I do not think it is possible to maintain this stance. I understand in so far the AI is visible - people do not care for the aesthetics of AI art. If AI code is buggy people won’t like the game, but that is because of the bugs. But AI used properly will be a huge timesaver and will make a lot of things possible that would never have happened before. Who cares if AI helped a solo-dev write a sub routine faster? That’s good, actually. The ultimate question is not how it’s made but how it presents to the audience. People should judge things on their merits - that is, if it looks bad to you don’t play it, but it shouldn’t matter so much how it was made.
@Sketcz when it comes to free speech and artistic expression I am a radical libertarian. The sort of person who insists on watch the unedited version of Cannibal Holocaust just on principle (I don’t actually recommend this by the way). I agree with you that things were better back then. But I also think it was never really as freewheeling as you’re describing. As an American I can only give the American perspective, but what some younger people may not realize is that in the US at least the defense of free speech in the 80’s, 90’s and ‘00’s was entirely political, a response to the rise of the religious right. In other words free speech and “offensive” movies and things like that were a way to stick it to the conservatives. It was instrumental and contextual, not a real principled position. It was always going to go away when the power dynamics flipped. Like clockwork, it is now the “conservatives” who are defending free speech. The true believers like me are few and far between…
As has been discussed a few times on here, retro could be thought of in chronological terms or it can be thought of in aesthetic terms, in which case the Wii is definitely retro but the ps360 arguably not. All had consoles essentially look the same. The graphics “improved” in the sense that they pushed more polygons and had better lighting but the overall style approximately identical. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone saying they specifically like the look of ps3 games. How could you even distinguish them?
I’m a fine artist myself. I know a few people who work in animation, and one guy who works at a company that does concept art or other art for hire (for big, big properties). It all sounds terrible. No job security, just constant anxiety and feast or famine. Tight deadlines, long hours. Pay is good kind of but not nice you break it down by hour… Plus even if you hit it out if the park you get nothing but what you were contracted. It’s a fine way to learn the ropes when you’re starting out but every artist who really builds strong skills should be laser focused on creating and owning their own IP. I’ve said this to the people and I’m always shocked how many don’t agree, I guess.
It’s a crazy list designed to provoke impossible tradeoffs. How are we supposed to compare Galaga to Skyrim? That said, any video game hall of fame that doesn’t include Galaga is a joke, so they need to get that one in there just to show that they’re serious. Honestly if I were in charge of an organization like this I would probably just seed the hall of fame with a couple hundred titles - the stuff we all know has to be in there - and then go from there when it comes to voting and all of that. Otherwise it’s going to take them years and years just to get through the obvious stuff.
Looks promising. Castlevania 64 is underrated I think. This is a really smart move, going back and updating that style of game. They never got it quite right even back in the day, so this is an area where you can push the nostalgia buttons while still potentially doing something new and producing (again, potentially) the best game in this specific style. I hope it turns out well.
I started experimenting with chatGPT a few years ago. It’s incredible. There are many questions ethically and legally around how to use AI, and I also think that it’s a bit of a buzzword that gets slapped onto everything unnecessarily. But in general I don’t think this technology is a fad or a “nothing burger”. It’s got tons of useful applications - and that’s if it never improves at all. If it keeps getting better God only knows where this’ll be in a few years.
I mean, in the case of objects with batteries it’s a good point. You’ve got to be able to access the battery or else it will eventually damage the product, defeating the point of the grading. But otherwise grading and sealing in plastic is the norm for all collectibles, isn’t it? Cards and comics and everything. I’m not surprised that the practice has come to video games as well.
First, play some of the games that I have but have rarely played (some of these games have been sitting on the shelf for twenty years or more).
Second, I am going to attempt to write a "memoir" (not sure if that's the correct term) going through all my memories of growing up as a dedicated gamer in the '90's. This is because, ultimately, I think I may be liquidating my collection soon. These are my childhood games and I don't want to lose all my memories and such, so I'm planning to try to write everything down. I may self publish it as a book or make it into a website or something. But the bottom line is that it's becoming impractical for me to continue dragging these games around with me. They're just going to get damaged in a move eventually, and I don't have a CRT and I basically never actually play the original hardware anymore. In practice, I'm pretty much all emulation now. But yeah... there are so many memories with these games.
