Lurker > LightningStrikes

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Rogue Squadron II was a technical showcase, the graphics were unbelievable for its time. And it expanded on what the first game was doing. It was the Gamecube launch game.

Mortal Kombat
Street Fighter II
Super Smash Bros Ultimate
Soul Calibur

Thats the hottest take Ive seen in absolutely ages.

Crysis

It was THE benchmark for the rest of the decade, and top end graphics cards couldnt run it well at max settings for years

Star Wars (the vector graphics arcade game).
Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader
Knights of the Old Republic
Jedi: Fallen Order

Rogue Leader was an incredible moment when it came out, dont forget that one.

10/10. The other contender for best base in the series. Notable for being hyper-long but actually using every bit of the time it takes well, its actually incredibly well paced.

6.5/10. Its fun, though while there are some cases in this topic series where Ive been shocked at some of the low ranking, I fully get why this one is divisive.

English local elections yesterday with results coming in now, the key points:

-Nothing short of absolute humiliation for the Tories, who have currently lost a majority of their races. Currently looking like they will go from a narrow first place in terms of councillors to third behind Labour and the Lib Dems.

-Labour have hit their marks with significant gains, their biggest win being the Blackpool South by-election for the Parliamentary seat, where they got one of the biggest swings in history. They are on course for a landslide at the general election as the polls suggest. However, there are a few things to caution them, as they have lost support in some areas including majority control of one council due to Gaza and other social issues. The party has acknowledged this too.

-Lib Dems have done fine but the big contests for them in the south are yet to declare their results. Greens have done very, very well and on track for their best ever local elections result, definitely gaining from dissatisfaction with Labour in some urban areas but also everybody else. The hard right Reform Party (Farages party) have done alright in voteshare for some areas to the Tories cost but no actual wins, nothing to say from that yet but you know the right-wing media will crow about it endlessly.

-The one bright spot, using the term very generously, for the Tories is that they have narrowly won the Teeside mayoral election. Of course, this was a guy who got 73% of the vote last time and enjoys massive cross-party support; the swing from this result and council elections still suggest Labour is on course to win every seat in the area at the general election. Its a bit like how Vermont has a Republican governor to put it in US terms, so the Tories claiming this as a win is hilarious.

TL;DR: Tories demolished, everybody else gaining, some small setbacks for Labour on areas theyve swung rightwards on. Something to be happy with for everybody whos not a Tory!

Tag

The thing is if you skip V because youre not interested in the Big Boss story you are not only missing the best gameplay in the series but also all of the smaller elements that make the writing in that game work. The key plot beats are the least interesting thing about it, what works in the narrative is all of the character side stories.

Easily one of the best puns (well, pun might be going a bit far) in the entire series imho.

9/10.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Incredible physics and chemistry systems, a seamless open world with three layers of verticality (technically more), looks great and actually runs better than Breath of the Wild. Also very few bugs!

HMs to Doom Eternal for managing that level of visual fidelity at locked 30 and Alien Isolation for looking and running better than the PS4 version.

I have not checked in years, but it became cool to hate 6-5 on the AA subreddit a while back. I dont get it either.

I just feel like giving it to Astros Playroom (still one of the best PS5 games) is a bit like giving it to Wii Sports.

Anyway, Microsoft Flight Simulator. It could be the most technically impressive game!

8.5/10.

This case rules. One of the best minor villains in the series with one of the best breakdowns, great setting and mystery, Trucy is used well, some great music. This kind of feels like what Apollo Justice should have been.

Iron Man
Black Panther
Avengers Endgame
Spider-Man No Way Home

No Way Home was a gigantic event, especially in the context of the pandemic. It was nearly as big as Endgame which is incredible.

Doing a quick comparison, MGSV seems to have a lower early drop off than most games looking at a few sets of Steam Achievements. Take FFVII Remake, which is known to have a pretty high completion rate for a single player game, 87.5% who started it finished the first chapter. If you want a funny stat, 3.3% who start never even fight a single battle!

