Glad you liked Bonapup. When I came across that picture I knew it would fit right into the blog.
I'm pretty excited for Undead Nightmare, that's likely the first thing I'll hop into when the time comes around.
Good luck!
We start again tomorrow. I'll write a blog sometime in the next couple days explaining how the little break went and how the gaming binge turned out.
I really like Bioshock and Infinite but my favorite in that series is Bioshock 2. Better story, much better ending, and better combat overall. The combat is the perfect in-between for people who think Bioshock 1 is too slow, and who think Infinite is too arena-combat and overwhelming. The combat in Bioshock 2 hits a nice median speed because of the dual-wielding and the types of plasmids and weapons they chose to add. By the time you have a lot of the weapons and higher upgrades of plasmids, encounters can get fucking nuts, they're really entertaining to engage with and crazy to look at visually when you're fighting multiple opponents and using mines, traps, charged up plamids that chain together to hit several enemies, and blasting away with weapons all at the same time.
The Minerva's Den DLC by itself is fantastic. There are moments in Minerva's Den that make it a better Bioshock experience than Bioshock 1, 2, and Infinite all put together.
None of the games announced so far are Fallout 5. I still can't be allowed to care about any of this, Nicole. Lol.
The Tomb Raider thing will probably be a timed exclusive, that's all people can afford to do anymore. That's why PS4 and X1 have both have so few exclusives. Things like Tomb Raider and Titanfall are eventually coming to everything else so people's brand loyalty to each company ends up not meaning much in most situations. The answer is to get a PC lol, jk. Not really jk though. lol
Please give me new Fallout
You'll be fine as long as you're observing the old adage of saving often and keeping multiple save files like you should in any game, especially rpgs. The game breaks on me every time I sit down to play it but it never sets me back because of my multiple save files and saving very often. Despite the fact that it's so unstable, it's hardly causing any inconveniences because those precautions.
Glad you're liking New Vegas so far, James. I'm not going to be able to finish it before school starts next Monday but I'm getting pretty close. The game is so unstable and broken it's crazy, it's actually getting much more unstable as I got deeper into the game, but conversely the game content just gets better as you get deeper. So it's a weird situation where you want to see every storyline so badly because they're all fascinating, the DLCs are all pretty great, the main story is my favorite, but game freezes and corrupt saves have become way more frequent now that I'm getting to my favorite parts.
Real sad. He made a lot of good movies and television but I think my favorite was always the movie Jack he did in 1996. I was a kid at the time and when my dad would take me to the rental store I'd often rent Jack and it'd make me laugh and cry.
I probably told you guys my Matrix story a long time ago but since you all brought up thoughts on that movie I guess it'd be funny to bring up my anecdote. I was 11 or 12 when The Matrix came out. I was already in love with video games by that time and had the NES, SNES, and maybe the N64 by that year. I idolized Miyamoto and knew that somehow he used computers to make these magic cartridges I saw on shelves at the rental store, but I didn't have a clue what programming meant and what code looked like.
When I watched The Matrix I had an epiphany of sorts, certainly an imagination expanding experience at the very least, where I extrapolated that Miyamoto must be doing something similar to what building The Matrix was in that story. All the buildings, characters, and monsters in all the games I loved were just numbers and letters, like what Neo sees when he's jacked into the Matrix at the end of that film. It wasn't some magic stork that dropped off Miyamoto's games onto store shelves after he had done some unknown sorcery, it was just him and his team sitting at computers doing something entirely tangible, explainable, and doing something that could be learned.
The Matrix was a great sci-fi adventure, but in the larger picture it stretched my brain in ways that helped me understand video games and computer science better. I came to the conclusion (not worded as well at the time) that Miyamoto was taking his imagination, dreams, and emotions and using a technical skill to manifest them into something tangible that he could share with the world. Once I eventually came to that realization it blew my mind wide open, and watching The Matrix was the catalyst that got that ball rolling.
Onto the Resident Evil news, I don't think I ever told Julian (I might've mentioned it only once on Twitter long ago) but I bought the RE remake for GC and finally got around to playing it in 2012, and loved it. I not only loved it but I finally understood why it's so great. That year was the first time I played Dark Souls, and I bring it up because falling in love with Dark Souls inspired me to try RE1 again and stick to it. The two games have a lot of similarities once you understand how each one works. Both have combat that is pretty simple and straightforward, but can be incredibly difficult if you panic, aren't methodical, and if you don't concede that sometimes the best option is to run. Both games have an open world concept where the sections of the game all feel connected. There's no ice world, level 4, or what have you. Also, the way you save progress and enter a playsession feel very similar. The bonfires in Dark Souls where you establish checkpoints are spread throughout the open world similar to how typewriters are spread through the open concept of Spencer Mansion.
During any given playsession, whether you're fighting a boss, gathering a resource, or just exploring, all your actions are just things being done around a particular checkpoint you chose to activate, and as you find new areas you can activate a checkpoint closer to where you are and that becomes your new hub for the time being. It isn't a save anywhere system, or an autosave system, it's a system of set points and anything you're doing in the game involves you spreading out from that point to accomplish things. Once you play enough of both games you'll see how similar the feel is, how easy it can be to die, how you can lose an hour of progress relatively easily, and how every small adventure spreading out from your checkpoint is a dangerous but exciting risk that needs to be taken. Dark Souls got me to understand Resident Evil, and I love both.
I'm super excited for the HD remaster of the GC remake. I like the tank controls, from a technical perspective they make sense in the context they're in, like Julian was explaining. The controls are logical since you have fixed camera points. If you have fixed cameras but also camera-relative controls, you literally have to take time (might just be half a second, might be a few seconds) to rethink your movement relative to the camera as it changes every single time, which is a hassle and can lead to way more frustration. With the tank controls in RE1 you know what to expect no matter what angle the camera suddenly changes to, it's a smart system.
If Capcom allows me to play the remaster just how I love it, with the GC remake controls, same camera angles, and the same great sound design and save-room theme, but all in beautiful HD, I'll be very happy.
I wanted to contribute to the comfort gaming topic and say that most of the comfort games I go back to play are all Gamecube games for some reason. Maybe it's because I don't have my PS2 anymore, but I do have my GC. Whatever the reasons, every couple years I go back to play Resident Evil 4 and LOTR: The Third Age on GC.
As for newer games, the biggest comfort food game I have is Spelunky. That game is as close to perfect as a game can be. I find that I enjoy it even more than I enjoyed platformers and puzzle games as a kid on NES and SNES. Spelunky is an outstanding evolution of things I loved from game design in the past, mixed with brilliant game design of the present. It's more of a survival puzzle game than it is a platformer, and the focus isn't on combat whatsoever, so it definitely has far more to it that you'd think just by seeing the 2d platformer aesthetic. Also, endlessly replayable, that helps.
How did that version on PC turn out in the end, Blake? I saw it in action but haven't played it for myself yet. 1080p 60 right? It looked like it was performing pretty damn well and looking real nice whenever I saw it. I should go grab that already.
Couldn't be more excited for this, if it all turns out well. I love the GC remake, and I'm one of the people who likes the controls too, so it's nice that you'll still be able to use them. I'll play through this remaster with both control schemes to see what the new one is like as well.
I wonder what they'll do with the music and sound. I love the save-room theme from RE1, hope it's intact in this remaster.
