Soul vs Soulless in video games

[Halfling Rodeo]

East Asians are white in the most fundamental sense. The earliest Europeans who had contact with them described them as such.

I am white in all but skin says the street shitter. I am white in all but skin says the gook. I am white in all but skin says the house negro.
The white man says no you aren't, you're a pajeet, a gook and a negro. You cannot trick me with your brown skinned lies! It is in your nature to be dishonest and want what you cannot have.

Yeah, coming from the UK it's weird as fuck seeing the NES worshipped so much by some quarters. As a kid everyone I knew, including myself, thought it was shit and a distant 2nd to the Master System. I mean, we all wanted arcade games at home, so SEGA were always gonna be in front in that respect, but "Double" Dragon swung the 8-bit era for me. Seeing my mate get excited for it on NES, invite us lads over to play it and then it only being 1 player was hilarious lol. It's fucking criminal how overlooked systems like the Amiga and C64 are by the mainstream media who re-write history with Nintendo bias. The amount of times I've read bullshit such as "Nintendo invented the analogue joypad" or "Nintendo invented shoulder buttons on gamepads" is unreal lol.

I had a friend with Megaman 1 and it was pretty fun but it never really hit home here until the SNES with X. Finding out there were 10 of those shitty games and Nintendies held them up as a godly franchise was mind blowing. Most experiences with the NES were buying one second hand with like 10 games from the local paper and having to blow the shit out of carts to get them to work.

 

[Silverfish]

Oh sure, I can totally see why a Switch could be better for a kid. But I'm talking grown adults over 30 asking "what games console should I buy out the following?" and fanboys saying simply "Switch coz it is da best!"

 

[Lyric Suite]

I find modern art in games to be consistently soulless.

I'm talking about that clean, pastel-like aesthetic that has infected everything, even stuff like RPGs.

Watching stuff from the 80s it's like a different world. Whenever i look at a modern fantasy artwork, instead of being transported into another world, i suddenly start thinking of mobile phones, of web interfaces and all other sort of modern day shit. And this is not just about the artwork this kind of shit seeps into the visuals of the game itself, into the UI design and so on.

I used to think some of those old D&D artworks were kind of kitsch (except for the Dark Sun stuff) but man i definitely want that era back now.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I came across a japanese forum where they asked what was the point where gaming died, and the unanimous answer was when Sega stepped down as a major player in the game.

You see this but you also forget how Nintendo had to prove things to the public because of Sega. They wanted to show off that the SNES/Super Famicom was a powerful machine, especially after Sega was seen as the technical innovator and "edgy kid" of the gaming world. Project Ultra 64 (later rebranded as Nintendo 64) was being delayed time and time again so the major thing about late stage SNES was how great their arcade ports were, with Killer Instinct and all. I came across a japanese forum where they asked what was the point where gaming died, and the unanimous answer was when Sega stepped down as a major player in the game. Sega was Nintendo's rival. They wanted the same audience, and it says a lot that Sony went for the older kids instead. Play Station was just a hair in the mane of the tech giant that Sony was and is. Gaming was Sega's and Nintendo's forte. But once Sega is out, Nintendo has no real competition, and therefore they have to stop trying. They don't need to. Nintendo stopped trying things when Sega wasn't there to provide an attractive counterpoint.

Absolutely spot on. That competition helped drive the industry to new peaks.

More-so, the SEGA philosophy (especially SEGA of America) was to get ahead by giving the player the best product available. Yes they were obviously a business and weren't averse to the odd skanky practice, but they believed that the better the product the better the sales. A bloke I've become mates with over the past few years used to be a games tester & eventually producer for them, and he STILL to this day takes enormous pride in the work he did. He often brags off about how few bugs are to be found in the games he worked on, and it's incredibly refreshing to be reminded of just how much some gaming staff used to work their arses off to give the consumer a quality product. Now all we mostly have are lazy woke cunts with their "the audience will test it, then mod it" attitude.

Since SEGA fell from grace Nintendo have been able to rely on milking a very blinkered and loyal fanbase without any real effort beyond "here's a new Zelda/Mario" every few years. Hell, some of their fanboys are still telling people to buy a Switch over a Steam Deck

Since SEGA fell from grace Nintendo have been able to rely on milking a very blinkered and loyal fanbase without any real effort beyond "here's a new Zelda/Mario" every few years. Hell, some of their fanboys are still telling people to buy a Switch over a Steam Deck

I own both and they're very different machines. I wouldn't buy a child a steam deck, but I would buy them a switch. Being able to physically give a kid a boxed game to open on Christmas is a very different experience and one I think merits the Switch almost entirely on it's own.

