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This Week in Games - Secret Gaming Shame


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FrodoGate222



Joined: 21 Jun 2019
Posts: 107
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 8:19 am Reply with quote
Don't worry! I haven't played the Monkey Island games as well even though I have them on Steam. One of my close Discord friends is heavily into the series and wants me to play them......now that I think about it, my Steam backlog is massive Laughing
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maximilianjenus



Joined: 29 Apr 2013
Posts: 2905
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 8:37 am Reply with quote
well, the unionized worked have their union, so what's the problem?
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Hal14



Joined: 01 Apr 2018
Posts: 717
Location: Heart of africa
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 8:41 am Reply with quote
Which older games have you never found the time to experience?

FF7, Persona 3, any Dragon quest game before 8, any F-zero game, any Star fox game, any Kirby game before the recent one.
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Greed1914



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
Posts: 4640
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 8:44 am Reply with quote
Despite being the right age for them, point-and-click games are something I've played very little. The first PC we had at home was too old to run them. (We're talking monochrome screen) The next could have, but the genre was kind of on its way out by then, and at that age, I wasn't able to buy my own games. The only game like that that I played completely was Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and that was at school, so it took basically a whole school year to finish since it could only be played a little bit at a time.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 6313
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 10:17 am Reply with quote
Greed1914 wrote:
Despite being the right age for them, point-and-click games are something I've played very little. The first PC we had at home was too old to run them. (We're talking monochrome screen) The next could have, but the genre was kind of on its way out by then, and at that age, I wasn't able to buy my own games. The only game like that that I played completely was Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and that was at school, so it took basically a whole school year to finish since it could only be played a little bit at a time.


It’s funny I remember when we got our first computer we had Fate Of Atlantis and I think Secret of Monkey Island but could never get them to work….but the one Simpson game we had worked for some reason.

Quote:
But can a remake really capture what made Max Payne so special back in 2001?


People actually said more or less the same thing about the 3rd game offering up some of the most inane takes imaginable and yet many of those takes turned cold.

All that said these remakes could only improve upon the original games

Maybe take out the drug induced mindtrips from the first game (or make them not suck).

Have the first game’s story feel like less of three story drafts that were merged into one. Cause they couldn’t decide.

Maybe not spoiler[kill almost every surviving character from the first game sans Max.]

Let players play as Mona in both games instead of only briefly in the second.
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John Thacker



Joined: 28 Oct 2013
Posts: 1009
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 10:50 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Activision, in their unending quest to be the most two-faced villains of the gaming industry, recently announced that they would be converting over 1,000 temporary and contract QA workers to full-time employees, guaranteeing minimum 20-dollars-an-hour pay. That's great! Except for the part they neglected to mention in their big press release was that this isn't going to apply to the recently unionized QA testers at their Raven Software division. Oopsies!


Of course it won't. Pay for unionized employees had to be collectively bargained, not a unilateral change by management. Particularly since unions tend to negotiate higher levels od benefits, which are a cost just like wages. You can't expect to get that for free, of course, in the same way that employers respond to wages negotiated higher than productivity by increasing work demands, making the work environment cheaper, etc. Or conversely how nice work environments (extras like food, perks like haircuts) are used to suppress wage demands.

Unions are an understandable selfish reaction in times of high unemployment, just like rent control, as they both have the effect of freezing out newcomers. It's always better to just have a low unemployment and high housing abundance situation, but when poor policy (regulatory, monetary, etc.) denies you that, people will look into them.
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Mavado



Joined: 17 Jul 2017
Posts: 85
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 1:54 pm Reply with quote
what's your secret gaming shame?

I've never beaten Glass Joe in Punch Out!
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Nate148



Joined: 24 May 2012
Posts: 512
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:17 pm Reply with quote
John Thacker wrote:
Quote:
Activision, in their unending quest to be the most two-faced villains of the gaming industry, recently announced that they would be converting over 1,000 temporary and contract QA workers to full-time employees, guaranteeing minimum 20-dollars-an-hour pay. That's great! Except for the part they neglected to mention in their big press release was that this isn't going to apply to the recently unionized QA testers at their Raven Software division. Oopsies!


