General gaming discussion

Gunmonkey

Retr0gamer wrote: »

So all the big games people care about like Fifa and Madden.

Or the ones with lots of DLC/micro-transactions that Sony get a small cut from each time.

Zero-Cool

Doctor Nick wrote: »

Haven't they said "Most of the top 100 PS4 games will play on the PS5". Most, not all. So it sounds like it won't have true backwards compatibility.

Sony clarified by saying the overwhelming majority of the 4000 ps4 games will play on ps5, they are still running bc tests on games to get a bigger picture. They said games will run in a boosted mode with higher fps and resolution where possible.

Penn

Doctor Nick wrote: »

Haven't they said "Most of the top 100 PS4 games will play on the PS5". Most, not all. So it sounds like it won't have true backwards compatibility.

They clarified it after to say that they've been testing the top 100 in terms of how the PS5 will enhance the games, not just play them as they are. They expect the majority of PS4 games will be playable regardless.

https://blog.eu.playstation.com/2020/03/18/unveiling-new-details-of-playstation-5-hardware-technical-specs/

UPDATE: A quick update on backward compatibility – With all of the amazing games in PS4’s catalog, we’ve devoted significant efforts to enable our fans to play their favorites on PS5. We believe that the overwhelming majority of the 4,000+ PS4 titles will be playable on PS5.

We’re expecting backward compatible titles will run at a boosted frequency on PS5 so that they can benefit from higher or more stable frame rates and potentially higher resolutions. We’re currently evaluating games on a title-by-title basis to spot any issues that need adjustment from the original software developers.

In his presentation, Mark Cerny provided a snapshot into the Top 100 most-played PS4 titles, demonstrating how well our backward compatibility efforts are going. We have already tested hundreds of titles and are preparing to test thousands more as we move toward launch. We will provide updates on backward compatibility, along with much more PS5 news, in the months ahead. Stay tuned!

Doctor Nick

Sound. Thanks Penn/Zero-Cool. I'd missed that.

Penn

Doctor Nick wrote: »

Sound. Thanks Penn/Zero-Cool. I'd missed that.

Yeah they didn't explain it the best in the conference. That's why they had to release that update to clarify things.

I've found a few people I'd have played Xbox or PlayStation with in the past are now back online in the evenings. People I don't know in real life and I wouldn't have spoken to outside of gaming, but would have spent 100's of hours talking to in the past in groups playing games.

Gas hearing about whats happened in their lives in party chats and the situation where they live.

pixelburp

It's funny how tastes and tolerance change: obviously with the run-up to Doom Eternal's release, I've seen lots of footage; perhaps once upon a time I might have been OK with its tone and graphics, but I just find the OTT gore really off-putting these days. Not a question of being "offended" - it's clearly played with some tongue in cheek, and smushing demons is hardly an ethical quandary - but equally I just watch the gameplay and go "eww, no thanks". Watched the Digital Foundry video on the engine, and the segment on ID Tech's flesh dismemberment technology felt ... surreal.

However, I also watched footage of Doom 64 and felt none of that resting unease. Once again, I think the difference in graphical fidelity of modern engines that pushes things over the edge into uncomfortable "realism"; probably in the same vein I find the modern Mortal Kombat games too vicious and leeringly graphic to enjoy.

one armed dwarf

I feel that way with Mortal Kombat but that's because that game looks like you're dissecting cadavars. Doom manages to toe the other side of the line for me.

I guess the difference is that it doesn't linger on it like MK does, or at least not to the same extent (I have glory kills sped up)

pixelburp

one armed dwarf wrote: »

I feel that way with Mortal Kombat but that's because that game looks like you're dissecting cadavars. Doom manages to toe the other side of the line for me.

I guess the difference is that it doesn't linger on it like MK does, or at least not to the same extent (I have glory kills sped up)

Oh I get Doom is taking a cartoony approach - that much is obvious with the "whack-a-mole bash the zombie's head into its chest" Glory Kill - but just as an overall feeling & tone, the gore or violence just pushes me away. It's too much for me, I couldn't play a whole game that enveloped in blood.

Retr0gamer

I've no issue with the gore in Doom. Makes the weapons feel meaty and it's fairly stylised as well. I think once the gore is stylised and on service of game feel I'm ok with it. I can distance myself enough from it.

Mortal Kombat on the other hand I have major issues with. It just feels for lack of a better term, mean spirited. it's like it revels in the gore, like torture porn. Samurai Shodown can be pretty gory with arterial sprays to end matches but it feels a little more restrained and on service of the games style.

It's like the difference between the Hostel movies compared to say RoboCop or starship troopers. Those films have violence in service of the themes and know when to cut away, not knowing and your imagination are more effective than in mortal Kombat where the camera is all over the violence.

one armed dwarf

Doom is also pretty fast, at least once you get good at it. It's hard to notice the gore among the blur of fast movement and all the weird colourful pickups.

