mohab

@mohab@piefed.social

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Krafton is now an 'AI-first company,' will spend $70 million on a GPU cluster to 'serve as the foundation for accelerating the implementation of agentic AI'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Bruh, I still haven’t bought the first game because I don’t wanna give money to Microsoft… now I won’t buy the sequel because I don’t wanna give money to Krafton. Madness.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Recommendstions Thread: What are you playing this week?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  See, this is why I think the comparison doesn’t work. They may be called UTs and function the same as they do in NGB, but enemies behavior is different. If my only strategy is UT spamming regardless of context, I’ll get my teeth kicked in because enemies are too aggressive, volatile, and while they’re not as tanky as they are in NGB, they attack in larger numbers.

  Timing in also key if I aim to use essence to instant charge UTs/OL UT. I windrun at the wrong time, and enemies will hunt me down because their tracking is also ridiculous, never mind suicide runs.

  All that space between UTs is not exactly a walk in the park and there’s so much to be aware of and get right before you can reliably pull them off to the extent that undermines the game’s difficulty in a game where one mistake can easily snowball into a good chunk of your health gone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Recommendstions Thread: What are you playing this week?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The problem is all the absolute nonsense in the game, and the abundance of pretty much garbage levels. I think like half the levels in the game are outright bad.

  I don’t think it has more garbage levels than Bayonetta or The Wonderful 101, for example. Like 3 or 4 bad levels? Predominantly where you have water, bow and arrow, and bullshit enemy behavior/checkpoint placement segments.

  Most bosses suck in both games, and in most action games, TBH. I don’t understand why they’re hellbent on serving us giant monstrosities. Action games need more humanoid bosses overall.

  Also stuff like how completely broken UTs are. It’s obvious the game wasn’t fully playtested and balanced, and so the super powered UTs were slapped on as a bandaid. But they’re not really fun to use and end result is a mechanic that you at best feel forced to resort to just to get through levels, but most of the time try to actively avoid using in order to actually have fun.

  How are they broken? You absolutely have to earn using them and be strategic about it. Enemies will mess you up if you misuse OTs on higher difficulties.

  IME, most action games feel messier than they actually are on the first playthrough and the more you replay them, the more patterns start to emerge and first playthrough issues fade.

  Now, if you didn’t enjoy the first playthrough enough to go back for more that’s fair, and a rather big risk these games typically take.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Recommendstions Thread: What are you playing this week?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  From the shit Flying Swallow to the nonlinear level design, my issue with NGB is it’s less committed to being an action game.

  To me, NG2 is 3D Ninja Gaiden finding and accepting what it is: a brutal action game where nothing matters but combat interactions. Level design and balance be damned: it’s combat, combat, and more combat.

  In that way NG2 is one of the most unique games out there. I can maybe liken it to God Hand, but NG2’s commitment to nonstop combat is so singularly deranged.

  For that same reason I always found it difficult to compare them because they clearly set out to achieve different goals. It just happens that what NG2 tried to do is exactly what I need as an action game fan.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Recommendstions Thread: What are you playing this week?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Ninja Gaiden Black, actually. I was watching the Combat Overview video on it, and it made me realize I never really gave it a fair shake because I prefer NG2 by a lot.

  BTW, if you in any way like action games, do yourself a favor and follow Combat Overview on YT. No one does what this guy has been doing for last couple of years, sadly. It’s been my go-to channel for long form breakdowns of action games since matthewmatosis shifted focus to making his game and TGBS moved on from making videos covering action games altogether.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Recommendstions Thread: What are you playing this week?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Football Manager

  God, I don’t miss sinking time into this monstrosity. Biggest time drain in existence.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What’s your favorite mission in Red Dead Redemption—and why does it hit different?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I hate this so much because I love em dashes and have been using them forever.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ninja Gaiden 4 | Review Thread⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Thank you for putting this together.

  Consensus seems weak environmental design, mediocre graphics, and awesome combat—more Platinum than TN, which fans more or less predicted from the pre-release footage. As a Platinum fan myself, I don’t mind that, but I see why this can annoy the Itagaki faithful.

  I’ve seen Steam reviews bring up some performance issues most critic reviews didn’t, but apart from that, I’m satisfied with the reception enough to add it to my wishlist. It’s such a nice feeling knowing there’s a new action game waiting to be bought and played. We don’t get to experience this feeling nearly enough.

