Bombin' the A.M. With Scoops and the Wolf: 08/25/2014

Then I'm in the right place!

As always, thanks for the great work guys. Absolutely love the site.

Man, talking about Shadows of the Empire takes me back. I bet that game doesn't hold up at all, but in retrospect I think it might have just been ahead of its time. It attempted a lot of the same things that modern third-person, set piece driven action adventure games like Uncharted and Dead Space 2 eventually nailed.

Patrick should get into PR. He can make sentence worth of stuff last 20 minutes.

Rest in peace, Richard Attenborough.

Am I the only one that was hoping this was a Super Mario 64 Quick Look / Bombastica?

Look at how cool this duder was! Picture from the set of The Great Escape, one of my all time favorite movies.

dec·i·mateˈdesəˌmāt/verbpast tense: decimated; past participle: decimated

1. 1. kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of. "the project would decimate the fragile wetland wilderness"

• drastically reduce the strength or effectiveness of (something)."plant viruses that can decimate yields"

I wanted to enjoy Ehrgeiz so much but it was just such a bad game. The fighting was sorta okay. I didn't understand the dungeon crawler at the time and the minigames were just randomly thrown in for some reason.

Are you sure the battery in the 3ds is dead? You said you plugged it into a ps4, but do you know for sure that the ps4 can charge things that aren't the dualshock4?

@hammondoftexas said:

Look at how cool this duder was! Picture from the set of The Great Escape, one of my all time favorite movies.

Yo, he kinda looks like Bill Clinton back in the day. Only watched 34th and Jurassic Park, but I really need to watch his backlog.

I played the bomb disarming Oculus game they mentioned at Gencon. It's super rad!

I disarmed the bomb once and failed the second round. It was kinda tricky to give morse code reading at a convention hall.

Super Mario 64 talk? Yes! One of the best games I've ever played.

Don't bother going to a GameStop, @PatrickKlepek. They don't carry batteries and will tell you to send it to get serviced...or, more likely, try to sell you a used 3DS to replace it with.

@alex I'd argue that your reviews over the years disprove your assertion that you don't play bad games. You could argue that you don't play bad games of your own free will, I guess.

Mario 64 still holds up exceptionally well.

Yeah, the little orange light went on. I tried charging it on my computer all night...no dice.

Yeah, it really was. I went back to it recently with rosy memories in my head, and they were dashed pretty quickly. There isn't much to understand about the dungeon crawling bits - they are just really thinly featured and clunky as fuck. Super innovative for the time of course, but compared to modern offerings of the rogue/roguelike/roguelite/roguelikelike nature (kill me), it doesn't hold up at all.

The same, unfortunately, can be said of Tobal No. 1 and 2s dungeon modes (although the actual fighting game part fares a lot better).

All that said, all I want in life is for people to make more games like Destrega

It's a new week and that feels good. Let's get to the video games!

I upgraded the battery in the Wii U controller to the higher capacity one and it was super easy. I'm assuming that the 3DS is the same since there is a battery compartment IIRC. The Wii U just has a plug that you had to pull out and put the new one in then set the battery in the recess and put the cover back on.

https://store.nintendo.com/ng3/browse/productDetailColorSizePicker.jsp?productId=prod10478

Double Dash forever! MK64 is the worst. Well, either that or MKWii. Battle mode was best on 64 though.

You're absolutely right that it doesn't hold up at all, but you're absolutely wrong in that it was "ahead of its time".

For it to even be considered as "ahead of its time" it has to do something well, and Shadows of the Empire's third-person action is GARBAGE and was even garbage back in its day (along with games like Tomb Raider and it's common 3D-action ilk of that time).

If you actually want the history lesson, one of the first games to get third-person shooting to feel "right" without pure reliance on an auto-aim mechanic or a fixed-camera was Syphon Filter back in like 1999. Then over the years, you get concepts like "Over-the-Shoulder" shooting from Resident Evil 4, and then cover mechanics from Gears of War to further popularize and refine the mechanics (sure we could say Winback, but it didn't popularize).

When it comes to third-person action, Mario 64 is still the benchmarking catalyst though.