A lot of people just boot up games and never really play them. Im sure were all guilty of it at some point. Looks like MGSV did well compared to other big single player games though.

foolm0r0n posted...

Probably lack of appeal

Also I bet a huge % of players did not get past the 60 minute intro

I mean thats just video games. Loads of people boot up games they get on sale and never finish them whatever the game is. Looking at the Steam trophy stats, 89.4% finished the intro, and I wonder how many of those 10.6% even started a new game!

Regardless, V is the most successful Metal Gear to date.

Edit: For contrast only 66% finished the prologue in The Witcher 3.

A lot of people just drop off franchises as they keep going. Of course MGSV made up for it by being many more peoples first MGS and would go on to become the highest selling MGS game.

TTYD for sure.

7.5/10.

This one was a lot of fun with an entertaining villain.

Alan Wake II

It has the combination of very high end visual fidelity with actually using the SSD effectively with the switching between worlds. On which note, HM to Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. That is the most impressive PS5 feature and its barely been used at all.

Xenoblade Chronicles X

Breath of the Wild is a worthy competitor for its physics and scale, but bloody hell I have no idea how Monolith did this on a Wii U. It looked better than basically all of its contemporaries on PS4 and Xbox One at time of release, it had an absolutely huge seamless world with complex systems, and it had rock solid performance too. For the hardware I actually think this is one of the most technically impressive games ever, at least of the modern era. Will be making the argument for Tears of the Kingdom when we get to the Switch though.

And yeah, Fast Racing NEO is very impressive. Just let them do an F-Zero Nintendo!

Its easily V. Still one of the greatest stealth action gameplay systems ever made. And the beauty of it is that you have all of these options and systems, but you can also just use the reduced down watching enemy paths and so on, or play it as a shooter (but why would you). Ground Zeroes also has the mechanics at that level and is stripped down to just focus on the stealth mechanics.

LightningStrikes posted...

Yes, Nolan is an American dual national by birth from one of his parents. This is also why his brother has an American accent and he doesnt, because they grew up on different sides of the Atlantic with different parents.

Anyway:

Georges Melies
Akira Kurosawa
Ingmar Bergman
James Cameron

I feel like Melies should get the George Washington slot here.

Remove James Cameron
Add Alfred Hitchcock

So James Camerons Canadian filmography consists of a single short film (funded by a dentist lol). That seems like it doesnt fit the spirit of the criteria even though it might technically qualify him. By contrast Alfred Hitchcock was making movies in the UK for nearly two decades before he went to Hollywood, he was already a very successful director. So he absolutely fits.

Yes, Nolan is an American dual national by birth from one of his parents. This is also why his brother has an American accent and he doesnt, because they grew up on different sides of the Atlantic with different parents.

Anyway:

Georges Melies
Akira Kurosawa
Ingmar Bergman
James Cameron

I feel like Melies should get the George Washington slot here.

I dont even know who any of those are!

LightningStrikes posted...

Malenia (Elden Ring)
Mike Tyson (Mike Tysons Punch-Out!!)
Lingering Will (Kingdom Hearts II)
Sans (Undertale)

Remove Lingering Will

Add Final Song (Drakengard 3)

We need your help Star Fox, youre the only hope for our world!

Malenia is also optional tbf.

Malenia (Elden Ring)
Mike Tyson (Mike Tysons Punch-Out!!)
Lingering Will (Kingdom Hearts II)
Sans (Undertale)

Red Dead Redemption 2

HM to Forza Horizon 5.

Yes GameFAQs is now being moderated entirely by the publishers from American Fiction. So try spelling it with a ph instead.

Yeah I see no problem with some CE people taking part if theyre willing to match the vibe and culture (and most importantly, general politeness and friendliness) of B8 and the Containment topics. After all its not like there was a shield around the board before these topics were banned. But it should be understood that there is a specific culture to be preserved here. I wasnt joking when I said in a Board 8 topic on the politics ban that these topics are unironically one of the least toxic places to discuss politics online.

