so on top of churning around in my arm to find the vein, the amount of blood drawn while I was already very weak and ill caused me to pass out, twice. Only time I ever have.

These days, I'm fine with it, especially since fast-draw blood techniques make it pretty quick and easy, but it made me dread and feel sqeamish most of my life. I could/can "feel" the blood leave my body, which just feels uncomfortable. But I wouldn't call it a phobia, then or now.

Salrite posted...

That's not what I'm saying, those 70's samples WERE what made it work. He'd have to sample more 70's songs to make it work again. And producers are still doing this today, so it does still work.

Honestly, this would be the best route. People are going to think of "Miami", "Getting Jiggy With It", and "Wild Wild West" stuff instantly, and if they don't get that, they won't care. Sticking to what people remember will be likely the only path to success, here.

And hey, Daft Punk won the Grammy like, 10 years ago for having an album that was basically the sounds of the 70's, so why not?

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Plus, you just know the plot of the story would probably be something like Austin had a kid at some point, and the kid grew up to be exactly like him, so they can push it as a stealth reboot moving "Austin Jr" into the role in the hopes of spinning it into a few more movies.

Yeah, that practically writes itself, since Austin bangs anything that moves. Or, they'd pull a Ridiculous 6 and make it so like, 7 kids or whatever emerge to say they are all sons of Austin from different mothers, and form some spy super-team, with all the kids being in their 20's. Tom Holland will be on of them.

...shit, I hope a movie studio doesn't read this.

Does it become more optimized?

I've only be able to play a couple of hours due to being out of town for work, and just built a new PC, too, that can handle it better.

Probably Toy R Us and Blockbuster. Not that I miss them per se in that I want them back, but the *feeling* of walking into a giant-ass store as a kid that is nothing but wall-to-wall toys and video games just felt so good. And even tho I was a bit older by then, the Nickelodeon Toys R Us sweepstakes (where a lucky winner had like, 5 minutes to put whatever they wanted in their cart in Toys R Us and get it for free) was a fun fantasy. Hell, I only ever was in Toyrs R Us as few times as a kid.

For Blockbuster, it was more just the kinda excitement of seeing what was new, or what hidden gems were there in the store. Being able to touch and feel it and see the options just has a more visceral feel.

Kinda what PO said. Stand-alone comedy movies have died off hard in theaters in recent years, so seeing a whacky one that's a throwback to simpler times would be welcomed. And it could be "bad" and still maybe be okay, because aside from the first, the other two were bad-ish anyways.

On the other hand, lightning in a bottle is a thing, especially with comedy. There's a reason why most comedy follow ups that aren't *immediate* sequels fail hard, and even then, it's sketchy at best. The Dumb and Dumber franchise is a great example of something that should have been left alone after the 1st one. Meyers being that much older now as well feels like it won't have the same energy and tempo.

So, just let it lie.

adjl posted...

I did remember that enemy level distribution is a lot less forgiving in this one than in other titles, but I'd forgotten just how brutal it gets. There are very, very few safe pockets at lower levels, and exploring entails being very careful to avoid high-level enemies and ambushes that are scattered pretty densely all over the place (bonus points where I've gone Mastermind and mostly rely on AoE attacks, so it's risky to fight near non-aggressive enemies). It's awesome, doing so much to align with the vibe of "you're lost on a planet where humanity is hopelessly outgunned," a vibe that I remembered appreciating 10 years ago.

I always liked that about the Xenoblade games, in that very strong enemies are scattered about early on, giving you a kinda Metroidvania feel of like "I'll get back to this later in the game."

Although it alwasy made me laugh how hardcore X is about it. IIRC, immediately outside of the city, there's like a couple of Level 80 giant dinosaur type enemies, just staring at you. But, it was a good motivator to be like, "I'll come back and fuck these things up when I'm strong enough."

I think the coolest boss/enemy was using the Skell to find the creature that living in the mountain crater/volcano, which was there the entire time, but you needed to be able to fly with the Skell to find it.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

John Carter was apparently a really weird situation.

