Video Game General (Official)

[Voltex]

So the creators of Candy Crush have copyrighted/trademarked (one of the two anyway) the word "candy", which is beyond stupid. But now they're also trying to trademark the word "Saga", and are currently trying to get the creators of The Banner Saga to change the title of their game.

 

If this is allowed to pass, I will be so far beyond annoyed.

[Hodor]

Bigger companies have tried to do stupid stuff like that and failed.

[Just A Dot]

Wait... you can copyright common words like Candy? I can understand perhaps the phrase "Candy Crush Saga", but I didn't think you COULD copyright just Candy.

 

But this is kinda off topic, because this is a VIDEO GAME topic

[Primis]

I foresee a repeat of Edge Games...

[Hodor]

I foresee a repeat of Edge Games...

MIRRORS by EDGE Games

[Terminus]

I have three things to say about the whole Candy Crush Saga thing:

1. They claim to be doing it to protect their IP from confusion with competitors. Which is all fine and dandy, but then the first thing they do is go after completely different apps that have "Candy" and "Saga" in the name (that may not have actually been the first thing they did, as they did go after CCS clones, but it sure got the most coverage).
2. It's one of two mobile games I see ads on TV for, the other being Hay Day. With that, it's already got better brand recognition than nearly every other game out on the App Stores, and is probably easy enough to find if you have an iDevice/Android and know how to do a search in the store.
3. It's dumb.

Anyways, while discussion is still on mobile games...

 

I need to get myself Infinity Blade III on my iPod. I really enjoyed the first two (they're the only two iOS games I actually consider games, Angry Birds, Cut the Robe, Hill Climb Racing, etc. are just fun time wasters you pull out while waiting somewhere), and I've been looking forward to the third one for a long time.

Of course, what I'm really hoping will happen sometime in the future is a PS Vita release of Infinity Blade. That would be amazing.

 

 

And in other news... Edge hogging has been removed from Smash 4. Not that it makes much difference in casual play with my friends, but I wonder how this will affect more serious Smash players...

Edited January 22, 2014 by Raku Ichijo

[Just A Dot]

But.... but... edge hogging was not cheap at all! It was completely fair and actually took some legitimate skill to pull off!

 

I'm going to have to see how this plays off. From Sakurai's description, edge hogging has been changed, not removed.

 

EDIT: It looks interesting, actually. The invincibility time is now dynamic, and moves don't change past 100% (not sure I like THAT specific change), but overall looks pretty cool.

Edited January 22, 2014 by Ghabulous Ghoti

[Terminus]

Well, I just got the Jak and Daxter collection for the PS Vita. It's not bad, but the REALLY ANNOYING rear touchpad controls (in place of the L2/R2/L3/R3 buttons) take some getting used to, the framerate is surprisingly low, and the controls in general just feel... Really wonky. Anyone know if this is just how the games are (I wouldn't be surprised, the newest is about 10 years old), or if it's due to this being a bad port?

 

Anyways, It's still fun so far, if I look past the control issues.

[Hodor]

Bad port, mostly. I don't remember J&D's controls being that wonky on the PS2.

 

also man, don't remind me Jak 3 came out almost a decade ago. I feel old all of a sudden.

[Just A Dot]

You feel old? The DS is almost 10 years old now. Let that sink in.

 

I'm going to be getting the Jak and Daxter collection for PS3 this Friday from a friend. What should I expect?

[Terminus]

From what I've read, a much better experience than playing the game on Vita.

 

So far, I've played a bit of Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, It's kinda goofy and lighthearted, the way video games used to be a long time ago. It kinda reminds me of Mario 64, although I'm not really sure if it's the tropical islands and platforming or the low poly count that only looks worse in HD. Probably both.

 

Also, things coming out 10 years ago makes you feel old? I remember this ad on TV (from when video game ads were all pretty entertaining):

Anyways, Smash turned 15 yesterday.

[Just A Dot]

I was like, 3 years old when Smash 64 came out, so I don't remember it. I DO, however, remember getting Tohunga at McDonald's back in the day, as well as that Got Milk? commercial that featured Mario 64.

[Archer Vonn]

What are your guys' Smash mains? I play Ganondorf exclusively 'cause he is by far the coolest looking and I eventually got good with him.