Did Sony go for a different audience or did they go for the same audience that had now grown up a lot? It's hard to judge Sega/Nintendo because it's very regional. The Master system smoked the NES in many regions while it barely existed in others. There's lots of American legal battles and bullshit surrounding the two but the UK was too busy playing on the C64 and Amiga to care about Nintendo until the SNES and N64.

Oh sure, I can totally see why a Switch could be better for a kid. But I'm talking grown adults over 30 asking "what games console should I buy out the following?" and fanboys saying simply "Switch coz it is da best!"

Yeah, coming from the UK it's weird as fuck seeing the NES worshipped so much by some quarters. As a kid everyone I knew, including myself, thought it was shit and a distant 2nd to the Master System. I mean, we all wanted arcade games at home, so SEGA were always gonna be in front in that respect, but "Double" Dragon swung the 8-bit era for me. Seeing my mate get excited for it on NES, invite us lads over to play it and then it only being 1 player was hilarious lol. It's fucking criminal how overlooked systems like the Amiga and C64 are by the mainstream media who re-write history with Nintendo bias. The amount of times I've read bullshit such as "Nintendo invented the analogue joypad" or "Nintendo invented shoulder buttons on gamepads" is unreal lol.

Possibly a thread-worthy topic.

"Is Nintendo over-credited by the mainstream media for gaming history, and to what degree?" Something like that. Has there been some historical revisionism by the MSM going on? Or is Nintendo's reputation fair?

It might be just a UK/Europe/PAL thing. We tended to get less releases, and late console technology, like some former Soviet Republic, well into the 1990s. North America might have a different perspective, especially for fans of JRPGs. Some affluent kid sitting in Seattle in 1990 playing a 50 hour JRPG that blew his mind, while somewhere like Yorkshire was pretty far from the American middle-class. Here in the UK, where we didn't get half of the JRPGs localisations, for example Final Fantasy 1, or Dragon Quest 1.

I would be interested to see what the Japanese thread was saying about Sega's exit.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Ninja gaiden isn't a brawler.

- Brawlers (hack 'n' slash + beat 'em ups)

Also NG is 3D and you posted a 2D game

Alright
Tell me one western Brawler better than Ninja Gaiden Sigma

That one is pretty good
Forgot about that

Still, I would argue that enemy design in NGS is superior (humanoid enemies at least)

- Action-adventure

Tomb Raider is western.

And the point here being?

used to think some of those old D&D artworks were kind of kitsch (except for the Dark Sun stuff) but man i definitely want that era back now.

Good news!
That era is back:

Man, asians even do DnD better now

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

"Is Nintendo over-credited by the mainstream media for gaming history, and to what degree?" Something like that. Has there been some historical revisionism by the MSM going on? Or is Nintendo's reputation fair?

The shift in attitude comes around with the internet but cements in with speed running becoming big on Twitch. American childhood nostalgia mixed with autism. It would make a good thread but expect a lot of salty tears..

It might be just a UK/Europe/PAL thing. We tended to get less releases, and late console technology, like some former Soviet Republic, well into the 1990s. North America might have a different perspective, especially for fans of JRPGs. Some affluent kid sitting in Seattle in 1990 playing a 50 hour JRPG that blew his mind, while somewhere like Yorkshire was pretty far from the American middle-class. Here in the UK, where we didn't get half of the JRPGs localisations, for example Final Fantasy 1, or Dragon Quest 1.

There wasn't a market for them. It wasn't until Pokemon and FF7 that JRPGs got a foot hold in Europe. Secret of Mana was the biggest JRPG by a country mile around me and anything beyond that was 2 kids discussing Link's awakening during lunch break. Europe had the micro computer RPGs like.. well actual Wizardry instead of a Japanese knock off and console RPGs sat in that awkward in between. It wasn't action enough for the arcade fans but wasn't RPG enough for the autistic fans. You ended up with better dedicated options.

I would be curious to know how popular Lemmings was globally.

Also NG is 3D and you posted a 2D game

Ninja gaymen is a character action / Cuhrazy game genre wise. And it's not even any where close to the top of that pile.

 

[Athena]

"Is Nintendo over-credited by the mainstream media for gaming history, and to what degree?" Something like that. Has there been some historical revisionism by the MSM going on? Or is Nintendo's reputation fair?

The shift in attitude comes around with the internet but cements in with speed running becoming big on Twitch. American childhood nostalgia mixed with autism. It would make a good thread but expect a lot of salty tears..