Of course it won't. Pay for unionized employees had to be collectively bargained, not a unilateral change by management. Particularly since unions tend to negotiate higher levels od benefits, which are a cost just like wages. You can't expect to get that for free, of course, in the same way that employers respond to wages negotiated higher than productivity by increasing work demands, making the work environment cheaper, etc. Or conversely how nice work environments (extras like food, perks like haircuts) are used to suppress wage demands.

Unions are an understandable selfish reaction in times of high unemployment, just like rent control, as they both have the effect of freezing out newcomers. It's always better to just have a low unemployment and high housing abundance situation, but when poor policy (regulatory, monetary, etc.) denies you that, people will look into them.

Hey, look folks missing the point hard the point being that AVB is excluding the union employees to try and weaken/break the union. I think if they showed what they are doing to the union with no gatchas they would be on board that was much of there point.
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invalidname
Contributor



Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 2482
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:30 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
So, like I mentioned above… what's your secret gaming shame? Let's all share the medium-defining titles that, for some reason, we've never actually played!

I half expected you to bring up your running joke from a few years ago about having never played any of the Muv-Luv games. Speaking of, sometime you have a slow news week, you could tour the wreckage over in that franchise. They had to pull both their ambitious Steam game Project Mikhail and their gacha game Immortals due to launch disasters. In the latter case, players apparently figured out how to clone their pre-registration bonuses, giving themselves infinite loot.

Anyways, as for secret gaming shames, as much as I like JRPGs, I’ve never played a Persona game (getting Strikers free from PS+ doesn’t count). Since I’ve enjoyed the silly school stuff in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, I suspect I’d like it, but at this point, I think I’m just holding out for a Switch version of P5, so that I’m not tied to my couch playing it on PS4.
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Triltaison



Joined: 03 Jul 2011
Posts: 796
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:30 pm Reply with quote
I, too, have Monkey Island as a secret shame. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Sierra adventure game lover from the 90s, but I never had access to it. I never knew anyone who owned it, didn't know what order they needed to be played in, and wasn't totally sure what kind of game it was or if I'd like it. Maniac Mansion was the same, but it appeared on the Internet Archive a few years back so I at least have dabbled a bit with that one now.

Other shames: I've never played a GTA, Call of Duty, Resident Evil, or Metal Gear (except for Metal Gear itself which apparently doesn't really count). I've also never beaten A Link to the Past. I have it on multiple systems and have beaten almost every other Zelda multiple times, but I've never gotten very far with it despite Zelda being one of my favorite franchises.

That reminds me, several of the Zelda remasters are shining examples of how to do a rerelease for a modern console in my book. Utilizing the gyroscope of the 3ds to help with bow mechanics in Ocarina of Time was a fantastic addition. Aiming could have been a nightmare translating the N64 controls, but that one worked great. I also really appreciated the tweaking of sailing mechanics added in the Wii U version of Windwaker. I honestly prefer to play it rather than the GameCube version because of them.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4807
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:45 pm Reply with quote
Speaking of great remakes, Metroid: Zero Mission has to rank right up near the top. The original Metroid is obviously a seminal title, but playing it nowadays is rough, even if you're using savestates. Zero Mission took the basic structure of the original game, expanded on it in multiple ways (including an excellent additional area), gave it stronger ties into the overall series lore, and made it all run on Fusion's fantastic engine, and it was a total blast. Samus Returns was also a pretty cool take on Metroid II.