 

that being said i play with the same two friends every single time

 

On another note I'm playing Dark Souls again, I have a love/hate relationship with this game. The combat is the most satisfying probably in any video game ever, but there are some parts which are just beyond infuriating that I don't want to get into

 

speaking of satisfying combat though, brawl has pretty satisfying combat too.

Edited January 23, 2014 by ~JC~

[Ehksidian]

I main Lucario and Wolf

Who cares if they aren't the most competitively viable, they're fun to me.

And when my friend decides to use Pit and spam his side-b-spinny-sword-attack, I always use Meta Knight. Because all he does is spam that attack.

Edited January 23, 2014 by Ehks

[Archer Vonn]

I'm pretty sure Ganon is the straight up worst character, lol. I'm usually all about being MLG but Smash is too fun to really take seriously.

[JiMing]

Sonic and Toon Link are my mains.

 

Mid-tier forever!

Also, I can DACUS sorta. That's the extent of my competitive abilities. =P

[Ehksidian]

my competitive abilities stretch as far as hitting buttons and occasionally hitting people.

i'm awful but it's so fun

i love it so much

[Lyichir]

Yoshi used to be my main back when I played Smash. He's more than that now that I can't remember anyone else's movesets.

Regarding the Candy Crush fiasco, I'm just going to be that guy who points out that they tried to TRADEMARK Candy, not COPYRIGHT it. Not that that makes it any less ridiculous.

Edited January 23, 2014 by Lyichir

[Just A Dot]

Well, in Smash Bros. 64, I main Falcon, and second as Link, sometimes playing as Luigi. In Melee, I main Marth and Fox, and sometimes switch them out for Falcon or Jiggs. In Brawl, I main Marth and Falco, with Falcon and Snake as seconds, and occasionally play a bit less seriously with Toon Link, Luigi, Sonic, Ganon, or pretty much anyone.

 

I got to hang out with a tournament player (a bit higher level than me) for about an hour yesterday. I did manage to beat him a few times, but mostly because Marth is easy to play in Melee, and seems to edgeguard against Fox particularly well (the guy was a Fox main).

 

It's VERY rare that I play anything other than tournament style these days. Occasionally I'll do a free for all with items and dumb stages with some more casual friends, but it seems that most of my non-hardcore Smash friends aren't even gamers!

Edited January 23, 2014 by Ghabulous Ghoti

[Flipz]

In Smash, I main a mostly-equal combo of Lucario, Pikachu, Ike, Pokemon Trainer, and Toon Link, with the occasional R.O.B. or Snake thrown in if I'm bored of the others. I fail a lot, though.

[Hodor]

Zelda/Sheik and Samus are my mains when I play Smash.

 

Also what're some games you like in spite of their bad rep? I'm kind of fond of the NES A Nightmare on Elm Street game, honestly. It's surprisingly fun. Splatterhouse 2009 also got a somewhat undeserved reputation, too.

[Just A Dot]

Bad reputation? Admittedly, as horrible as BIONICLE: The Game is, I had a lot of fun Let's Playing it. I guess if you consider Luigi's Mansion to have pretty "meh" reviews a bad reputation, then that because it's my 3rd favoritest game of all time. Superman 64 is no where near as bad as people make it out to be. Not a good game by any means, but for the $2 I got it for, I think it was worth it. Mario Sunshine is overhated to an extreme extent.

 

PowerPuff Girls: Chemical X-Traction is considered one of the worst games ever made in the 5th gen, but I still, to this day, can have fun with it. It's a horribly broken fighter, but when friends see that I have it, we usually will spend the next hour or two just having a blast in that game. It has it's own degree of fun, to see who can pull off the next 0-to-death combo.

[Archer Vonn]

._.

 

playing bioshock on hard w/o vita chambers for the trophy, breezing through it. get about three quarters of the way through it, fighting a rosie, figure it's a good idea to save partway through the battle. i seem to have saved AS i was dying, though. i dont get time to hit circle and heal before i collapse. does this null my playthrough? yeah, pretty much. gonna have to activate vita chambers if i dont want to have to restart.

