AtticGamer

Let me put this another way: What is in 3D World apart from the local multiplayer or shaders that couldn't be recreated on a 3DS or a future, higher resolution handheld? It's mostly the same assets. The level design is different but it's mostly an evolution of 3D Land. There's nothing beyond what a 3DS could do in terms of gameplay. If they wanted, they could have made 3D Land and 3D World the same game, shared between platforms (with exclusive features to each one like multiplayer), and their similarities as well as Smash Bros. makes me think it's a sign of things to come.

Save points are more plentiful than people think, and the trick is to save as often as possible, a discipline not practiced by modern players, hence the "I LOST 20 MINUTES OF PROGRESS THIS GAME SUCKS!" comments. It's just like old-school Resident Evil.

I'm not talking about the visuals (though I think it's just 3D Land in HD with shaders), I'm talking about the core game. It's an example of how a game can scale visually while remaining the same thing. And while it looks great on Wii U, Nintendo needs a lesson on the importance of anti-aliasing. The techniques they use are very hit or miss.

Me and a friend just shared our games on Steam again and I'm going to gave a go at Bioshock Infinte and Dishonored. I'm getting back to Team Fortress 2 too I think. On my laptop I'm replaying Age of Empires Gold.

I think it does get better after the medical bay. That segment is a trial by fire that isn't really repeated in the game, especially because you're armed later on. There are some annoying segments later but it's not the same kind of helplessness. I played about 50 hours by now, and the alien's behavior has become more predictable with time. Just knowing that you can circle it around a table without triggering it is something that makes the game easy in some spots and at the same time breaks the immersion and tension somewhat. The real frustrating part with the alien is when it spawns right in front of you or when it's endlessly stalking around a progress element like a lever or something. That's when distractions come in handy.

To be honest, I don't really care about Nintendo home consoles anymore. Mario is just as good on the 3DS and top down Zeldas is for the handhelds, and my guess is an eventual 2D Metroid will be too. Their home console output isn't really to my liking (3D Zelda ugh) or different enough from their handheld to warrant spending money on it rather than on my PC or 3DS, that's why I think unifying their systems would bring an advantage to both systems by massively increase the library available for both as well as increasing the number of players in online multiplayer. Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World could have easily been one game, with the multiplayer restricted for the home console, Mario Kart 7 and 8 could benefit from a unified player base. Super Smash Bros. 3DS/Wii U is a sign of things to come too. Instead of selling 10 million Super Mario 3D Land games and 2.5 million Super Mario 3D World games, they could sell something like 11 million of a single game, or even more, all while having little more than half the effort, that would be spent on another original game, or DLC. I want to add another thing to the handheld / Nintendo 7 Go. Make it 3D as the 3DS and, if the screen is 720p at least, make a contraption like the Google Cardboard to use it as a VR device for the home console. That would be rad.

When I said handheld and console I meant the download code only. As for using the disc somewhere else, it's just like everything else. Disc is free, digital is for the user only. The issue would be having both in the same case and people buying one game and giving the code and keeping the disc. Cartridges would be feasible only if they decreased their royalty costs, and even then a 32GB or 64GB would be expensive, even if based on flash media.

I would start by developing a system like Android where the games scale to more or less powerful hardware, but with only two variables (handheld and home console). Make the handheld as powerful as possible so the console can aim for its graphics in 1080p with better assets and be comparable to PS4/XBO. Clear marketing. Call the systems Nintendo 7 and Nintendo 7 Go. Both run the same games. They could go either way on this: optical media + download code for handheld and console, or cartridges, which would be less ideal. The first method would require Nintendo to have an account based online system that is modern. Make 3D Zelda and 3D Metroid not boring, and new 2D entries in the series. Expand dev teams and make some new games like Metroid that don't have a completely kid-friendly image. Finally, not expiring stars/coins on Club Nintendo. Bastards.

