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B0NK3RS, do games w The N64
@B0NK3RS@lemmy.world avatar

N64 is one of my favourites but also the hardest to go back to after all these years.

takeheart,
@takeheart@lemmy.world avatar

My family still has one but the image quality is terrible on modern big screen TVs because

  1. It’s stretched out and native resolution of N64 is already tiny by today’s standards.
  2. Unnatural aspect ratio unless you can set black bars somehow.
  3. Modern displays have sharper pixel separation and colors don’t ‘bleed’ into each other as much which kinda helped the rough polygons of that era.

The result is a picture that is both sharp and blurry at the same time and gives me head aches after an hour or so.

takeheart, do games w The N64
@takeheart@lemmy.world avatar

It surely has its technical flaws but that’s not what mattered to most buyers. Most people bought it to experience fun games and on that end it delivered. remember that at the time gaming was still breaking into main stream society and 3D games were on the frontier both technically and design wise.

Games like Ocarina of Time and Mario 64 really contributed to the design patterns of how 3d games could look like. Back in the day you simply didn’t have as many choices when it came to hardware. What really hurt its game catalog was that apparently it was hard to program for. Who knows what other games we might have seen if the barrier had been lower.

Speaking of the controller: yes, it wasn’t so good and the center joystick tended to wear out too quickly. Rumble pak was a fun gadget and really added to the immersion. What was terrible on the other hand was that the console lacked internal storage and many games would require you to purchase an additional memory pack (which slotted into the controller). That wasn’t just a technical deficiency but felt very anti consumer.

towerful,

Any older disk based console also required a memory card.
Pretty sure the controller was the first to have an analogue joystick.
I think a lot of the quirks of the N64 were because they were essentially first drafts. A lot of first, a lot of ground breaking tech.
Nobody knew what they were doing, at that time: nothing was wrong

smeg,

What was terrible on the other hand was that the console lacked internal storage and many games would require you to purchase an additional memory pack (which slotted into the controller). That wasn’t just a technical deficiency but felt very anti consumer.

I never had many n64 games but I only remember one actually needing the external memory pak. Most first-party games could just save to the cartridge, it’s only a few third parties that cheaped out and didn’t implement that. Meanwhile the PS1 was memory cards only.

Also I don’t think any console had internal storage until the Xbox which introduced a hard disk while the GameCube and PS2 were still using memory cards!

takeheart,
@takeheart@lemmy.world avatar

Ok, now that you mention it: I think the difference is that (at least in my region) the PlayStation was sold with a memory card included. Standalone memory cards for it were cheap. N64 came without a memory pack and they were more expensive.

IIRC PS also had a more granular slot size (eg gran turismo takes up 1 slot while final fantasy takes up 3 slots) while on the N64 it was large and fixed (each game takes up one large slot even if that slot doesn’t use up all the data).

In hindsight that has me wondering why they didn’t go for dynamic slot size 🤔. Maybe because a save file could grow over time and they wanted to ensure that you could always overwrite/update?

PerogiBoi, do games w The N64
@PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca avatar

The controller was not ergonomic and designed for cool alien looks rather than actual accessibility or usability. That’s my beef with the controller.

That said as a kid I thought it was the absolute coolest thing.

smeg,

It was designed so you could use left and right for a traditional 2D game, or middle and right for one of these newfangled 3D games that they didn’t know whether they’d catch on. GoldenEye also had a sort of proto-dual-stick layout where you could use left and middle!

squirrel, do gaming w Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 2nd
@squirrel@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I’ve been playing Hollow Knight the last couple of days. Sadly I’m now at a point where the bossfights are getting too hard. I’ll keep trying though.

ConstableJelly,

Good luck my friend. Hollow Knight is a special one, but those bosses can be punishing. A few of them took me separate sessions over a few days, which is a frustrating way to play games for me, but it’s such a rewarding experience otherwise. I recently rewatched my recording of beating one of the bosses and I was fumbling so bad, I could see my own desperation in the way I was playing.

Apparently there’s a secret phase for the final boss that I was more than happy to experience via YouTube. I was perfectly satisfied with just rolling the credits.

cRazi_man,

Hollow Knight is the greatest game of all time for me. I replayed it recently and it was such a different experience for me to move through confidently and quickly when I had a grasp of combat from the beginning. It took me months to finish it the first time because of getting lost and not knowing where to go next.

Some generic (no spoiler) tips:

  • go in another direction and come back to the boss later if that’s possible. If a boss is way too difficult then there may be an upgrade you haven’t gotten yet.
  • take your time. It is more important to save your health rather than rushing to get a hit in. Sometimes it’s worth going to a boss and not hitting him at all and just focus on learning movement, patterns and figuring out where the openings are.
  • play around with your charms and get the best setup you need to help with the boss fight.
  • try to avoid attacks by running into the gap in projectiles rather than relying on dashes all the time.
  • if you’re coming to thinking of quitting the game based on difficulty, then there’s no shame in watching a boss guide video on YouTube. Or space it out with a secondary game so you can play something else and come back later.
squirrel,
@squirrel@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Thanks for the tips. I’m at such an early stage that I can’t even dash yet. It’s an ability that comes later right? Or am I missing something?

cRazi_man,

Possibly. The very early part of the game is linear. Very quickly in this game you’ll find it impossible to look up a guide because it is so non-linear, and it is really difficult to judge where you are in the game because you might have done things in a completely different order. Generally, early bosses just take a bit of practice and pattern recognition, and tend not to be reliant on upgrades.