Basically, the entire "history" of gaming that is currently in vogue is being narrated by American late millennials and early zoomers who grew up with the N64. You look at some of the stuff that people (youtubers and users of other forums) are talking about, and you'd think video games didn't exist outside of Nintendo systems.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

"Is Nintendo over-credited by the mainstream media for gaming history, and to what degree?" Something like that. Has there been some historical revisionism by the MSM going on? Or is Nintendo's reputation fair?

The shift in attitude comes around with the internet but cements in with speed running becoming big on Twitch. American childhood nostalgia mixed with autism. It would make a good thread but expect a lot of salty tears..

Basically, the entire "history" of gaming that is currently in vogue is being narrated by American late millennials and early zoomers who grew up with the N64. You look at some of the stuff that people (youtubers and users of other forums) are talking about, and you'd think video games didn't exist outside of Nintendo systems.

I'm not sure it is late Millenials because they don't talk the way late millenials did back then Either. Mario 64 was never in the running for the best game ever on gamefaqs at it's height. It was always FF7 VS OoT. FF7 has completely fallen off and I suspect it's because the youtuber crowd never touched it when it was fresh.

Who wants to make a thread on "Historical revisionism in gaming"? We're got a gold mine of content for it, but I'm unsure how to word the OP. Needs to cover both the NES fetishism as well as stuff like Earthbound and Banjo being revised as the best games ever despite selling poorly or being over shadowed by forgotten games now.

 

[Viata]

The homogenization of retro video game history is fucked beyond salvation. A lot of non-american people think the crash of the video game industry happened all over the world, Nintendo saved video game and whatever think you like, it was Nintendo that started it. Even felipepepe had some tweets about it.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

This tweet is all well and good but the revealed preference of practically every kid I gamed with back then, be they Nintendo or Sony fans, was couch co-op Goldeneye and/or Ocarina of Time. Nevermind the total spectrum dominance that Nintendo gained when the Pokémon craze kicked off in 98.

Banjo Kazooie is just one of many 3D platformers that came out for the system, the thing that elevated it was the excellent soundtrack. Sales numbers are meaningless because the people who were buying Croc and Banjo were not buying them for themselves but for their children. The fact that Banjo embedded itself in the minds of ~3 million kids and Croc did not speaks volumes. The idea of YouTubers astro-turfing the popularity of 5th gen console titles is nonsense, these already had their died-in-the-wool supporters since the 90s, both were already fighting out the console war on forums back then. Mid-late millennials also weren't making gaming content on YouTube at the point where it was actually relevant. That type of content was already played out by 2011, which was about the time that mid/late millennials were getting their boots on. The bar of video quality was way the fuck higher for amateurs and the algorithms buried them.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Ninja gaymen is a character action / Cuhrazy game genre wise.

Literally a subset of Brawlers
Also I would argue it's not, since there's no focus on being flashy

And it's not even any where close to the top of that pile.

Them's fighting words nigga

zoomers who grew up with the N64

The earliest zoomers were born at the end of the N64 life
If anything they grew up with the 6th and 7th gen consoles

A lot of non-american people think the crash of the video game industry happened all over the world, Nintendo saved video game and whatever think you like, it was Nintendo that started it.

Hate to play the thread tendie
But their strategy was certainly brilliant
It enabled them to fill the power gap that Atari left

 

[Viata]

But their strategy was certainly brilliant

That, however, has nothing to do with what I said. Nintendo was smart in America, but it doesn't mean the crash happened in Europe or that Nintendo was even famous there.

was couch co-op Goldeneye

Here was Medal of Honor on PS1. So it clearly depends on the region.

 

[Athena]

The earliest zoomers were born at the end of the N64 life

Parents usually bought cheap and established systems to kids. The Playstation (the original) kept selling a reasonable amount of units up until 2005-6 or so.

I remember a kid in my neighborhood who only had the Master System until 1995 and nothing newer.

This tweet is all well and good but the revealed preference of practically every kid I gamed with back then, be they Nintendo or Sony fans, was couch co-op Goldeneye and/or Ocarina of Time. Nevermind the total spectrum dominance that Nintendo gained when the Pokémon craze kicked off in 98.

A whole lot of anecdotal evidence. N64 sold 30 million globally, the PS1 surpassed the hundred million mark, and in the US (Nintendo's favorite market) the PS1 outsold the N64 2:1. Yet 20 years later I am being gaslit into thinking the N64 was as popular or more than the PS1. Perhaps with kids, and now that they're grown up they've skewed the perceptions of the market's reality back then.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Them's fighting words nigga

I'm not scared of a faggot who can't spell nigger, nor a ninja gay man.