I believe the switch may well get there eventually. It all depends on how long they keep it on the market, and whether they can lower the price at some point. I actually think that certain kind of person (like me) may buy second switches once the price is right, just to try and future proof their switch collection. It can’t be fully migrated to switch 2 at this time for compatibility and storage reasons. I definitely think between kids/families and super users they could sell several million more over the next say five years.
Edit: I bought a PS2 slim when they went down to $99 and I still have it, factory sealed. So it’s only fair I do the same for Nintendo!
“Hamaguchi explains that the one thing he didn't want to do was "overwrite the original game with my own fan perspective version of it and create a new version of the game which is essentially a fan fiction of it."”
@StyrofoamCup Interesting, I also consider the death of the Dreamcast to be the end of what I term the “classic” era of gaming. The PS2 ushered us into the modern era, although the modern era didn’t reach its full stride until the HD consoles came out.
Now the modern era is on its way out. Replacing it is something like an online live-service era. Time will tell what that really looks like. I believe we’re in the transition years right now.
@Sketcz strongly agree. I remember these days well, and fondly. The video game stores were full of games. The games themselves were different too - much more varied. It was an explosion of color; games of every kind and style. And it wasn’t only the video game stores! There were Tower Records and Suncoast videos, in fact every store was bursting with stuff. Malls were jam packed with people and a very specific energy. You would just run into friends walking around, it was a whole special social world. Anyway stores now space the products apart much more, presumably in order to disguise the fact that they have much less merchandise than they used to.
Wow, sad news. Ninja Gaiden ‘04 is still to this day the best 3D action game I’ve played, I think. Only the Bayonetta games come close. His interviews were always hilarious, because he was such a character. RIP
@Cyber_Akuma yeah, I’ve heard that it’s very difficult. Not being a technical person myself I only sort of understand but what I really don’t understand is why Sega engineered it that way in the first place? How was this unusual system architecture good for them anyway? I guess they had their reasons…
If someone can make a Saturn emulator that’s as automatic to use as the PSX emulator I’ve used for 12 years that would be exciting. It’s incredible that the Saturn is so difficult to emulate! But maybe we’re finally going to get there.
PS1 GitS needs a rerelease, pronto. The game is surprisingly good and holds up pretty well. I rented it back in the day but never owned. I would love to own this game properly.
AI is already so good that we (humans) can’t reliably tell the difference between a human hurrying or just being bad and AI generation. I will say this though (and I am an artist btw, although I don’t work in digital media): from what I have seen messing around with AI image generation I think it will be a long while before AI can do something like draw a whole comic book, or make all the concept art for a game or anything like that. It does not know how to stay on model. And the pace of progress seems to be slowing, as I think they are running out of training material. So I think human artists will be necessary for quite a while yet.
@The_Nintendo_Pedant I also lived the magazine and subscribed for several years. I still have the old issues. Among many things I also recall the Hsu and Chan comics being very funny.
I have their earlier jrpg book. It seems like there would an awful lot of overlap. I assume this book differentiates by going into more detail or something? From the brief description in this article it sounds like the essays may have a little more depth.
@Professor_Icepick This is where I’m at too. The first remake was not too bad after the patches. Still I’m not too confident. And I suppose I would prefer a collection of the original Saturn versions in the end.
@CO_Andy I’m not in favor of the tariffs (I’m very much a free market guy) but I think it’s worth considering that the answer to your question might be yes, UNLESS there was equal coverage of taxes that impact the hobby, regulations that impact the hobby, cultural rules that impact the hobby, etc. I’m not trying to say anything about this site in particular, which I think does a good job and which I do not think is too political. But just as a matter of logic, I think if there were say 8 policies that impact the hobby, and 7 of them went unremarked on, and then one gets singled out for attention, it could be the singling out that makes it arguably political, not the actual content on the article.
