Seikenfreak

Just finished Mortal Kombat a min ago.. I'm gonna saaaay.. 2.5 out of 5?

I'm not particularly a Mortal Kombat fan, but through the whole movie I kept thinking how this franchise could be mapped wonderfully to a high-budget trilogy. The same sort've structure as the Marvel movies should easily translate. Each movie having one of the main baddies from the games.. Goro or something for the first, Shang Tsung for the second, and Shao Kahn as your final "Thanos" threat. Each one introducing new fighters. Hints and teases at future appearances.

Obviously they didn't really do that I guess. And for me it just felt like they under utilized how bad ass these characters can be. The best parts were the fan service for me. A couple of the gory finishers, seeing some of their signature moves, and other random references. Wasn't enough though. Too many cuts in the fights. Lame music except for the small Mortal Kombat theme stings.

I know people love to hate on Annihilation but it's definitely my favorite in terms of characters and the costumes staying fairly true to their game counterparts. I thought the ninja's outfits were too busy in this one. Too much bulky armor. Was hoping they'd somehow strip back to their classic, more ninja-like outfits in the end. Liu Kang was pretty good (holy crap that crazy lean/muscular build hes got) except that bicycle kick shot was shit. I thought Mileena looked great. Kung Lao was good and maybe had the best finisher. Kano was pretty great. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa's Shang Tsung felt much more menacing in the old movie. Some of these characters I didn't even know. Flying bat girl? Guy with a big hammer?

Basically, I think they've could've done a bunch of stuff better. Studios don't think the franchise is worth that so oh well.

This thread is refreshing. It feels like a much more grounded, balanced sentiment here than what people seem to say on any podcast I listen to. I have no problem if people wanna buy a Switch, I myself feel like I've been on the fence ever since it came out, but don't act like the Switch and what Nintendo does is infallible or something special. More just feels like they have certain killer IP that everyone will buy hardware for and also COVID happened. And apparently a lot of people just have lots of open time in their every day lives to game mobile-y or home situations where they can't use their TV. Neither situation I've had in my entire life; I'm either in my house doing whatever, or I'm outside the house to do something. If the power goes out, then that'd be the one brief 30 min - couple hour scenario where it'd be nice.

Occasionally Jeff will go on a bit of a rant about Nintendo, typically when they run into yet another situation where they're handling something in the most ass-backwards, frustrating way imaginable but I honestly don't think it happens enough lol They operate in such an insular bubble that it's insane.

It feels like they have so much potential sitting on the back burner, and again I'm not that big of a Nintendo fan, that they could be wielding to their advantage that even some old curmudgeon like myself would be at least curious about their games.

I'm also pretty annoyed when something like Bravely Default 2 is Switch exclusive. I want to try that. It would also run much better and at a higher res on the other consoles. Ugh

Talking about this and also messing with some GBA games on an emulator made me dig out my DS and 3DSs last night, just to make sure they still work. No bulging batteries. See how they feel in the hand again. I'm thinking of buying an original GB Advance and doing some mods on it to mess with. Nice screen and speaker. I'd want one in the original box though and they're kinda pricey.. Anyway, tangent.

@nodima Agreed. I do not understand why people think BotW is so incredible. It's okay, I guess. Have they not played other open world/survival games? Or physics games? Do they not have other/more powerful hardware? I gave up on it after doing the main dungeons. You run around, deal with the dumb weapon system, cry when you get the Master Sword, find the occasional neat puzzle, and do the lame main dungeons. All the while, it doesn't run particularly great and looks pretty low res i.e. lots of jaggies everywhere. When you have a nice, clean, bold art design.. and then everything has sawtooth edges on it and bad pop-in? Eh

I still haven't bought a Switch. The only reason I have to ever buy Nintendo hardware is for exclusives. This was something I gradually realized over the years since the Gamecubes launch. I had less and less games with each new Nintendo hardware release. And it's just so bad at this point. I'm not really into Mario (but I'd probably still play them if I had the hardware), Zelda had one new release, Breath of the Wild, and I didn't like it. No F-Zero. No Metroid. I can't even remember if there was a Pikmin release. A new Pokemon game was what I figured would push me over the edge to getting a Switch but they still barely iterated at all with Sword/Shield. Was there a Wave Race or anything? Their first party game selection is just abysmal.

On top of that, even when/if something releases, it's handicapped by this crappy hardware. I don't have any real reason or time to "mobile game" so it's disappointing that the docking feature doesn't put it on a similar level to the PS4/Xbox One tier hardware, and it's dumb that they don't just have a TV, non-mobile box version that does have better hardware in it.