  Hopefully, Onimusha and Okami 2 will follow suit and we’ll get a DMC6 announcement soon.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨similar to the word of mouth post, what game did you not expect much from but loved it?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Hellsinker.

  I kept hearing it’s a “one-of-a-kind shmup” and it’s a “shmup that somehow plays like an action game”, so I tried it twice and couldn’t see why it’s praised.

  Third time I was like “OK, ima read the manual, read guides, and give it one final shot.” and holy shit, what a game. I’ll probably be playing it forever, TBH.

  Up there with Crimzon Clover World EXplosion for me now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨They say word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective form of marketing. What games did you (not) enjoy that came well-recommended by friends to you, and why did they recommend it to you?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  This was years ago so I’m not sure, but I remember I got to a sand planet.

  There’s a 21-hour full playthrough on YT by a channel called Lacry, I got to hour 8~9.

  I watched all the Star Wars movies and I actually enjoy them, but I’m not a die hard fan so a lot of the lore was not interesting to me. My biggest issue was the combat though: it did not grip me at all.

  I prefer much faster paced games overall.

  If the announced remake is a fast-paced action game, I may give it a shot.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨They say word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective form of marketing. What games did you (not) enjoy that came well-recommended by friends to you, and why did they recommend it to you?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  “years later” does not matter in my case because it wasn’t that many years later l—probably only 3 or 4 years after release, and I don’t play western action RPGs or stealth games. I think the first Assassin’s Creed is the only Ubisoft game I played, for example, and it surely did not influence any of the games I actually play: Bayonetta, The Wonderful 101, Hellsinker, or Guilty Gear.

  Pretty sure I would’ve had a problem with it on release because it’s shitty repetitive design.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨They say word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective form of marketing. What games did you (not) enjoy that came well-recommended by friends to you, and why did they recommend it to you?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Man, this is nearly every mainstream game for me: Fortnite, Minecraft, RDR, GTA, God of War (2018), Horizon Zero Dawn, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Valve’s The Orange Box, Insomnia’s Spiderman, any From Software game except maybe Bloodborne, and I could keep going.

  And I’m not saying any of these games are bad, they just never grab me enough to want to beat them or play them for extended periods, so I concluded they’re not for me.

  If it’s not for the immense joy I get out of Japanese action games, fighting games, and shmups, I’d probably not touch video games at all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨They say word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective form of marketing. What games did you (not) enjoy that came well-recommended by friends to you, and why did they recommend it to you?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  OMG, it’s so boring 🫠 I got like halfway through and concluded nothing could make me keep going.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨They say word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective form of marketing. What games did you (not) enjoy that came well-recommended by friends to you, and why did they recommend it to you?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I got one! The very first Assassin’s Creed when it came out!

  My childhood friend would NOT shut up about it! He would talk over and over again about the lore, show me extended cutscenes, videos, sent me lore theories, it was a whole thing!

  Years later I finally get to play it and holy shit, what a disappointment… the entire game is just the same 3 missions over and over again… like no effort into hiding anything… literally the same 3 missions copied and pasted ad nauseum with different enemy names. I’m still shocked he sat through all of this bullshit to get to the awesome lore he went on and on about for weeks.

  Bonus story with the same friend: we were talking about Devil May Cry and he said “I wish I could find another game like it…” and I noticed he said “game” and not “games” or “franchise” so I asked “Did you play the sequels? DMC3 is incredible!” and he goes “What sequels? I’m sure it’s only one game…” and I swear I screamed at the realization he’s talking about the reboot DmC: Devil May Cry and had no clue the original franchise even exists 😂 That was right after DMC5 came out too, which’s wild.

  I recommended starting with DMC5 because the story isn’t great anyway and DMC1 or even DMC3 may feel a little dated. He ignored my advice because he wanted to experience the story from the beginning, picked up the HD collection, hated both DMC1 and DMC3 because they felt too stiff, and never touched the franchise again.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Legendary developer Tomonobu Itagaki, creator of Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden 2004, has died⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Reportedly, Itagaki was an alcoholic and chainsmoker. I don’t think he cared much to live long and, TBH, his games reflected it. I can’t think of anything more YOLO in gaming than that staircase fight in NGII. Man designed a fight to break the console and bragged about it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Legendary developer Tomonobu Itagaki, creator of Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden 2004, has died⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Controversial figure. IDK if I ever liked him, TBH. Even though he was cleared of the sexual harrasment charges, he still admitted to having an affair… and he gave us one of the best action games of all-time. Weird guy.