@lordlad I don’t find the politics in Metal Gear to be interesting or even coherent. Metal Gear is a paranoid techno thriller, a common genre similar to Tom Clancy perhaps or other popular works. It doesn’t seem to have any actual message or point that makes sense. “Nuclear weapons are bad” is standard sentiment and stopping a nuclear launch of some kind is a standard thriller plot.
All the stuff about free will, destiny and genetics is far more interesting. Do our genes determine our fate? And to some degree the ethical question around the use of violence are interesting as well. Solid Snake is something like an embodiment of virtuous masculinity. The games tacitly imply that snake uses violence virtuously, unlike the “bad guys” but this is frequently put into question by the dialogue. Although Snake is never really made out as a villain, the games nevertheless ask us to contemplate what the difference is between his (and therefore the players) use of violence and the antagonist’s.
That stuff is interesting, but I don’t think Metal Gear says anything insightful about the United States as a nation or geopolitics in general for that matter…
I guess my point is that anyone offended by the “politics” in Metal Gear is taking it too seriously.
@Sketcz I’ve not played this game or really any games like it. But I do think sexuality is really under explored in games, especially compared to how much effort has gone into perfecting violence. CDProjekt, BioWare, a couple others… only a handful of studios are even willing to try. I hope as games like this become more widely available we start to see more developers (and big developers) exploring how to include sex in their games…
People who just want the rom as a back-up after buying the steam version or whatever I have no problem. But anybody pirating a game that just came out just because they’re too cheap to buy it is pretty lame. Especially small indie games, come on people. Don’t do that.
If the idea is that you give an AI a prompt that goes something like “make me a Super Nintendo game in the style of x with features a, b, and c” and it just does it - I agree we’re very far away from that.
However as a hobbyist developer using the game maker engine I am already using AI successfully to improve my projects. The AI can tutor me on programming principles (I am almost entirely self taught), and I have used it in that capacity to create much more sophisticated input controllers, game state managers, etc. it can code chunks of the game for you. It’s not yet capable of engineering the whole software so you have to manage that but it will produce the relevant functions and routines and you can plug them in. They usually. It’s also pretty good at helping you track down bugs. it’s a good brainstorming partner when it comes to coming up with level ideas and mechanic ideas and so forth. AI so far is bad at pixel art - you can’t yet give it a doodle and expect it to turn it into good sprites. But it can help with music and to some degree animation.
It does this very fast too - much faster than looking up relevant tutorials or something. It takes the job of like three people and makes it one. Soon it will take the job of six people and make it one. That makes over 80% of the workforce redundant.
The whole AAA business model is unsustainable. Xbox in so far as it is particularly associated with cutting edge tech, is particularly vulnerable. I do wonder how things might have gone under various counter factuals but anyway… as it is, Xbox will become basically a third party publisher soon (I’ve been predicting this for years), Sony will position itself as the grown up console and Nintendo will be the offbeat option, more oriented towards families and smaller/weirder experiences. That arrangement will be stable for a while, then it too will fade. In the long run consoles are on the way out. Sony will become something like a publisher too. Nintendo will hang on the longest because they don’t have an alternative business model ready. They’ll figure one out though once they have to. They do have extremely valuable IP. I give consoles as we think of them maybe 20 years?
I’ve yet to find an indie rpg that really succeeds for me. (Caveat: I have not yet played Sea of Stars. It’s in my backlog though, so I’ll get to it soon). I did play Shadows of Adam and I thought it was pretty good, although not quite really up to the level of its inspirations. A similar game from the same developers has promise because Shadows of Adam came pretty close to greatness. I will definitely be keeping an eye on this one.
@Gryffin I think that’s what it’s trying to say. Fines are regressive; they land harder on the poor than the wealthy. Nevertheless I think this is another example of a pithy political meme that is actually simpleminded and dumb if you slow down at all to think about it (lots of these on all sides). So I guess my reaction is, I’m glad he didn’t write it! It speaks well of him that he was too smart to write this, lol.
What on Earth…? If this is true it’s such a strange decision. I don’t see how this license brings anything to the table. There’s no story, there’s no characters… I don’t think it even brings much to the table in terms of brand awareness… very strange.
