The Video Game Thread

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I'm not an avid gamer so I might be wrong, but I believe the holiday season has some pretty strong deals for consoles, especially combo deals. So if you can hold out ~2 months you might be able to save a decent amount.

[Jocephus]

some more recent footage of cuphead for anyone interested. theres commentary over it so i dont know how useful that is, i dont have audio

[InvincibleCakeEater]

Been rocking my PS3 for streaming and haven't done much gaming in awhile, but kind of feel like getting back into it so I gave in and got an XBox One S instead of a PS4. Thoughts on the pros-cons?

[Jocephus]

A lot of it has to do with "exclusives". I'm only Xbox and enjoy it (regular Xbox 1) but ps4 definitely has outsold Xbox and has better tech specs (on the basic level, these new models change things a bit). I'm not a hardware snob but it's important to some. These consoles (well maybe not nintendo) are essentially multimedia players that happen to play video games so there's lot of utility with any console. Like I said, it's really about exclusives...and unless you have high expectations( first you'd be a pc player) I imagine you'll be satisfied.

[InvincibleCakeEater]

Cool. Only reason I went with the XBox was that I've always liked XBox live better than Playstation's online gaming.

[Michael]

PS4 and XB1 are basically the same thing. The deciding factor should be if your friends prefer one system or you like certain system exclusives more. Getting a good deal is another reason. Either way you won't regret your decision.

Unrelated: I have an 4K OLED so I decided to trade in a bunch of old systems (ps4, 360, 2 ps3) at game stop and upgrade to a PS pro for $110 with a special offer. The 4k is better, but the law of diminishing returns is in full effect. Even if you have a 4K TV I'm not sure it's worth it. I certainly wouldn't upgrade a vanilla PS4 unless you get a good deal like I did. I was for sure going to upgrade my XB1 to an XB1 X, but now I'm not so sure.

BTW, 4K has nothing to do with OLED performance. That's stunning on 1080p or 4k.

[Jocephus]

[Michael]

That's my most wanted upcoming game.

[themiddle54]

Yeah, I'm bummed that we have to wait til spring for Red Dead 2.

NBA2K18 is losing some steam for me. The immersive nature of it is cool, but there's just too much to do. To do the MyPlayer you have a long load time. Then you're in the Neighborhood. If you don't hit the gym and run on the treadmill or otherwise exercise you're not at 100% for the next game. If you go to the practice gym you can only do three drills to boost your badges/skill. Then when you play the game as a rookie you get maybe 90 seconds playing time, tops. If you go to the Playground and you haven't given PS another $50-100 to buy VC to upgrade your player, then you stink and no one will play with you, or if you do get a game your player is not good enough to make even the most lightly contested layup. Every step takes long load times and you can be on the MyPlayer thing for an hour and spend maybe 12 minutes tops playing actual basketball, the other 48 either just shooting alone or waiting for the thing to load. It takes like 45 seconds just to leave the gym while the screen goes gray and the little ball in the corner counts up to 100%. All the stuff you have to do makes it a lot like GTA San Andreas where you had to eat, get haircuts, work out--it's like, just let me go kill some people.

I also picked up NBA Live, figured without a '17 version the two-year development time would give them a jump. It's less involved, the load times are faster, the gameplay is great, it's not impossible to level up your guy without spending extra money on game currency, and if you want to play online it sticks you with a team blindly. As a plug-and-play game it's far better, and you can still do career and player-building stuff without the incredibly long load times.

[Swirls]

So my old PS3 is basically on the fritz now. I've had it since 2009, but don't use it for much anymore except streaming MLB.tv and watching DVDs/Blu-Rays. I'll occasionally play a video game, but I haven't actually bought any in several years.

I basically need to get a PS4, right? I'm assuming it will play Blu-Rays fine? Are PS3 games cross-compatible?

I'm half considering just getting a used PS3 from GameStop, but I've found this year the streaming quality on MLB.tv has been pretty bad, so it seems it's just getting slower and slower and more outdated. I know it's not my bandwidth, as I get 150 Mbit internet.

Are PS4's able to read 5GHz bandwidth, or are they only 2.4GHz like the PS3?