There are one or two glory kills that are a bit much, like when you repeatedly stab a Baron in the eye over and over with your knife. Made me feel bad for the demons lol

moonlighting_1

pixelburp wrote: »

It's funny how tastes and tolerance change: obviously with the run-up to Doom Eternal's release, I've seen lots of footage; perhaps once upon a time I might have been OK with its tone and graphics, but I just find the OTT gore really off-putting these days. Not a question of being "offended" - it's clearly played with some tongue in cheek, and smushing demons is hardly an ethical quandary - but equally I just watch the gameplay and go "eww, no thanks". Watched the Digital Foundry video on the engine, and the segment on ID Tech's flesh dismemberment technology felt ... surreal.

However, I also watched footage of Doom 64 and felt none of that resting unease. Once again, I think the difference in graphical fidelity of modern engines that pushes things over the edge into uncomfortable "realism"; probably in the same vein I find the modern Mortal Kombat games too vicious and leeringly graphic to enjoy.

I feel the same way as regards doom eternal. to much of an arcade felling. When an enemy dies a glowing ammo or health pack falls out of the enemy. This for example takes away from the eerie atmosphere in the original doom.

nix

lol have you actually played the original doom? ammo and health packs fall out of enemies also and its far from eerie :pac:

nix

nix wrote: »

lol have you actually played the original doom? ammo and health packs fall out of enemies also and its far from eerie :pac:

It's really weird complaints I'm reading.
Like you literally have glowing power-ups, ammo drops, health pick ups in the original games too. :pac:

Retr0gamer

To be devil's advocate. You also blow chunks of flesh off enemies.

pixelburp

Yeah, I also find the cognitive dissonance really jarring: on the one hand you got the goofy deaths I mentioned, and the Borderlands esque explosion of coloured gems, on the other as Retr0 says you can "accurately" blow chunks off of enemies with fleshy gusto. It's just ... eh, definitely not for me, but I do feel a little sadness that this level of fidelity with violence is so normalised.

Cordell

If you don't like it that's fine, but no need to feel sad for us. And IMHO the violence in games like COD and CS is much more violent because it's more realistic than the violence in Doom and Borderlands.

gimli2112

I'm the least violent person you'll ever met yet undertake appalling atrocities in videogames.
it doesn't keep me awake at night,

pixelburp

Cordell wrote: »

If you don't like it that's fine, but no need to feel sad for us. And IMHO the violence in games like COD and CS is much more violent because it's more realistic than the violence in Doom and Borderlands.

Not feeling sad for you or anyone, just turned off by a level of extreme, realistic gore that the obvious black comedy doesn't cover enough. The more realistic it has got the more I've been turned off, that's the rub. Think I've made that clear enough across the 3 or 4 posts, so don't mistake my intentions And yes. Call of Dutys glorification of war is a whole different problem along the same vein, especially as it tries to talk out of both sides of its mouth.

Cordell

It's not violence, or depiction of violence. It's colored pixels generally not intended to be realistic.
Fake blood and brains spatter in movies, since forever, that's violence.

Potential-Monke

I think ye are just getting old and allowing yourselves to be put off. Think back to the early days, where the most first Mortal Kombat game came out. Nothing was more realistic, iirc, at the time. I remember the original games with the graphic quality of todays, because that's how real they felt to me back then. Anyway, if it was possible to blow chunks off characters back in the early Doom days, they would have done it. Todays tech allows them to add the extra oomph. It's still a game. Yeah, it's getting a lot more graphic, and I too feel the old mind thinking opposite to what it would usually, but then I quickly remember that 15 year old me would have a horn at the idea of it being so real.

Mortal Kombat has always been about the shock, and it's continuing that. It's also very hard to be original with the deaths after 18 games and 97 characters. OTT and extreme is the only place they can go. And best to keep it that way. Simply snapping necks or having simpler, but yet more realistic, deaths would be worse in the long run. Like, no one can mimic Sub Zero creating a sword of ice and chopping someone in half. But they can mimic a simply neck snap. People are stupid. I know, I have tried all the wrestling moves with my brother.

one armed dwarf

The difference is that in modern MK the designers were studied real life gore in order to implement their fatalities in a realistic style, leading to many at Netherealm to seek therapy.

It simply isn't the same thing.

Potential-Monke

I can find an article stating 1 needed therapy, and plenty about crunch, but can't find anything saying many needed therapy. Some people are able to cope with stuff others can't. If it was only 1, I'd liken that to the likes to Heath Ledger taking his life after playing the Joker. Some people get too involved in their work and it takes an effect on them. But it's not common, thankfully.

Retr0gamer

It was more than just one. Numerous complaints about it.