I beat Nightmare mode a while back for the main game and the DLC. It's not very fun, it's just to say I did it more than anything else. Ammo is severely reduced and you die with one shot or two grabs of an android, or by brushing past a toxic room. The alien behaves pretty much like on Survival Mode, in patrol mode more often, which is a bit annoying. Hard is still the way to go. As for the scripting of the alien, it does seem that in a few parts the alien is just a magnet to your location. I always expect it to appear in the room when I'm looking at the doctor's appointments, leaving the sunny control room with the android when escaping the medical bay... in certain locations in the Crew Expandable DLC, which is the most obvious example of predefined behavior.

The SNES was the first one in my house and the one I played. I bought a N64 with my own birthday money. It was a shame Nintendo home console (game) distribution was horrible back then (and through the Gamecube days even worse).

I tried one more time to beat Half Life 1. I can't. That game is so horrible, unplayable, boring, its physics/traction completely off (I played it then and some of its contemporaries too so it's not a generation clash). Quake 1 and 2 might not have much of a story, but they stomp on this overrated mess. I always get tired and burnt out from it.

I don't think this is just modern gaming, earlier generations were full of trash as well. There's going to be the people educated to play better stuff, and those who won't.

I was lucky this Sony was selling close enough for me to drive to, but the most I see are 17" and 15" monitors being sold. Oh and I just found out the Sony does 2048x1536@60hz despite not being able to correctly display 1920x1440. It's a crazy resolution but sadly 60hz is too low. Still impressive though. I spent too much time playing a 360 through composite when I knew nothing about scart rgb nor hooking up the console through VGA, what dark ages those were. Those fonts were unreadable. Speaking of fonts, I disabled the smooth font option on Win7 and did the cleartype test again. Now the letters look great and sharp.

Well that Philips deal didn't go through, but I'm happy with what I've got. Hopefully this Sony will last me some years until newer tech matures.

I was thinking of wrapping the thing in clingfilm and putting it above the floor if possible, maybe with some gel packs if I can find some. CRTs are hard on my eyes if they're at 60hz, 70hz is my minimum for comfortable viewing.

Craziest thing happened. Before I contacted the seller of that Sony, I contacted a seller of a Philips 21" 201B monitor, but after a few messages he stopped responding, but now is back saying he had a health issue, so I can now grab that monitor too for 20 euros. I think I'll grab both and use the one I like best and then keep the other one in storage. Anyone know the best way to safekeep a CRT in a garage without humidity or mould creeping in? By the way, this Philips monitor is not flat but does 2048x1536 at 60hz and 1600x1200 at 85hz! I'll see if I can get 1920x1440 at 70-75hz from it. I hope I can grab it soon.

I've been using CRT monitors all my life and though I've bought a very nice Panasonic plasma sometime ago, it's not suitable for every type of game. Older games and games that I play for very long with a fixed HUD are a danger to it so I always have a monitor hooked up as well. I used a 15" Samtron CRT with 1280x1024 max for a long time and when I built my new desktop PC sometime ago I bought my uncle's 17" Relysis monitor, which served very well and could do crazy resolutions like 1920x1440, despite being from the late 1990's. I never felt the need to buy an LCD monitor, and being exposed to many (good and bad), they didn't sway me from the advantages of old school displays. Yesterday I bought a Sony MultiSync 520GS, a 21" professional (photography) monitor and though it doesn't reach 1920x1440, it does 1600x1200 (almost the same pixel count as 1080p) at 75hz (the Relysis only did it at 70hz) and it's MASSIVE. It's about the height of a 27" 16:9 monitor and a flat screen. I adjusted the colours and brightness and proceeded to play some Aliens Colonial Marines with my buddy (shitty game but tons of fun). I was amazed at how good it felt playing a PC game on a monitor this size, with that beautiful colour and deep black, and amazing response time and 75 frames per second made a horrible game feel good somehow. Older stuff looks good as well and I'm tempted to try out my Dreamcast on this. The best part? It cost me 30 euros. I still need to sort out the font issue, it's a little blurry but I already learned a setting in Windows 7 can disable font smoothing (something CRT technology does already). I still have a CRT TV too for older systems and regular broadcast. I think I will only change monitors when both this and the Relysis fail me, and I hope IPS or OLED Freesync 4K monitors are cheap, though the multiple "native" resolution is still not available apart from CRT (Laser TV was supposed to address this). So, anyone else still rocking a fat ass monitor around here?