Mario 64 is still great. The raw controls/feel are probably the best of any 3D Mario (very fast/fluid, Galaxy & 3D World are a lot slower Sunshine is similar in speed but there's no long jump), even if the camera is the worst, the sprites/non-3D stuff is pretty lame, and a handful of levels aren't so hot, but regardless still a fun game.

I'm not suggesting it came close to being a good third-person shooter, just that the notes it was trying to hit were the same as those later perfected by games like Uncharted.

I also don't think Syphon Filter is a great example. That game would've been unplayable without the lock-on system.

If you care about yourself don't read the youtube comments on this vid

@schonebaby: I clearly didn't care about myself enough at the time because I took a quick glance and now I hate the internet again.

I'm going to go stare at funny cat and puppy videos on the internet for a few hours until I feel better.

If you think Diablo 3 is too easy you should try out Path of Exile.

Its by far the best arpb on the market today

Just started and had to say it... GO HAWKS!

The comments on the Youtube video... are something... else.

man

it was so annoying watching dan not remember/recognise the menu options in no mercy

I think its long overdue for Nintendo to make a Mario 64 sequel. It would be cool if they recreated the original castle design and just expand on it (additional upper floors, expanded basement, larger courtyard and surrounding area).

Keep the concept of jumping into paintings to enter levels. Add additional puzzle elements in order to progress through the castle.

Seems like Nintendo likes to try to chart new territory with each new Mario game but in recent times this isn't true. They've gone back to the New Super Mario Bros well probably a few times too many and I think 3DLand/World is played out. I don't really want another 3D world.

Part of the charm of 64 was its world and the various secrets you discover inside and outside the castle. They've lost that aspect to Mario games since then. With WiiU they could make a downright beautiful 3D Mario game. Sure, 3D world looked sharp, but its style was pretty basic. I'd like them to focus more on making the game visually striking rather than just serviceable.

Anywho, I'm just a dreamer I suppose. We know they are working on the next Mario game for WiiU but anyone's guess what form that game is going to take.

Mario 64 absolutely still holds up, other than maybe the camera being a little wonky in places. Also, maybe because it was my first console, but I never had a problem with that controller. You use the D-Pad in like two games.

Also got a chuckle out of them saying Plan Escape Torment before being corrected. That game still holds up alright if you want to skim a guide here and there (and install obligatory widescreen mod) mostly because the best parts of that thing involve reading a whole lot of text and not actually playing said game. The actual playing parts weren't great in 1999.

Plan-escape? What. The. Fuck.

Congo is fucking awesome. I've watched it numerous times since its been on Netflix.

I'll echo the sentiment that some of the YouTube comments on this Bombin' are absolutely reviling.

Yeah, I'm playing through for the first time and the combat is truly the definition of "clusterfuck." From people's praise of BG, it sounds like the problem isn't universal across all Infinity Engine games.

Tina Amini being coached by The Wolf? OH, COLLUSION!

@dark_lord_spam: I read the YouTube comments and now I hate EVERYTHING.

Am I all alone in here?

Hello?

@cyraxible: It's dangerous to go alone. Take me with you to the comment abyss.

Arrgh, I tweeted Patrick about that Oculus bomb defusal game months ago when it first started making rounds on Kotaku and whatnot, and he was asking for new Oculus stuff to look at.

Don't be afraid, we're all going to make it bros

Oh yeah did you see that someone might've figured out the solution to P.T.? It is pretty crazy stuff. @patrickklepek

Decimated = reduced by a tenth

Growing up I was the opposite. I thought Shadows Of The Empire and Tomb Raider player perfectly fine. They were great games. I could never get comfortable with the controls in Syphon Filter though. Aside from the using the teaser I never really found it interesting. A shame because I was hoping it would be more Metal Gear-style stuff.

You really have to bump that difficulty up on Diablo 3. It's crazy they expect most people to play on Normal. Normal is going to be what a lot of people pick.

For what it's worth, Eric Pope's videos will be weird this time around, but I don't think they're as disturibing. Well... one might be.

And now I'm reminded that Dan thinks Super Mario Sunshine is better than Mario 64...

LOVE CONGO, that is all.

I am one of those people that when I first played an n64 at launch, I did not hold the middle section with the joystick. I reached over with my thumb. Continued to play that way for the rest of time, still do today, it really isn't that bad.