As for gaming shames...well, too many to count. One of the worst has to be never playing Super Mario World, but at least I finally checked off Super Metroid last year. I've also never played Monkey Island, or really any of the classic LucasArts titles. My journey into the adventure game world pretty much begins and ends with the Myst series.
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FunkyDude88



Joined: 01 Oct 2021
Posts: 108
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:02 pm Reply with quote
The best remakes/remasters are the ones that are essentially what the original game would have been if they were made with modern technology. Unfortunately those are very rare. The two best ones I can think of are Resident Evil for the Gamecube and Metroid: Zero Mission. Those are the kinds of remakes that I will genuinely prefer over the original and feel like I not only did not lose anything, but gained so much more. I'm tempted to put Trials of Mana/Seiken Densetsu 3 on that list as well since it was an amazing remake. I'm hoping the Dragon Quest 3 remake coming out can be put on this list since it looks amazing from the previews.

Conversely, the Secret of Mana remake was atrocious and I'll play the original version over it any day of the week. Sadly those kinds of remakes are far more common. Turtles in Time Re-Shelled was another one. These are the ones where the graphics, music, and gameplay are worse than the original and lack all the charm and fun. You can throw Mobile ports into this category too.

Right in the middle are just ROM dumps. About as basic and straightforward as you can get. Unless the emulation is bad then there's not much difference. Although I'll usually play the original in my collection or emulation if I don't have it since emulation upscales always seem to be better than official ports.

Last but not least are the simple remasters that just AI upscale graphics and make some minor tweeks like Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy 8. Usually with additional censorship changes that make it flat out worse than the original versions. I don't find much point in them. Saga Frontier was an alright one though since they restored some of the cut content which justifies it existing but most don't do that.

Speaking of Monkey Island, I have both the special editions on Steam and the best thing about them is playing them with original graphics (not a fan of the new art) with voices. Playing Monkey Island 1 with the voice-actors from 3 and 4 but the original graphics is the best way to play it IMO.
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AiddonValentine



Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2348
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:06 pm Reply with quote
If I had to put up another truly great remake, I would say the Tactics Ogre remake for the PSP. A lot of it was from successfully updating a lot of the original mechanics and even doing some new things with SRPGs. It also added a lot of new narrative elements without undermining the original's story (-glances at FFVIIR-). And very timely to talk about it considering how Square has recently filed a trademark for something called Tactics Ogre: Reborn. Here's hoping it's a port.
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Covnam



Joined: 31 May 2005
Posts: 3827
PostPosted: Fri Apr 08, 2022 9:56 pm Reply with quote
My backlog is pretty large, but I did manage to play the first Monkey Island game well after it released at some point. I never did get in to point and click games much when they were all the rage, so maybe it was just over hyped by the time I played it, but I thought it was just fine.

Hmm, I haven't played either Persona Q games even though I love the series. Someday... someday.

BadNewsBlues wrote:

Maybe take out the drug induced mindtrips from the first game (or make them not suck).


Gonna have to disagree with you there, because I thought those were great (at least at the time). I think it made for a pretty nice change of pace and felt quite appropriately trippy.
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AmpersandsUnited



Joined: 22 Mar 2012
Posts: 633
PostPosted: Sat Apr 09, 2022 3:30 am Reply with quote
AiddonValentine wrote:
If I had to put up another truly great remake, I would say the Tactics Ogre remake for the PSP. A lot of it was from successfully updating a lot of the original mechanics and even doing some new things with SRPGs. It also added a lot of new narrative elements without undermining the original's story (-glances at FFVIIR-). And very timely to talk about it considering how Square has recently filed a trademark for something called Tactics Ogre: Reborn. Here's hoping it's a port.


FF7R doesn't bother me because it's not a remake so much as a sequel. So all the retcons and changes don't bother me much since it's acknowledging it's not the "true" FF7 and it's screwing with the timeline and canon. I can't imagine playing Remake without having played FF7 since the entire concept is basically Sephiroth trying to change the past.

For a remake that pollutes and undermines the original game's narrative I would have to say Resident Evil 3. Completely lacks the soul of the PS1 game and was just a cheap cash in on the RE2 Remake engine which wasn't nearly as bad.
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