Videogame Discussion Thread

This is definitely true, and I would have found it difficult to recommend prior to the new Mario game releasing to be honest. The PS4 with a bunch of games is definitely the cheaper route, though I am not sure what games are on that system for younger kids, as mine is only used for Naughty Dog titles and Horizon Zero Dawn.

 

The main value add of the switch is its portability, if you want your kids to be able to take it with them, switch is the clear winner. Otherwise, a PS4 is a very affordable used option, as others have stated.

 

All great points and thanks so much! Thinking about it a bit more, while having the portable aspect would be nice, since I have twins they'd likely just be fighting over it all the time, or else I'd have to get two, which would be a bit more expensive. And I love the idea of just getting a bunch of new games (at least new to them) for the Wii U, as that should hold them over for a while. Thanks all!

 

At that age group, it's the Switch. No question. Any alternative is nonsense.

This is coming from a lifelong Sony guy.

The 13 year old is the exception. They're Playstation ready. The others are not.

*EDIT* Sticking with the Wii U is fine, too, obviously. Though, I don't have any experience with it. I thought it was kind of a bust...?

 

The Wii u is still very good and has many good games. I still use Wii u, and Wii, and GameCube (well, Wii that accepts GameCube discs and controllers)

 

I played it since the beta, and have gone through the whole cycle, and am now fed up with it

(It's an amazingly polished and cleverly-constructed game, and a lot more playable than CS or TF2... I just got fed up with the toxicity and poor community management, the spamming of new poorly-differentiated and half-baked new heroes, and the disorientating seemingly random buff/nerf cycle that poor Mercy has been subject to..)

 

Yeah I'm sure I'll get there at some point. It still feels pretty fresh for now. I'm staying well away from the ranked games for a while as I suspect those will be full of people taking it all very seriously

 

It didn't come anywhere near to Nintendo's predicted sales numbers and also fell behind the PS4 and XBOX ONE. But the Wii U is indeed a very good system, and it can play all Wii games as well so a very large library of great games. Several Mario and Zelda titles.

The reason it didn't sell well probably has to do with why the Wii was so successful in the first place. The Wii capitalized heavily on sales to younger and casual players, even people in retirement homes starting playing Wii games if you remember. But this demographic probably didn't really see the need to upgrade from the Wii to the Wii U when it came out, both are stationary systems and the controller on the Wii U is a little weird. Some people thought the Wii U was a portable system at first because of the way the controller looks but it's not, they're both stationary.

So the Wii U was a little bit of an oddball and didn't really provide enough reason for anyone in the casual crowd to upgrade. And many of those that did upgrade from the Wii started looking at the Playstation or XBOX instead. Some hardcore nintendo fans upgraded from Wii to Wii U for sure, but the majority of casual users didn't. Still, the Wii U is a great little system even to this day. Performance is pretty close to the Switch.

You can basically think of the Switch as a "portable Wii U with non-compatible cartridges".

 

While I think Breath of the Wild (and Mario Odyssey) was worth the cost of the Switch for me, I really hope some more party games come out for it soon. The greatest strengths of the Wii and the Wii U were the games where 4 people could play with or against each other. Made get togethers a blast. So far, the Switch has been disappointing in that regard, and as of yet, there is no official word of either Mario Party or Super Smash Bros coming any time soon. Even stuff like Wii Sports and Nintendoland would be welcome again.

 

Star Wars Battlefront 2 has been tickling my gaming bone lately. Playing SWBF2 with modded HD800 has offered epic moments while trolling around the galaxy. Very cinematic experience. Not for everyone tho, single player campaign is way too short effort.

 

Wow, you're the first person I've come across who actually plays Battlecrate. All my usual clan/guild/whatever types have been refusing to touch it with someone else's bargepole. The reviews of the SP haven't been exactly encouraging, either.

Oh totally. It's polished to the sort of insane sheen that only Blizzard can manage, it looks and feels amazing. You should enjoy the ludicrous amount of shiny there.

I think I got burnt out as they cranked the ingame credit costs of the loot crate stuff to the point where it was more or less physically impossible to unlock those items ingame without paying extra money (I think that started during the one year anniversary event, which was sufficiently predatory to start a half-hearted player backlash).

However, it's hard not to admire the art style, the flow and quality of the maps, the fluid animation cues, the insanely good 3D audio and sound design etc.. Really impressive stuff.

I suppose the next question is... how long until I can call you a "Hanzo main" whenever you misbehave?

 

Haha currently flitting between the demo guy, sniper girl and Mercy. All good fun but yeah I can see why a person would get burned out on it eventually.

Wrt Battlecrate 2, f**k EA and their bullshit. I cancelled my pre-order and won't be touching any of their games until they change their ways (unlikely).

 

I love that Disney phoned up and had A Word about dragging their marquee property through the mire just prior to a massive marketing campaign/movie release- one that the "free" Battlecrate 2 DLC was supposed to help push. Allegedly, that's why the "micro" transactions are currently temporarily disabled.

 

Yeah I've been following it closely via a few tech YouTubers. EA want to "Fifa-size" all their games with copious microtransactions. They've said they'll re-enable them in BF2 at some point and they'll still be tied to progression. My money is on them doing it once the Last Jedi hoo-ha has passed early 2018.

Thank goodnes for CD Projekt Red.

 

..though apparently they treat their devs just as badly as any other games dev, sadly.

Still, I saw the "we'll leave the greed to other people" thing, and thought that was interesting. They set the bar very high indeed with Witcher 3, those porkers will need to really deliver something special right out of the gate to make Cyberpunk live up to the expectations most of us have.

On the loot box front, I'm still playing Destiny 2 on the PC- I got the license with a video card. The loot boxes in that are almost hilarious irrelevant, I don't know anyone who has paid for even one of them. Given that it's published by Activision, which is huge and evil, I can't help thinking that they're missing a trick.

 

I bought the entire Witcher series twice, good games and policies get my money. Bad ones don't. Simple as that.

If any game is available on gog.com I also buy it there instead of steam. No DRM and gog.com is part of CD Project as you probably know.

 

Sanctum 2 is free now for limited time on Humble Bundle, if anyone's interested.

 

Golf Story on switch is the best game I’ve played in a long time. We’ve got all the consoles and switch just gets the most play time. It’s games are easier to pick up and out down. I feel like I have to set aside at least an hour to accomplish something on PS4.

 

To this end, Witcher 3 with all the addons is at a solid discount in the Steam sale right now. If you're a PC gamer, and haven't played it, you owe it to yourself to pick it up.

Yes, it got hyped. Yes, the controls are kinda janky. However, it is genuinely every bit as good as the hype suggests, irritatingly. It's beautiful, clever, well-written and truly raised the bar for video gaming. I wanted to be underwhelmed with it, but was thoroughly impressed.

(..and daamn, dat Bloody Baron quest, def. a high point for ambivalent heroes and grey areas in video games, wonderful stuff.)