Sheep007 posted...

Interesting that people with right-wing populist beliefs tend to go to Sinn Fein! I would have thought Fianna Fail would try and draw them in as we've seen a lot globally with the centre-right, although I'm not super clued in on Irish politics so I've probably missed something. Regardless of the many, many problems in the UK (again, I can't speak for Ireland but as far as I'm aware it's not quite so messy there right now?), the ultra-right have generally managed to be kept out of power, even though the Tories keep leaning in and flirting with them.

Most of my experience with nationalist parties is with Plaid, who are generally a bit more left than the SNP. And since Welsh national identity basically died until the 90s, outside of rugby and language in pockets, they've basically had to construct half of a more progressive national identity from scratch (I've got a migrant background and rarely feel unwelcome even when I have to mention my name to Welsh nationalists). Still some more conservative voters as I mentioned but it's very interesting to see how the different nationalist parties are taking different approaches, both socially and from the "get us the hell away from England" angle.

Thats a good point about Fianna Fail and to be honest with you I dont really know why they havent capitalised on that audience so to speak. To speculate a bit it could be as simple as the fact that they never recovered from the recession and their 2011 drubbing, they went from the largest party in every election for eighty years to half or less of where they used to be. A lot of their working class Catholic or nationalist base went over to Sinn Fein and simply never came back. Also, their current leader is pretty liberal and has been around forever, so I think the party itself has moved on social issues as well. And yeah you hit on the interesting paradox of these progressive nationalist parties! For what its worth I am no expert on Wales but I think it has historically been much to the left of Ireland and Scotland (and England) going back centuries too. So that probably affects things too.

Anyway, sounds like the UK general election might be getting called on Monday? We can only hope.

The Last of Us Part II

What tips it over the edge for me is the comparison to the first game on PS3, which was using pre-rendered cutscenes and had performance that was much more unstable. That they pulled this off on a base PS4 is very impressive. It obsoletes Uncharted 4, which wasnt even the most technically impressive PS4 game released that month imo (that would be DOOM).

HM to Red Dead Redemption 2.

Hold on a second.

Discusses the illegal OR recreational use of drugs

Meaning that technically we can get modded for talking about caffeine, cool cool cool (jokes on you, I just switched to decaf).

Yeah thats obviously not what it meant but it does further show a general lack of care and thought into writing these rules now.

Why oh why
Why oh why
Dont you wanna stay with me?
Why oh why
Why oh why
Are you giving up on me?

IMO:

If its out on day one, its a launch game.

If its out during the first full quarter after launch, that would be a launch window game.

So Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a launch window game.

LightningStrikes posted...

NES
PS2
Xbox 360
Switch

Okay, then I will use this last opportunity to potentially inject some chaos and change PS2 to PS1. It feels weird to leave the PS2 off, but it looks set to get overtaken by the Switch in sales terms anyway and sales is the big thing it has (and library of course, but again almost all of these have fantastic libraries). The PS1 was the big shift and is definitely the best rep for the 90s here.

I went with Metroid pretty much purely because I think Prime 4 would be a great launch title. You want to have a big prestige game for the base available at launch. Yes Metroid hasnt been a huge seller but being a launch title would boost it a lot. Look what happened with Breath of the Wild!

Though Mario Kart should be on the poll.

I have no clue, maybe Tearaway?

But also there were stats at the time suggesting that most Wii owners had another contemporary platform as well. It raises the question of whether the Wii really was reaching THAT many people who had ever played games otherwise, more than the PS2, everybodys favourite DVD player? Or the Switch? Im not so sure.

The Wii sold a tonne of software, had a very good attach rate, and people did play it a lot while it was new, the people didnt buy any games for it just Wii Sports or Wii Fit thing was always a myth but it crashed hard much earlier than anticipated. It was selling faster than the PS2 ever did at points but hit a wall eventually. The same went for software, software sales just collapsed after about four years.