Pyro, do gaming w Is Disco Elysium playable in short bursts?

To add to the other commentators, it also has a task list / journal which should help you remember things to do through sessions.

kurcatovium,

Nice, thank you. This should be very helpful in case I won’t have time to play at all. Which is what sometimes happen, life is life, so you never know…

wtypstanaccount04, do trains w Seibu 2000 series serving the Seibu Ikebukuro line as an express train
@wtypstanaccount04@hexbear.net avatar

This is a fun series, but has been getting increasingly bizarre, even by its own standards.

I kinda wish they put a little bit more effort into the anime (overhead wires, signals, correct tracks, etc.) but the fact that it all takes place after the 7G event makes these issues handwaveable.

zabadoh, do trains w Abt System Train on the Oigawa Railway, Japan
bionicjoey, do games w What are some excellent free games/total conversions that are worth playing the whole thing?

The Elder Kings 2 mod for Crusader Kings 3 is pretty amazing. It lets you roleplay in the Elder Scrolls universe, but instead of a Skyrim-style rpg, it’s a grand strategy game with intricate political and relationship mechanics.

Archelon, do games w What are some excellent free games/total conversions that are worth playing the whole thing?

I really enjoyed The Last Days of the Third Age, a lord of the rings TC for Mount and Blade: Warband.

It takes Warband’s medieval lord sim and focuses hard on the warfare side of things with lots of huge battles on giant maps, but even tiny skirmishes can affect a faction’s strength. (And with so many factions on both sides of the War of the Ring, you need to pick what to focus on)

bionicjoey,

M&B has so many amazing TC mods.

Sanctus, do games w What are some excellent free games/total conversions that are worth playing the whole thing?
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

Beyond All Reason is an open source RTS similar to Total War. Here is their website.

B0NK3RS,
@B0NK3RS@lemmy.world avatar

Never heard of BAR before so thanks for this. Looks amazing and can’t wait to try.

Fizz,
@Fizz@lemmy.nz avatar

I learnt about bar from lemmy and have been hooked for months. Such a fun game, it’s Foss and has a great community.

PunkiBas,

BAR is awesome, but it’s nothing like Total war, it’s similar to Supreme commander or total annihilation.

Sanctus,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

Ah, I meant Total Annihilation. Sorry haven’t played those two, just heard that total annihilation was very similar. I’ll leave my descriptors alone next time.

terminhell, do gaming w Why are arcade cabinets so expensive?

The cabinet and it’s own electronics.

sleepybisexual,

They have custom boards?

I thought they emulated nowadays

MajorHavoc,

Yeah. You’re both right.

The board is a usually a cheap single board computer (usually running Android, and an emulator or two).

The board is custom to the extent that the operating system has been optimized to know that it’s running inside an arcade cabinet.

terminhell,

I guess what I meant a bit more specifically are things like buttons, the screen, cables, any daughter boards needed for like special lights, speakers etc. stuff beyond, as you mentioned.

Notyou, do gaming w Is Disco Elysium playable in short bursts?

I’m not adding anything new, but I wanted to agree with others saying playing in bursts is fine. I would suggest at least 1 hour, if not more. If you don’t have an hour just wait till you do. I played it in burst, but there is so much to read that a shorter amount of time won’t do it justice.

Definitely worth playing. Multiple times too. I played my first go one way and now I’m playing a completely different Tequila Sunrise.

jaycifer, do games w What are some excellent free games/total conversions that are worth playing the whole thing?

There are several good total conversions for Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion. Star Trek Armada 3 is the most complete overhaul I’ve played for it. I’m a big fan of Halo spaceships and the Sins of the Prophets mod is the closest thing I’ve seen capture the asynchronous battle between UNSC and Covenant ships. There are others for Star Wars and Stargate that I hear are good, but I have not tried them.

LainTrain, do games w What should I understand about Guardians of the Galaxy as someone who's never watched any of the movies but I'm playing the game right now?

They’re a team of misfits who go about the galaxy doing stuff, mostly good stuff but sometimes petty. That’s it!

It’s actually better to not have seen the movies or read the comics or played the somewhat rightfully forgotten telltale game as this game’s version of the characters differs from all and it’s best to take it as it is rather than having “I wish it was more like the movies” in the back of your head.

turnerpike20,

I’m disappointed that TellTale was shut down. Anyway yeah it’s not the game I’m talking about I assume you know that cause your pointing out other examples I just want to be clear.

VaultBoyNewVegas,

Telltale is actually around again under a different name. They made the expanse episodic game and it felt the same as their older stuff.

LainTrain,

Need to check this out now. I loved TWD S1/S2 and TWAU

Capitao_Duarte, do gaming w Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of June 2nd

Just started The Forest and Stardew Valley. Was looking for something like minecraft, but with flavor

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