The earliest zoomers were born at the end of the N64 life

Most kids don't start with the latest console. I had an Atari before I got a gameboy and a Master system.

I made a thread for discussion on historic revisionism here.

 

[Kruyurk]

Good news!
That era is back:

Man, asians even do DnD better now

I imagine that most of you would have recognized the homage to this:

Which could be inspired by some Frazetta art? He made several paintings where the hero is seen from the back, which is quite original. This one in particular evokes the Elmore painting, with Éowyn from The Lord of the Rings.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Parents usually bought cheap and established systems to kids. The Playstation (the original) kept selling a reasonable amount of units up until 2005-6 or so.

Most kids don't start with the latest console.

I guess it depends on the region
Because from what I can remember, here the N64 and PS1 were pretty much impossible to find on any shopping center by 2002 (so by the time the oldest zoomers were 4/5) and I live in one of my countries biggest cities
Let's not even bring the Dreamcast into this, that shit was rarer than a virgin whore
In primary school, I only knew 1 guy that had the PS1 (and it was from his older brother) and a girl 7 years older than me that had an N64
Everyone else that had a console, had either a PS2 or a GameBoy
Occasionally an original Xbox
By 2009, was in 5th or 6th grade, fucking MW2 and AC2 were the talk of the entire school
And guess what?
Kids weren't playing those games on the Personal Computer

 

[Machocruz]

Wasn't even aware there was a narrative anywhere of N64 being as popular or more than PSX. Afaik, the PSX was known to have completely crushed the Nintendo console. I bought one for cheap years later and only gave a fuck about Perfect Dark and Ocarina of Time. Mario 64 and the Rare platformers looked gay and you barely did any platforming in the latter. Tomb Raider was the watershed moment to me as far as what could be done in 3D action/platforming.

 

[Viata]

Wasn't even aware there was a narrative anywhere of N64 being as popular or more than PSX

Just go take a look on 4chan's /vr/ or twitter's retro console community [yes, they both sucks, but it's still valid places]. People like to think N64 wasn't a flop and had the most unique games yet people only talk about the same 10 or so games kek

 

[Machocruz]

Just go take a look on 4chan's /vr/ or twitter's retro console community [yes, they both sucks, but it's still valid places]. People like to think N64 wasn't a flop and had the most unique games yet people only talk about the same 10 or so games kek

That explains it then. Internet vg discourse is mostly garbage and ignorant. I'm imagining those are hugboxes/echo chambers where the actual facts are shouted down?

 

[Viata]

I'm imagining those are hugboxes/echo chambers where the actual facts are shouted down?

Not on /vr/, but you always see Nintendofags praising their N64 as if Saturn and PS1 didn't even exist.

 

[Viata]

I'm imagining those are hugboxes/echo chambers where the actual facts are shouted down?

Not on /vr/, but you always see Nintendofags praising their N64 as if Saturn and PS1 didn't even exist.

 

[Butter]

Wasn't even aware there was a narrative anywhere of N64 being as popular or more than PSX. Afaik, the PSX was known to have completely crushed the Nintendo console. I bought one for cheap years later and only gave a fuck about Perfect Dark and Ocarina of Time. Mario 64 and the Rare platformers looked gay and you barely did any platforming in the latter. Tomb Raider was the watershed moment to me as far as what could be done in 3D action/platforming.

Around here Nintendo completely dominated with the NES, SNES, and N64. They only started to lose during the Gamecube era against the PS2. I only knew one person with a PS1 (because his dad worked for Sony) and literally nobody with a Dreamcast.

 

[Silverfish]

Most kids don't start with the latest console. I had an Atari before I got a gameboy and a Master system.

My first console was a Genesis. In 1999.

 

[Vic]

Wasn't even aware there was a narrative anywhere of N64 being as popular or more than PSX. Afaik, the PSX was known to have completely crushed the Nintendo console. I bought one for cheap years later and only gave a fuck about Perfect Dark and Ocarina of Time. Mario 64 and the Rare platformers looked gay and you barely did any platforming in the latter. Tomb Raider was the watershed moment to me as far as what could be done in 3D action/platforming.

Around here Nintendo completely dominated with the NES, SNES, and N64. They only started to lose during the Gamecube era against the PS2. I only knew one person with a PS1 (because his dad worked for Sony) and literally nobody with a Dreamcast.

Growing up in Germany I don't remember seeing any SEGA consoles either. It was Nintendo consoles, then the Playstation.

 

[luj1]

double