Personally I’m glad. The goofy jokes are part of the charm. Now I wonder if they cleaned up some of the stuff that uh… didn’t age so well? Is that what they mean by “in general, based on the Working Designs script”?
I guess this could be controversial but I don’t even see what’s bad about Anduril. As I understand it anyway they’re a defense contractor, they’re not selling weapons to terrorists or whatnot. Is the idea that there should be no defense contractors at all? Or just no US military or something? I thought people were upset that Trump was cutting off Ukraine but where do people think these kinds of weapons come from? It’s as though people only want to think one step ahead. But if you think two steps ahead it’s pretty obvious that a world without companies like Anduril would be a far worse place. I think what’s important is that these sorts of companies behave in a lawful manner, which as far as I’ve heard is the case with this company so I don’t see the problem.
I feel like Billy Mitchell has some definite bad PR, but at the same time the vitriol against him seems totally disproportionate to what he did. I think this is case of the internet deciding someone is a villain and then deciding everything is justified since we already know they’re a villain…
That being said this sounds like a pretty harsh judgement.
This is interesting to me, as it’s sort of a version of a problem that I’m familiar with from art history, and which I imagine is common to all cultural studies, namely the impossibility of disentangling all the conflicting goals and information of historical projects. You could always go to a higher level of resolution, and go another step backward in the causal chain, to find an even more fundamental and “important” origin for whatever is being discussed. Where you arrest this process is partly arbitrary and conventional. The result is that diametrically opposite accounts can be equally “true” at different levels of resolution. For example, in art, Picasso is by most accounts more important than Braques. A survey book might skip Braques entirely and present Picasso as the sole creator of cubism, at least for all intents and purposes. And somebody else could come along and say that that’s inaccurate and that Braques was the real inventor of cubism and a very important artist, etc, and that’s totally true in a sense. But also everything that matters about cubism has to do with what Picasso did with it and the effect he has on other artists throughout the twentieth century. So is Braques important or is he basically an irrelevant side story? He’s both and which you present depends on the level of detail in the account you’re developing.
Like, is Populous an important game? Yes it more or less birthed an entire genre and also launched the career of Peter Molyneux, who has a pretty big presence in gaming for many years. On the other hand I could imagine a survey text skipping Populous and the entire God-sim genre. At a certain level Populous is not very important, nor any God-sim game. They were a sub genre of the PC scene, difficult to port to console successfully, there were no movies or tie-in shows, they didn’t break through into popular culture the way mascot characters did, and the genre petered out in relatively short amount of time (by historical standards). Both of these accounts are “true” but they’re just operating at different levels of detail.
I have not heard of this game before but it does indeed sound bad. But there was a big rig arcade game that I recall being pretty fun… I would like to see THAT game get a rerelease.
@kkalata glad to hear this! I have bought a lot of the hg101 books and I hope to buy a lot more in the future. It would have been terrible to think you weren’t getting paid at all!
How can people tell that it’s AI? Is it because of the sloppy appearance? (I.e., circles aren’t round, edges don’t line up, perspective is skewed, etc.) I’m an artist and I can’t always tell. I’m fascinated by people who developed such a strong eye for this stuff so quickly.
I mean I feel like it’s probably Super Mario bros. It’s tricky because it partly depends on how many “generations” of influence were allowed to consider. But with SMB I think we could argue that it popularized the entire structure and basic format of 2D side scrolling games, including of course running and jumping, a progression of distance levels, a variety of mechanically diverse enemies that interact with the level design, periodic climactic “boss” fights, secrets and power ups, and then the imperative of recreating the game in 3D caused Nintendo to basically repeat the whole performance fir 3D games.
I think it’s important to note that influence is not the same thing as inventing. Other games may have done these things first but it was SMB that was “influential” and turned them into the standard template for an enormous percentage of video games.
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Re: "AI-Coded Slop, No Thanks" - Animal Crossing's Native PC Port Was Made Using Claude Code
I do not think it is possible to maintain this stance. I understand in so far the AI is visible - people do not care for the aesthetics of AI art. If AI code is buggy people won’t like the game, but that is because of the bugs. But AI used properly will be a huge timesaver and will make a lot of things possible that would never have happened before. Who cares if AI helped a solo-dev write a sub routine faster? That’s good, actually. The ultimate question is not how it’s made but how it presents to the audience. People should judge things on their merits - that is, if it looks bad to you don’t play it, but it shouldn’t matter so much how it was made.