And as for older mortal combat, they were always knowingly silly. There's a big difference between the tongue in cheek fatalities of the old games and what is shown in the new ones. they don't compare to Liu Kang dropping a mk1 cabinet on top of someone.

Potential-Monke

But if you think back to the first one. There was 7 fatalities, all considered pretty realistic at the time, and all straight up gore kills: Decapitation, Cartwheel Uppercut (decap), Heartrip, Electric Decapitation, Toasty, Kiss of Death, Spine Rip. The silly didn't come until the second and subsequent. And let's be honest, even though the game has it's own proper tournaments, most buy it for the gory kills. And they certainly deliver on that front.

SomeSayKos

I don't mind violence or gore in games at all, but I have to say I find Mortal Kombat kinda creepy with the fatalities. They don't seem fun any more, just kinda cynical.

pixelburp

Potential-Monke wrote: »

But if you think back to the first one. There was 7 fatalities, all considered pretty realistic at the time, and all straight up gore kills: Decapitation, Cartwheel Uppercut (decap), Heartrip, Electric Decapitation, Toasty, Kiss of Death, Spine Rip. The silly didn't come until the second and subsequent. And let's be honest, even though the game has it's own proper tournaments, most buy it for the gory kills. And they certainly deliver on that front.

It just comes down to fidelity of recreation for me; as I said, there was a dissonance with those old games because they knew their limitations and it was only the most clutching of pearl-clutchers who decried the "realism" in the likes of Doom or the very original Mortal Kombat. The shock over MK was as much about the false "games are for children" preconception. Heck I played Doom as a teen, circa '94 or so, on my brother's PC. It was more scary than gory to my 14 year old self. 3 frame animations can only insinuate, not recreate.

Modern graphics are almost (almost) indistinguishable from top tier movie CGI - maybe moreso given how terrible CGI can be in a hurry - with photorealism now boilerplate. 'cos of that, arguably Netherrealms MK series could be called "Snuff games" insofar as their modus operandi is to present vicious, leeringly detailed death. Exaggerated still, but more "realistic" than those 16-bit days. I'd say even the Saw movies would go "steady on"

Circling back to Doom Eternal, I opened the can 'o worms with "tolerances change" and that's it: ultimately I just find the attention to detail off-putting - the targets being demons notwithstanding. The tonal distance between the series now and I is quite large. Long removed from that 14 year old me. It's not quite on a par with MK, which I do feel disgusted by, but ID Tech's (otherwise fantastic) engine has added a varnish of fleshiness that has me go "eww, nope".

Ironically, my last purchase has been Serial Cleaner on the Switch, so I don't mind gore so much if I'm mopping it up

Retr0gamer

Potential-Monke wrote: »

But if you think back to the first one. There was 7 fatalities, all considered pretty realistic at the time, and all straight up gore kills: Decapitation, Cartwheel Uppercut (decap), Heartrip, Electric Decapitation, Toasty, Kiss of Death, Spine Rip. The silly didn't come until the second and subsequent. And let's be honest, even though the game has it's own proper tournaments, most buy it for the gory kills. And they certainly deliver on that front.

Nothing there you wouldn't see in horror films at the time or the films Mortal Kombat was trying to ape. And they were pretty silly, even back then. The new MK is a whole new level of gratuitous. There's just a meanness in it compared to say the flourishes violence brings to something like Metal Gear Revengeance or Samurai Shodown.

I actually didn't mind MK9. Was a bit too much in some cases but nothing that would put me off, and there's stuff in it like the x-ray moves I think stylistically are great. It's gotten silly in the following games as they try to one up themselves in shock factor.

one armed dwarf

Potential-Monke wrote: »

I can find an article stating 1 needed therapy, and plenty about crunch, but can't find anything saying many needed therapy. Some people are able to cope with stuff others can't. If it was only 1, I'd liken that to the likes to Heath Ledger taking his life after playing the Joker. Some people get too involved in their work and it takes an effect on them. But it's not common, thankfully.

I thought that Heath Ledger was addicted to sleeping tablets, that it wasn't he took his life as such. But I don't really know

My point tho is that the violence in these games (MK) is coming from a very different place to the old games, irrespective of technical achievements since the 90s. When you have a bunch of artists trying to generate anatomically faithful recreations of people's bodies being destroyed it is a much worse thing imo than pixels decapitating each other. Where the only concern back then was that it be violent, not like now where it is that it accurately resemble what it might be like to completely destroy another human being (freezing somebody into a block of ice aside..)

Klonker

Hey, I'm hoping someone might be able to help me.

I'm playing the latest God of War and at the start when playing first time I adjusted brightness where you can barely see the letters like they ask you to do. It was fine all game but now I'm in at a section where it's so dark I actually can't see anything and want to change the brightness settings and I don't know how without restarting the game. Any help would be greatly appreciated.