Perfectly put. I eventually learned everything you typed, but only a few years after John Carter came out. But, at the time, I remember feeling the EXACT way you described once I saw the trailer in theaters, basically, "Wait, who the the hell is John Carter? Am I supposed to know who this is?" The trailer absolutely presented itself as if John Carter was Spider-Man, and needed no further explanation. I was extremely confused, because the trailer showed this bombastic sci-fi journey, that did indeed look generic at the same time. So it was a very surreal feeling of the movie very much wanting me to be hyped, but me being totally lost on why I should be.

They just said it won't include any Switch 2 news, just games for the current Switch.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I want to say no, but let's be honest, I probably would have said no 10 years ago as well.

But I definitely don't think GFaqs will last that long.

I'm actually almost certain you did. I feel like this topic has come up before.

Assuming he sticks to the style of the 90's, would that still hold up? And if he switched to more "modern" styles, would anyone care?

Ib4 "GFaqs won't last that long."

Assuming it does, would you? Had that thought pop into my head when I realized about ~10 more years worth of karma will put me at ??? Block status.

I figured, fuck it, why not?

Congrats are in order!

Or, to put it another way about movies these days...

Rewind to the 60's or 70's or 80's, and going to the movies was still the biggest form of entertainment around, that was a shared cultural experience. Your only other form of entertainment was the slow-growing arcade scene, or concerts/discos. Which means every new IP that came out had a shot at becoming really big and successful, even if the subject matter wasn't as big and flashy. This was before franchises, so we got a whole playground of new, original IPs that people were hungry and excited to see, and give a chance.

Fast forward today, and we are DROWING in entertainment options. Video games especially are bigger than the music and film industry combined, and have been for a while, and for games *alone* there's near-endless options to play. And we no longer need to go to the theater to see entertainment; we expect it to be in the palm of our hands, with the newest streaming episodic being the new water cooler talk. Whereas before you knew *everyone* had seen the recent episode of Friends or Seinfeld, it's mostly now people trying to convert and spread awareness of the one of billions of popular shows de jur.

In essence, this means only the most broadly appealing, mass-market appeal movies at the box office are going to get the lions share of tickets and attention. After all, the entertainment options have exploded, but the money pool (outside of population growth), hasn't. So, people are going to allocate their dollars to the latest Marvel movie or whatever, and not give the small, more "risky" A24 IP a chance. Whereas a lot of those same A24 movies would have likely exploded in popularity if they came out in the 70's.

This isn't to say that Hollywood hasn't become a soulless husk that is afraid of taking risks and constantly relies on established IPs. Because that's definitely the case as well. But it also doesn't mean that's ALL it is. The gems are there, just less front and center.

Damn_Underscore posted...

If he writes executive orders for whatever he wants then people should just say no to them

Of course that would lead to total chaos but what can be done

I mean, they could, and *should*, considering how incredibly illegal most of them are.

The problem is, they would just get quickly fired. They also run the risk of a judge holding them in contempt eventually, but that's a verrrryyy slow process, vs. getting fired almost immediately.

The other issue is, the people carrying out these orders are soulless lackies that don't see a problem with them *anyways*, so it's kind a wash.

adjl posted...

As far as I understand, these live-action remakes are less about putting the old movies back on the map and more about protecting the trademarks.

That, and really because it's just "free" money. As in, there's already an established, nostalgic fan base for these properties, and they only have to look at their own movies that they already made, and translate it into live action. Ergo, minimal effort, low risk, high potential reward. And considering the returns on Aladdin, BatB, and The Lion King, it's proven to be a pretty smart investment.

Where they have gone wrong is obscene production costs in some of the more recent live actions, while making really questionable choices that alienated audiences. Snow White reportedly cost $209M to make (which does NOT include advertising), which seems like an insane amount to put into the movie, especially for Snow White. I mean, hell, even the original animated movies is very bare bones in terms of plot and run time. It's very likely going to lose money, at least on initial run. Long term, with Disney + subscriptions and merch, it'll probably make money, but their business strategy behind that and TLM is questionable as hell.

Never mind massive flops like John Carter and The Lone Ranger. Disney has spent the last 2 decades making some pretty titanic flops and bad choices.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's the ultimate extension of "vote with your wallet". If you are voting with your wallet, you want the thing you're against to fail because it validates your position. If the thing succeeds in spite of you it means your efforts were futile. So watching something fail is ultimately a victory. You want that thing to fail so you can say "THIS is why you failed. Stop doing THAT." Like trying to train a dog not to shit on your carpet. Stop shitting on my carpet Hollywood!