Then you have all of Nintendos insanely archaic business practices and game design. They are so far behind in terms of Quality of Life and Online Services that it is maddening. I have no idea why people put up with their BS.

It's all bad. Funny thing is, I just bought my first NES this week. The SNES was my first console and I love it, and I don't have any nostalgia for the original NES. But I've got pretty much every other relevant system in my collection and stumbled across an interesting project so I sourced one off ebay, untested. Bought boxed copies of RC Pro-Am and Super Cars (because I'm a car guy/racing game collector, I guess). Cleaned and fixed it all up. Was kinda a neat but weird/surreal experience to play it. Jamming the cart in and out trying to get the thing to work etc. The classic stuff.

Excited but low expectations.

Very sad but not surprised. They take their time and do a good job. I'd rather that then pumping out barely iterative entries *cough* ;)

Looking forward to it. Probably Covid issues. Probably Polyphony's perfectionism. Maybe they figured they could put more dev time in since Forza Motorsport doesn't seem to be coming any time soon. Maybe new PSVR reasons, as cockpit games are one of, if not the biggest reason to use VR.

Is what it is. GT Sport is still damn good if you wanna mess around with the best looking cars in games /shrug

They had a teaser for a third one a couple years ago I think. Haven't heard of it since.

Not sure I really played the second one but I did play a bunch of the first. Definitely had issues but there also wasn't anything else like it so I still played it. It's a great idea that they've failed to capitalize on. The house stuff is cool except that, in the end, they didn't really do or mean anything. And everything was the gaudy, glamorous lifestyle of the rich and famous.. And not like, let me buy this nice little house in the country but have this big awesome shop/garage in the backyard.

The best and most unique memory of that game was the big race around the entire island. Being on the edge of your seat, driving as fast as you can through traffic (with not great physics/bad handling), and trying not to make any mistakes for like 40 mins straight? I can't even remember how long the race actually took but it was wild.

Yea, GT Sport was great as a platform for player competition, but because of that you can't easily balance it if people can drive/build whatever they want. Even with the rigid vehicle classification system they use, it still seems nearly impossible to perfectly balance it. And it was only after its launch that they added all the offline races so perhaps they never intended to have that.

They've already shown and said GT7 is going back to the traditional model so we'll see. I hope it's good.

Based on all these racing game question threads, I'm convinced you're doing marketing research or consulting lol But seeing as this genre is my jam.. I'd be happy to provide feedback.

Gran Turismo, I'd obviously like more realistic physics/handling, like the sims on PC, but they're trying to reach a broader audience so /shrug

What they could do is allow for more wheel/tire customization. Let me change the offset + diameter of the wheel and tweak the tire size. Better wheel selection of course. They have a lot of rims, but of course somehow they are always missing some of the most popular/classic wheels. Forza has the same issue.

Both GT and Forza are always missing some of the most obvious/popular cars as well. This is more of an issue in the newer games.

More trim levels for the cars. Yes, kinda like the 20 Skylines everyone loves to whine about. They've already modeled the car, 90% of the work is already done, so it's fine if they spend a little extra time changing lips/spoilers or interior trim materials. Probably equally as easy to change the engine specs. It means, for example rather than just putting the new Mustang GT500 in, put the GT350, GT, and Ecoboost trims in. A VW Golf.. R32, GTI, 2.0T etc. A Skyline GTR, GTS-T. A Camaro Base, SS, 1LE, ZL1 etc. Honda Civic base, Si, Type-R. Ford Focus Base, ST, RS. A Dodge Charger base, R/T, 392 Scat Pack, Hellcat. S2000 AP1, AP2, CR. You get the idea. They are all very different cars. And you cannot underestimate the power of a young, impressionable person being able to get the actual car they own or the car they want in these games. It also presents gameplay options because they have varying prices. (Almost) everyone loves the classic career progression.. that means maybe you can only afford the cheapest model at the start. And I often use video games to mess with certain cars when I'm making real world purchasing decisions. Gran Turismo is a giant, interactive sales brochure. I love it. Speaking of that, since they love to have all these history images, they should have at least one real picture of the car in it's bio.

Pretty cool. Now I just wish the gang would look at and talk about the list(s) for awhile. Talk about differences that surprise or don't surprise them, games they haven't heard of, see any patterns, where and why they think opinions align or misaligned with their community etc etc.

Been waiting for this D2 remaster forever. Wasn't sure if they'd find a way to screw it up but hopefully this is a good thing. "Hey, you did super well bringing this other game back, now please help do the same for D2"

..because D2 is one of the best games ever made. And it'd be a honor and terrifying to work on that.