The Video Game Thread

[tlombard]

I played a LOT of Mario over the weekend along with a little more Stardew Valley and am loving the Switch more and more as time goes on. Mario is a great game and once I started, I couldn't put it down.

My only issue is that it gives me trouble if I play while the Switch is docked and charging. It probably doesn't help that I'd already played for about three hours in handheld mode while halfway paying attention to college football on Saturday but when the battery got too low I docked it and kept playing. Within half an hour I had a message about the console getting too warm and went into sleep mode. After letting it sit for about an hour I went back to playing and the same thing happened. Thankfully that has not happened with any other game (I didn't try Mario Kart) but it also only seems to happen when the console is low on battery. After it was fully charged, it didn't overheat on me after an hour of play. I guess I just have to pay more attention to that with more demanding games and/or maybe pick up a USB powered fan to blow more air through the docking station. That thing is like wrapping the Switch up in a blanket without any airflow. I don't know what they were thinking with that design.

I still play the majority in handheld mode and I can run the battery from full to the warning at 15% without any issues and I can play with it plugged into the charger for my phone for hours without overheating issues as well so I'm pretty sure the dock restricting airflow is the problem.

That issue aside, I probably won't be picking up Zelda for awhile because if I did, I'd probably stop coming to work. Stardew Valley, Mario Odyssey and Mario Kart are enough to keep me entertained for hours. I also picked up a cheap off road racing game (Rock N Racing or something like that) and that was enough of a variety to keep me entertained all weekend.

[tlombard]

And FYI, that Centipede type dude is KILLING me so far in Odyssey. I've only tried a couple of times and I know what I need to do, I just can't seem to get it done and die over and over. That's my goal for tonight.

[Michael]

And FYI, that Centipede type dude is KILLING me so far in Odyssey. I've only tried a couple of times and I know what I need to do, I just can't seem to get it done and die over and over. That's my goal for tonight.

Buy a pro controller. I can't imagine playing mario with the standard joy cons.

I'm up to 250ish stars. My goal is to at least get 500 stars.

[tlombard]

I just checked and apparently I'm at 66 moons so far. I've thought about buying the Pro Controller but my problems haven't been with the controller, it's all me. And as I mentioned, I play in handheld mode while away from home or while watching something else on TV way more than docked so I'm not sure how much use I'd get out of the Pro Controller. I've never tried table top mode at all.

I get to the point where there is just one last part to hit on that centipede thing and I focus in on that and completely forget to pay attention to the giant fireball that is about to incinerate me. I literally don't even notice it until I'm dead.

I do like taking control of the little tanks and cruising around looking for things to shoot though.

[Jocephus]

the most downvoted post in reddit history is now at -332k. an EA community manager tried to explain the long grind time to unlock characters and/or the inclusion of microtransactions to speed up this process.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattle ... d/dppum98/

be careful of buying battlefront 2, you might not get to play as vader or luke unless you put in ~40 hours of work

[Michael]

So my favorite video game forum, neo gaf, has basically imploded. The owner was outed as being a creep. It's also come to light he's posted explicit pics of women on the internet out of revenge. There's been a mass resignation of the moderators. I guess there's a new forum coming called "reset era" from former members.

Update on this story.

Pretty much everyone has migrated to the new forum call resetera.com. So far they've been a great job. It's amazing how quickly everyone migrated.
NeoGaf actively is a shell of what it once was.

[tlombard]

I played Mario for about four hours last night and am now up to 124 moons from the 66 I had yesterday morning. I mentioned having trouble with that centipede thing on Sunday night but not last night. I got past it the first attempt after firing the game up when I got home from work. It is odd but I actually seem to play a lot better in handheld than I do on the TV. That's probably because I mainly play handheld though.

[Michael]

the most downvoted post in reddit history is now at -332k. an EA community manager tried to explain the long grind time to unlock characters and/or the inclusion of microtransactions to speed up this process.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattle ... d/dppum98/

be careful of buying battlefront 2, you might not get to play as vader or luke unless you put in ~40 hours of work

I looked in to this. What's even worse is it's pay to win. If you don't pay like 100 bucks for a loot box pack it's going to be very hard to be competitive. Online multipayer is going to be ruined by loot boxes.

[Jocephus]

the most downvoted post in reddit history is now at -332k. an EA community manager tried to explain the long grind time to unlock characters and/or the inclusion of microtransactions to speed up this process.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattle ... d/dppum98/

be careful of buying battlefront 2, you might not get to play as vader or luke unless you put in ~40 hours of work

I looked in to this. What's even worse is it's pay to win. If you don't pay like 100 bucks for a loot box pack it's going to be very hard to be competitive. Online multipayer is going to be ruined by loot boxes.

they adjusted the rates to unlock some of this stuff after the backlash but it still is a bit of a slog to acquire things w/o paying for it. obviously its EA pushing for this not DICE, but i really hate this. plus, the game will sell fine and people will buy the boxes thus justifying loot boxes for future games. with the star wars license the game will sell just fine and its going to get so many casual fans who don't pay attention to this stuff and once they realize what it takes to get some of these characters/items they'll just bust out the credit card. these games are already $60, i find it disgusting how obvious they are in trying to get you to tack on another 20, 60, 100 dollars. maybe it'd be ok if you pay $5 and bam you get vader instantly or if they were just cosmetics but this is still a slot machine system with character bonuses at stake. if you don't get what you like/want in that first $20 loot crate, just buy another!

[Michael]

My understanding they only adjusted the rates for the character unlocks. Most of the pay to win stuff is still there and it's ultra grindy if you don't pay up. They also reduced the amount of credits you get for completing the campaign.

It's all so sleazy and completely undermines competitive online play. I read EA also basically ruined the new Need for Speed game with grindy loot box nonsense as well.

There's not a snow balls chance in hell I'd buy either of those games.