While I agree with the general premise, the problem is, most people/entities learn the *wrong* lesson, if they learn a lesson at all. Films in general can point to a million other reasons for their lack of success that *isn't* their own bad choices, and likely manage to successfully justify these other reasons in some cases, too. So, this premise only works if the entity in questions agrees and acknowledges the reason why they failed. This rarely happens, however.

Case in point, Snow White is failing for close to the same reason TLM did, but that didn't stop Disney from plowing straight ahead anyways.

Cupcake2006 posted...

From what I've seen (whatever comes across my feed, haven't actually dug into any of it), I think they removed the actual dwarves since it was offensive to people with that condition or something like that?

Without advocating for any of these stances myself necessarily (in general, Snow White's existence is irrelevant to me), it seems to be:
-the dwarves are not only CGI, but look freakishly cartoonish. Which stands out very oddly against the normal looking human actors
-the dwarves not being cast by actual human dwarves, although that seems to be controversial itself and a mixed bag of reasons for it
-overall low quality of CGI, especially for the animals (same issue as TLM)
-the Snow White actress not being white, or at least, not "snow white" enough
-the Snow White actress being unattractive, which makes her juxtaposition with Gal as the Evil Queen seem super jarring to the whole plot
-the plot of Snow White itself just being super basic and uninteresting ultimately
-too heavily CGI

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Hollywood as a whole has drifted into a production model where they're desperate for blockbuster hits, so they'll invest hugely on massive projects and hope they succeed with massive payoffs, which has led to the smaller sort of films that used to fit between "blockbuster" and "indie" to sort of die off. There are tons of unique and creative ideas for projects that can't really succeed because they're no longer financially viable (something we've also seen to some degree in the video game space, where "AA" games have sort of fallen to the wayside with smaller indies and massive "AAAA!" projects being the ideal).

Ehhhh, yes and no.

Yes, in that if you look at the top 20 grossing movies in a given year, 95% of them are sequels, remakes, or belong to some "universe", aka MCU. But, blockbusters being blockbusters isn't exactly shocking. That said, there's still plenty of A or AA films that do well, either critically or financially, but on a much lower scale. Take A24, who's entire premise is making movies that no other studios would, usually with very wonky scripts or super niche films. They've even scooped up best picture for Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, a rare movie that manages to be an Oscar darling AND liked broadly by general audiences. Neon and other studios fall into a similar niche. And then you got stuff like Tarantino films, that tend to be AAA must-see types, but only come out like, once every 3 years.

So, I feel like the A and AA movie space is thriving just fine. They never will pull in AAA blockbuster numbers, but then, that's kinda the whole point - they aren't meant to. And the audience far and wide is basic as fuck, so more niche, "good" films will never reach MCU numbers.

The big question is how this all plays out, now that numerous judges have ordered the re-opening/rehiring of departments/jobs. We are teetering on the edge of a Constitutional crisis, in more ways than one.

adjl posted...

Heck, even now you've got the democrats protesting by wearing conspicuous colours and holding signs, while censuring anyone that makes a serious effort to speak out during government activities. They're clinging to some sort of idea that they need to be the mature, reasonable people in the room that keep politics respectable regardless of how totally unhinged the GOP becomes, and it's preventing them from accomplishing much of anything to stop the problems.

We have one party that has devolved into throwing shit at the wall, and the other patiently waiting for them to come back to the grown up table, but refusing to change anything until this (somehow) happens.

It honestly feels a bit like going insane, watching this play out. Like, "Is no one else really seeing this?"

I said during Trump's first term, the only thing he was every good for was exposing how much of the US's political system is based on decorum and tradition, rather than hard and fast rules. Of course, that information is only useful if something is done to fix it, of which very little was done.

Now, the only use is to show how basically nothing stops the Executive from becoming a full-blown King, and that even if you want to obey the courts, they are like a month behind at best when trying to adjudicate clear abuses.

Whole country needs a reboot and new Constitution, but that won't happen.

adjl posted...