  Hopefully, he’s at peace now and whoever was affected by his weird life decisions is at peace as well.

  Now that he’s dead, will Team Ninja and Tecmo stop holding vanilla NGII hostage out of spite?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game - Official Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It has been getting better though, no? Hasn’t Under Night registration numbers been higher than MK for the last two Evos? I don’t necessarily wish failure for MK as a competitive game, but it seems they’re happy cashing in on the casual appeal more than anything else.

  Maybe this new Warner Bros. gaming division shake up will lead to a new direction, who knows what the future holds.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game - Official Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It so did not. Publishers re-released the same game over and over again and consumers paid more money overall.

  Heck, they’re still doing it to this day 😂

  Smash is still a top seller on Nintendo platforms and has never had a season model.

  Nintendo sells hardware—entirely different business model. Capcom, Bandai, and Arc System Works sell games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game - Official Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t even know how to respond to this, like, you’re wrong, but show the graph. I wanna see what kind of numbers you’re looking at because MK competitive numbers have clearly been nosediving for at least half a decade.

  Like, even if you go back a decade to MKX just to prove a point, you’ll at best get a nice bell curve that clearly shows a divorce with the FGC when compared to the steadily rising competitive numbers of other fighting games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game - Official Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  MK and the FGC divorced long ago. When people say fighting games, they’re mostly talking about Japanese fighting games and a few indies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game - Official Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s not financially feasible in fighting games. Guilty Gear -STRIVE-, for example, currently has 32 characters even though it launched with 15 and that’s thanks to DLC selling well.

  The current version of the game as we know it took nearly 10 years to develop. If you’re asking a mid-range developer to put 10 years of development into a self-published fighting game without seeing a single cent, you’re obviously disconnected from the market’s economics and are OK with the game potentially never seeing the light of day because it’s “not complete”

  What does the “whole game” even mean in fighting games? It sounds like you’re applying non-fighting games standards to fighting games while ignoring any and all nuances related to the genre, which’s uninformed at best.

  There’s “protect the consumer” and there’s “nuke the genre"—you’re calling for the second here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game - Official Announcement Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sounds shady, TBH. I wonder who they are and why was this deal done in the dark. Every piece of info I found online was deliberately vague.

  I guess only time will tell.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are there any games you don't play as it was intended to be played? If so, what game and how?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes! Action RPGs and I ignore all the RPG because, despite my thorough research, I’ve been bamboozled by COMBO MAD videos.

  Fuck you, NieR:Automata—I’m not collecting 5 mushroom and 3 pyrite or whatever else you want me to collect. I paid for an action game and I’m getting one!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Unfortunate for the people laid off, but this game sucks and this developer has been a dick since day 1.

  HLD still doesn’t have cloud save support BTW.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Great games you would recommend from before 1990?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  For my money, Robotron 2084 and Smash TV are still the best 2 twin-stick shooters of all-time. Recently, we’ve had games like Assault Android Cactus+ and Nex Machina come close, but the OGs are still untouchable, IMO.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨SS4 Goku and new balance patch revealed for Dragon Ball FighterZ⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I couldn’t believe my eyes seeing this update pop up in my library a few hours ago. Madness from Bandai.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  why I would keep playing it over my beloved Nioh 2

  Quick question about the combat in Nioh and Nioh 2: how much of it would you say is action (combo system + combat mechanics) vs. RPG (gear and stats)?

  I’m more of an action guy and don’t typically have a lot of fun with action RPGs or souls-like, so I was wondering if it’s action enough for me.

  Example of the games I didn’t enjoy: The Surge, NieR:Automata, and Scarlet Nexus.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No More Heroes because why not. I still maintain it’s a little overrated, Suda51 does not seem to have any interest to top it, and I’m not a fan of the busywork between boss fights, but it’s still an arcade-y fun game to play and replay, and I’m happy I can replay it on PC now.

  I would’ve enjoyed it a lot more had it been as linear as Furi, minus the walking segments, but it’s alright as is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Emperor of overpromising Peter Molyneux says he's done with games after Masters of Albion, which is also his 'redemption title'⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Hot take: it shouldn’t be. Guy has great ideas, but he’s never really been a good writer. Nothing he ever writes is cohesive or makes total sense.

  Good comedy bits though… he should still write the comedy bits.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Portal and Portal 2 are 80% off⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Catherine is also $4.99 for anyone who likes challenging puzzle games.