I got this disc when I got my Gamecube in 2003. It's in the same case as Mario Kart: Double Dash (dual disc case) and it has a Wind Waker demo. It's a nice bonus, but playing Zelda 1 and 2 with the Gamecube controller was less than ideal and Majora's Mask had technical issues. The higher resolution was nice though. I think it's a better to just play the 2D ones on GBA (with GB Player) and play the superior 3DS versions of the 3D games. Then again, I prefer handhelds to consoles, but damn, OOT 3D looks so much better (but they could have done even better, those flat stairs still bother me).

So the new Call of Duty will be 900p for Xbox One, at least for multiplayer, but now they're not rendering the UI at native resolution independently, which is not a good option in my opinion. I'm much more inclined to accept a lower resolution if the game is designed for it, which means having textures with letters that are readable at 720p/882p/900p or whatever, and rendering the UI at native resolution to avoid blurred fonts. I'm much more sensitive to those than slightly less detail on a guy's beard to be honest.

I think that when pixel shaders became popular with Xbox 360 and PS3, the look of the games made a huge jump and became more realistic, now the limiting factor is with world size and character geometry/complexity and realistic lip sync and movement. The consoles this generation are weird in that they have very, very weak CPUs, which is starting to bottleneck games that don't take time to spread the CPU load among 6 (available) cores. The graphic cards are somewhat reasonable and are a jump from the previous generation, as games like Infamous and Ryse show. It's not bleeding tech anymore because a high end graphics card this generation consumes as much power as these consoles do. While they're not as green as Wii U (and thankfully so), there has to be a sensible limit on the power draw and heat. The jump is getting smaller, with game resolution, texture resolution, polygon count, cloth physics, fluid physics, hair physics, anti-aliasing and so on getting bumped up, as well as effects like depth of field, chromatic aberration or motion blur being used to emulate a filmic/video look. What is surprising (or not once you look at console CPUs) is that a card weaker than a PS4 can run games as well or better than it. Stuff like a Radeon R7 260x (same as 7790) and Nvidia GTX 750 Ti achieving better framerates in games is completely opposite of what happened last generation. To match or surpass a Xbox 360 you needed a higher end card from the year after to have the game look better (8800GT, 3870). Hell, even my crappy (but overclocked) GT 640 can run Alien Isolation in 1080p with 30+fps when I turn shadow mapping down.

I prefered consoles, but since I don't trust Sony or MS, and Nintendo is out of the loop somehow, I shifted to PC. I had been a PC gamer for some time but I didn't know enough then to take advantage of it, and I always had problems with Windows bugging out after some time as well. Now that Windows 7 has come out, and to a lesser extent Steam, I've began researching about CPUs and graphics cards and I am now enjoying games as I want, even though it's more complicated sometimes. My ultimate favourite are handhelds though. My GBA, DS, and even N-Gage gave me so much that I grew an affection for that type of "intimate" game experience. I must get back to my 3DS once I finish Alien Isolation.

On my 42" 1080p plasma tv, the only difference I notice between 1080p and lower is when letters are involved, so the desktop, game UI, HUD and small stuff like chat are where I notice the distorted font, but the game itself and the textures look almost the same to me (until texture quality improves). This is on PC with the TV upscaling, because my Nvidia GPU is horrible for that (and monitor scalers are even worse). With consoles, efficient scalers treat the image and the difference is negligible for me, and some even render the game world in 900p (or whatever resolution) and then overlay the UI/HUD in 1080p (or the native resolution), so you don't notice the upscaling as much. I wish this feature as well as anamorphic resolutions (like 1440x1080) were standard on PC.