 

this is actually the second time i've tried to get this trophy and failed. maybe i'll just skip ahead to the survivor one w/o chambers.

Edited January 23, 2014 by ~JC~

[Lyichir]

Games I like in spite of a bad reputation? Hmm... I've liked games that are divisive (Bionicle Heroes DS, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Yoshi's Story, Lego Battles, Super Paper Mario), but not many that have a near-universal bad rep. The only ones I've even played that would qualify are games like Lego Rock Raiders that were practically unplayable, and I certainly didn't like those.

I guess Zelda II might count? But I can really only tolerate that because I played it on the 3DS virtual console, and the restore points took the edge off some of the iffy design elements.

[Just A Dot]

Zelda II was fantastic, and I beat it BEFORE the savestate version came out on 3DS (I'm an Ambassador)!

[Terminus]

Only examples I can think of for game that I've liked that everybody seems to hate are Super Mario Sunshine and Final Fantasy XIII.

 

Pretty much everything else I play is either generally well recieved, or so niche that I there aren't really many other opinions out there.

 

Anyways, I've generally mained Samus since I started playing Smash, although I also really like Roy/Ike, Peach, Fox, and Kirby.

[Noxryn]

Also what're some games you like in spite of their bad rep?

Final Fantasy XIII, I liked the characters and the story itself and while I can definitely see flaws with the game it was still a memorable experience. Plus, I liked the Paradigm Shift mechanic (Although hated how if the character you were controlling died, that was it). Most other games I play tend to have good reviews amongst the people who play them (Tales of Xillia, Disgaea, Magica, some popular online games like League of Legends and Guild Wars 2). FPS games tend not to be so much fun for me anymore, though I did have a lot of fun playing Homefront despite the complaints about poor graphic quality for the time and having a small pool of maps to play on, with new releases often having a lot of bugs (Well, the amount of maps in current FPS games is laughable at best, so that complaint I had a hard time taking seriously).

[Wazdakka]

Xbox One has now sold 3.9 million copies - it's still at least three hundred thousand short of the PS4, but it's gaining.

[Just A Dot]

And still less than the Wii U did in the same amount of time!

[Hodor]

Xbox One has now sold 3.9 million copies - it's still at least three hundred thousand short of the PS4, but it's gaining.

Not for long. PS4 hasn't launched worldwide yet- the second it hits Japan, it's going to gain a huge boost in sales.

 

Also why are they announcing another model at E3 (and if the statements of the devkits having kinects, probably a genuinely gameless model).

 

It's not even half a year old.

[Alex Humva]

You know, why do some people keep comparing the Xbone/PS4's sales this early on? Yeah it's a good gauge of initial reaction but it's not really measuring the worth of the console. Come back in four years and we'll look at the figures; right now they're ebbing and flowing, subject to quite a bit of change.

[Just A Dot]

Yeah. Anyone else remember how NO ONE had a PS3 for the first few years? It wasn't even close to Xbox, and look at it now.

[Archer Vonn]

ps3 had an extra 100 dollars tapped onto it in an even worse economy and it had less militant fans. it did well in the long run because the reason it was $600 eventually did pay off. meanwhile the xbox one is a $200 machine with a $300 camera, the latter and more expensive part of that being the thing that developers and gamers almost universally dislike.

 

@alex: why compare sales at all? why not just look at the differences between the consoles and formulate opinions based on those? because opinions are subjective but figures aren't and if you MUST pick a fight online you can't show up with your only your opinion. the ps4 is selling more and in less places. two marketplaces to the xbox one's thirteen (those numbers might've changed) and god knows sony isn't even coming close to meeting demand.

 

@hodor: on a similar topic, my friend's xbone kinect broke and he claims the console is barely usable without it. it's frustrating to get through the UI and operating anything outside of the basic features (IE redeeming live codes) is difficult if not totally impossible. as a similar point, i've been using my 360 a lot. it makes a ton of noise and the controller is overly fragile (ever so slight damage to the battery pack and your controller is disconnecting every time it vibrates, i had to turn that feature off). microsoft, ironically, doesn't make very good tech.