Yeah no hate on CE to be clear just funny that one board has to create a kind of silo on another board to have the same discussions we were having basically 100% civilly already rather than just let us keep the topic.

Sheep007 posted...

My knowledge of Scottish politics isn't the best, but from what I know I'm inclined to think Regan will fall in line - the SNP knew who they would need onside when deciding to piss off the greens and presumably knew they were willing to offer something she'd like. Surely needing to appeal specifically to a mega-transphobe will not have any repercussions. I didn't know Sinn Fein had a similar split re: the more conservative side, but it tracks. Plaid Cymru have a pretty conservative voter base of rural Welsh speakers and I assume it's a similar case for Sinn Fein?

Best case for Labour is probably no election and not having to run another campaign, maybe less for the costs reasoning and more because they wouldn't want the unpopularity that comes with holding power while the UK is running like shit, especially right before a general election which could see them return in Scotland. Although I'm not sure they would win enough to be the dominant party even with the SNP such a mess.

Yeah especially given the direction the SNP is already taking recently, but true either way, the SNP pandering hard to Regan cannot lead anywhere positive. Quite likely she even ends up back in cabinet. I agree that itll likely be a government victory but no way the SNP dont come out of this bruised whatever the outcome.

As for Sinn Fein yeah there are some differences in the exact topics (much more focus on abortion and immigration) but its a similar split. Their base is a mix of Catholics, nationalists and urban leftwingers, not hard to see faultlines emerging! But especially since the riots theyve been playing hard to the anti-immigration crowd and I dont think its gone down well with the younger more socially liberal part of their base. When you have a major nationalist party thats also at least partially progressive this just happens I guess.

Of course Ireland is odd because in the Republic there isnt really a big far-right or right wing populist party or movement but a lot of these same views still exist. The people who hold them just vote for Sinn Fein or independents instead of a big right wing party.

I have been summoned! Alas I need to now have CE in my posting history lol but it is what it is!

Yeah the Scottish government stuff is pretty interesting. Its quite the gamble by the SNP as there will now be a confidence vote that is going to be extremely close. Assuming nobody jumps ship the opposition has it by a single vote but theres a wrinkle. Now Labour, the Conservatives, and the Lib Dems are all voting against the government of course, and the Greens have indicated they will as well. However, there is one MSP called Ash Regan who was elected for the SNP and even stood for the leadership last year but left for a small nationalist party called Alba (the reason being shes a transphobic crackpot and wanted to make a big deal out of that by defecting). Now if she votes with the government, itll be a tie, the Presiding Officer will break the tie and presumably vote with the government. It seems she has said she hasnt made her mind up yet so the SNP will presumably be lobbying her pretty hard.

Now what is very apparent is a recent rightwards shift in the SNP, which is in part due to them trying to keep their big conservative faction in check. The SNP are basically split down the middle between the left-leaning progressives usually from Scotlands central belt and the conservatives usually from the rural areas, all united by support of independence. They seem to be about equal in number, though the left-leaning faction has been dominant for years and years. So my assessment is that the SNP are facing the same problem as parties like Sinn Fein in Ireland where they have two diametrically opposed factions tearing the party apart.

If it does go through it will most likely lead to an election with Labour as the big winners as theyve peeled off both moderate unionists from the Tories and Lib Dems and left-leaning nationalists who are fed up with the SNP. Of course paradoxically this could hurt Labour in the general election due some time this year by making them spend money on a whole other campaign. So yeah, quite an interesting situation!

UshiromiyaEva posted...

People giving Microsoft too little credit here because they're thinking of Xbox and not Windows.

But also the Xbox 360 is probably the most influential console since the Playstation anyway with the possible exception of the Switch (waiting to be seen). All modern consoles are working off the 360s blueprint.

Microsoft have PC gaming, something that always gets forgotten! So Microsoft>Atari>Sega.

Yeah lets commit, Fire Emblem Warriors. Looks good, animations are very impressive (seem just taken from the Switch version?), lots of characters on the screen. Thats a New 3DS exclusive and shows it.