I'm at mission 10 (don't know if I've finished it yet) and it's coming along much better than I expected. The atmosphere, look and sound is there, and the gameplay has some substance but it's not difficult to get your head around it, unlike many modern games. The fan service is a little too much, but it's to be expected. The save system is something I'm used to, being a Resident Evil player and generally an old school games fan. It forces you to be methodical and walk (not run!) back to the save point everytime you make progress. A checkpoint system would be difficult to implement unless the game reset all the enemy locations at each checkpoint. As far as cheap deaths, I've finally got around to tasting some last night, where I would be trying to fight an android or open a door and would be killed during a quick time event. One time the alien even dropped down on me (the vent wasn't dripping) and killed me instantly, which was purely an unhappy coincidence, but I finally got around to finishing that section. The thing about this save system is that each time you progress faster and maybe make better choices. I'm currently playing on my PC with 8GB RAM, i3 3220 and a GT 640 2GB DDR3, which the latter is just enough for this game, but not quite there yet for 1080p60 with moderate settings, even overclocked. I have ordered a used Radeon 5850 for really cheap so I can play the Crew Expendable and Last Survivor DLC. As for the type of Alien game that works, I think something in between can work, like Alien Resurrection for the PS1 did, and the first part of the Marine campaign in AvP2. A slow start and legitimately dangerous enemies and limited ammunition would work I think. Something with being infected and having to search for a medical facility or something like that. Actually, I love Alien for the ZX Spectrum/C64/CPC, and even recorded a playthrough of that on youtube. It's still a tense game with those minimalist graphics and all, all you really need is some spaceship rumble playing in the background .

I use Steam for playing my games but also buy some stuff from GOG, and the wonderful Humble Store that gives me a DRM Free version of almost every indie game out there along with a Steam key. That way I can play on Steam but have a backup I can put on an internetless computer or give it to a cousin or something. I plan or building a DRM Free archive of my own on my hard drive as well as DVDs so if something happens, I'll have those. Not discounting the DRM Free games on Steam either like Bioshock, Doom, Doom 2, Quake (DOS version)... I use DropBox as a bridge between systems when I don't have a cable with me or I just want to have something temporarily there. I would never use it as definitive storage. It would be nice if GOG Galaxy caught on with AAA developers, but those seem too in love with DRM, but it's going to be a nice utility to organize DRM Free games without compromise, while keeping me in control still.

This is an issue that I've gone back and forth with for some time. Being an almost exclusive PC gamer now, I find myself divided between having my games on Steam and playing some of those same games DRM-Free. I like Steam for what it is, though I fear for what it might become, as it's still technically DRM, and I've shrugged off my iPod back in the day because I couldn't be bothered to use iTunes, because I didn't find a use for it, and because I didn't like the idea of living in Apple's ecosystem. I have a Google account, but I use DropBox instead of Google Drive (though it's because one came first), the same way I use Windows and have a Hotmail account though I don't care for their extra offerings. I like to have my things separated but still interchangeable. What I mean is, I don't feel very comfortable being in a place where all my stuff is dependent on one entity. I know that Valve has given the hint that if it all goes to hell, they will have measures in place (even if it's for their own games I suppose). GameSpy went down, Games for Windows Live is almost there, etc. The beauty of PC is, if you can't access the games you paid for, there's always an alternative, as shady as it might be. I have played PC since the late 90's, and overtime I became responsible to backup my save games and search for patches myself. On the other hand, I do like having my games in one place and having a profile, even if I have zero interest for the community aspect. Having an application for games just like I have one for movies, photos and a browser makes sense, even if the stuff is tied somewhere else. Maybe GOG Galaxy will be the best of both worlds. Maybe I'm secretly a hippie and don't like being tied to anything, but it's a double edged sword for me. What about you?