Edited January 26, 2014 by ~JC~

[Hodor]

Sales also matter because of things like install base. From a standpoint of a developer, what's better to develop for first (for a console, that is)- the system that's sold over 4mil units in two territories worldwide, with more to come, or the one that opened in thirteen and is lagging behind still?

 

The one that's selling like hot cakes. While it doesn't matter much to us, it really does matter to groups like EA, who're going to persue the PS4 over the XBox because of the better sales of the former.

 

also speaking of EA.

 

Laughing about them 'dropping support for Nintendo despite good efforts'. Yes, two yearly sports titles and an awful, buggy release of Mass Effect 3 a week after Trilogy came out on PS3 and 360 is 'good efforts'. Good job, Electronic Arts. You really are the heroes gaming deserves.

 

I think they're mad about Nintendo telling them to get bent after they tried to force Origin as the main online/shop software. And that Nintendo, supposedly, didn't want Bioware anywhere near a Zelda game they wanted to do.

 

Could you imagine a Bioware made Zelda game? Zelda's plot is simplistic fair tale stuff and it works. Bioware trying to shove in laughably shallow morality systems, the dialogue wheel, poorly done grey-grey morality, and terribad romances into that would result in catastrophe.

 

On top of that, they abuse the monomyth even worse than Zelda already does.

 

@~JC~: What really baffles me about the Kinect in the XBone is how nobody liked the original. Not in the gaming field, at least. Outside of it, though, the Kinect is a decent camera for all sorts of crazy stuff. Like security and medical research- the Kinect is very capable of tracking movements and the aspects of a person. It's just nightmarishly hard to make that work in a game.

 

Why would they base their system entirely around an accessory that nobody liked the first time? It makes no sense.

 

I haven't really had much of a problem with my 360, personally. That's probably because I've mostly been using it for Netflix and watching movies lately, though.

[Just A Dot]

So, in my house, we are now moving my Wii U from the basement to the main living room on the big 60 inch HDTV there. It's plasma, and lags little enough that outside of Smash Bros. it won't bother me. This is because we are getting rid of cable and my dad wants Hulu and Netflix on the TV. Oh, and after he saw his brother and I play through portions of The Last of Us, he is interested in gaming.

[Dapper-Sama]

Oh, and after he saw his brother and I play through portions of The Last of Us, he is interested in gaming.

This makes me happy.

 

Weird how the most depressing western games are Zombie Survival-Horror?

[Flipz]

 

Oh, and after he saw his brother and I play through portions of The Last of Us, he is interested in gaming.

This makes me happy.

 

Weird how the most depressing western games are Zombie Survival-Horror?

 

It's because most Western value systems emphasize individuality, freedom, hope, and triumph over adversity, and zombie apocalypse stories neatly demolish all four. Thus, depression.

 

On a related but completely different note, there was a really bizarre article I read a few years ago that claimed that vampires represent everything Republicans fear about Democrats and zombies represent what Democrats fear about Republicans. I should try to find that again, it was hilarious but also sort of made sense, to a degree.

[Archer Vonn]

 

Oh, and after he saw his brother and I play through portions of The Last of Us, he is interested in gaming.

This makes me happy.

 

Weird how the most depressing recent western games are Zombie Survival-Horror?

 

 

fixed, and that only applies to two games so I call coincidence.

 

Halo 3 is so fun I hate Reach (and 4 but not so much 4) for killing off H3's multiplayer. My gamertag is dePrinced if anyone wants to do some custom games.

Edited January 26, 2014 by ~JC~

[Just A Dot]

 

 

Oh, and after he saw his brother and I play through portions of The Last of Us, he is interested in gaming.

This makes me happy.

 

Weird how the most depressing western games are Zombie Survival-Horror?

 

It's because most Western value systems emphasize individuality, freedom, hope, and triumph over adversity, and zombie apocalypse stories neatly demolish all four. Thus, depression.

 

On a related but completely different note, there was a really bizarre article I read a few years ago that claimed that vampires represent everything Republicans fear about Democrats and zombies represent what Democrats fear about Republicans. I should try to find that again, it was hilarious but also sort of made sense, to a degree.

 

Was this on Cracked, perchance?

[Hodor]

so jewwario, one of the go-to video reviewers for import games, committed suicide on thursday.

 

RIP.