As far as I know, it's via pausing, but now you can see quite a bit more of the map because it's been scaled for a TV and not a Gamepad screen. That's going to be an unfortunate downgrade, because X was one of the games that really benefited from the Gamepad (WWHD being another), but there isn't a lot that can be done about that.

Yeha, that game REALLY benefitted from pad. I feel like there could be a way to make the Switch 2 do that, like have the screen work separately from the TV display if needed....

If I do, it won't be for a while. I haven't even gotten XC1:DE, and I love that game. Hell, I'm only playing the XC3 DLC story stuff now. X was probably my least favorite of the 4, but I still liked it a lot. But my backlog is simply too big to retread over a 120 hour + game right now.

adjl posted...

While I'm not actually an introvert, as somebody who's very much not an extrovert and has spent much of my life being pressured by extroverts to "stop being anti-social" when I'm happily doing something on my own, I must admit I did feel a certain satisfaction seeing the world tell extroverts to go into their shells instead of telling introverts to come out of theirs. That's not entirely fair, because forcing an extrovert to not socialize is just as unpleasant for them as forcing an introvert to socialize and two wrongs don't make a right and blah blah blah, so I did also sympathize with them, but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a little bit of smugness in there as well.

I agree. But I still found it odd I had to point out to so many of what I thought was common sense on the near unlimited things they could do to occupy their time. Especially how lucky there were to have it happen in the age of Zoom and whatnot, so it was still very possible to be social and whatnot.

adjl posted...

That said, I do actually have a bit of fond nostalgia for the first wave of lockdowns. Obviously it was a bad situation and the ramifications of those few months are still being felt, but there was a sense of camaraderie there that's pretty rare in modern society, banding together against a scary situation that nobody fully understood while everybody tried to make the best of things by trying new hobbies and figuring out new ways to keep in touch with each other. That cooperation wasn't universal, by any means, but the dissent got a lot worse later on as things got more relaxed and people decided that they'd now learned enough about the disease to have an authoritative opinion on it, more firmly dividing them into camps and sowing animosity.

Working in the film industry, where people are used to working 12+ hours a day as a norm, many of my compatriots didn't realize how badly they needed a break, and likely would have never took one, had the world not essentially forced them to. Yeah, it wasn't a great economic situation for many, and obviously tons of issues came with society essentially grinding to a halt. But I was fine with/took solace int hat everyone had to just kind of stop, and the world got to breathe. Dolphins returning to Venice, the pollution rate falling off a cliff, etc. type of stuff.

It was amusing seeing the extreme extrovert types lose their shit at not knowing what to do. I had to remind way to many people about all the things they now had time for, like finally cleaning their garage out, learning another language, starting a new hobby, etc. Hell, I made an entire throwing axe board in my backyard after watching a 3 minute Youtube video and a trip to Lowes. And I had endless video games and movies to catch up on. And due to the extra money from Congress and the fact that I had 2 roommates at the time, money wasn't an issue. It was kinda nice, in that way.

On topic, yeah, we seem to be speed running towards the Great Depression/utter collapse that was the 30's, but without the fun Roaring 20's part. This decade is pretty awful.

ooger posted...

LOL, oh yeah?

Well, the real answer is Trump just said to stop talking about egg prices, so there we go.

Holy shit, GFaqs is basically unusable now.

I wans't paying attention and agree to the popup asking about removing outdated extensions, I beleive.

zhangliao1 posted...

Chinese would definitely be more useful

Usefulness is relative.

Chinese has more speakers, but like 98% of them are confined to just China (well, Taiwan, too). So, if you have no plan to ever visit/interact with China, then the value of knowing the language is moot.

Spanish has the 2nd-highest amount of speakers, but spread out over way more countries, and many parts of the US. Meaning in a vacuum, especially for a US citizen, you're likely going to get more utility out of knowing Spanish.

dragon504 posted...

fuck yeah, hammer flight is the best

Hammer bros. Unite! Feel like I forgot how to play hammer. It'll come back to me.

Man, the FEAR games were so good. The original AI in the first is STILL great to this day. Crazy how they achieved it. Closing Monolith sucks.

I can read Spanish very well, and understand and speak ot decently, but not.fluent. I'd still select it.

On a very related note, I may be losing a commercial job. Because of National Park staff firings, my entire commercial shoot may be canceled. Supposed to hear back by Monday.

Neat.