Re: Xbox 360, PS3 And Nintendo Wii U Are "Officially Retro", Says GameStop
@Sketcz when it comes to free speech and artistic expression I am a radical libertarian. The sort of person who insists on watch the unedited version of Cannibal Holocaust just on principle (I don’t actually recommend this by the way). I agree with you that things were better back then. But I also think it was never really as freewheeling as you’re describing. As an American I can only give the American perspective, but what some younger people may not realize is that in the US at least the defense of free speech in the 80’s, 90’s and ‘00’s was entirely political, a response to the rise of the religious right. In other words free speech and “offensive” movies and things like that were a way to stick it to the conservatives. It was instrumental and contextual, not a real principled position. It was always going to go away when the power dynamics flipped. Like clockwork, it is now the “conservatives” who are defending free speech. The true believers like me are few and far between…
Re: Xbox 360, PS3 And Nintendo Wii U Are "Officially Retro", Says GameStop
As has been discussed a few times on here, retro could be thought of in chronological terms or it can be thought of in aesthetic terms, in which case the Wii is definitely retro but the ps360 arguably not. All had consoles essentially look the same. The graphics “improved” in the sense that they pushed more polygons and had better lighting but the overall style approximately identical. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone saying they specifically like the look of ps3 games. How could you even distinguish them?
Re: Feature: "What Naughty Dog Did Was Inexcusable" - Crash Bandicoot And Jak & Daxter Artist Charles Zembillas On Why Independence Is The Key
I’m a fine artist myself. I know a few people who work in animation, and one guy who works at a company that does concept art or other art for hire (for big, big properties). It all sounds terrible. No job security, just constant anxiety and feast or famine. Tight deadlines, long hours. Pay is good kind of but not nice you break it down by hour… Plus even if you hit it out if the park you get nothing but what you were contracted. It’s a fine way to learn the ropes when you’re starting out but every artist who really builds strong skills should be laser focused on creating and owning their own IP. I’ve said this to the people and I’m always shocked how many don’t agree, I guess.
Re: Tokimeki Memorial, FIFA And Dragon Quest Could Make It Into The World Video Game Hall Of Fame
It’s a crazy list designed to provoke impossible tradeoffs. How are we supposed to compare Galaga to Skyrim? That said, any video game hall of fame that doesn’t include Galaga is a joke, so they need to get that one in there just to show that they’re serious. Honestly if I were in charge of an organization like this I would probably just seed the hall of fame with a couple hundred titles - the stuff we all know has to be in there - and then go from there when it comes to voting and all of that. Otherwise it’s going to take them years and years just to get through the obvious stuff.
Re: "What In The F*ck Have They Done" - Panzer Dragoon Zwei Remake's Steam Demo Has Upset Some Fans
@smoreon agreed.
Re: Community Challenge: How Far Can You Get In Ghosts 'N Goblins NES Without Taking A Hit?
Ha, like second or third screen I’d say…
Re: "Tell Every Castlevania Fan You Know" - Night Hazard Is An Upcoming Action Platformer, Inspired By 3D-Vanias
Looks promising. Castlevania 64 is underrated I think. This is a really smart move, going back and updating that style of game. They never got it quite right even back in the day, so this is an area where you can push the nostalgia buttons while still potentially doing something new and producing (again, potentially) the best game in this specific style. I hope it turns out well.
Re: "All Smoke And Mirrors" - Square Localisation Veteran Thinks History Is Repeating Itself With AI
I started experimenting with chatGPT a few years ago. It’s incredible. There are many questions ethically and legally around how to use AI, and I also think that it’s a bit of a buzzword that gets slapped onto everything unnecessarily. But in general I don’t think this technology is a fad or a “nothing burger”. It’s got tons of useful applications - and that’s if it never improves at all. If it keeps getting better God only knows where this’ll be in a few years.
Re: Holy Magic Century, Batman! The Infamous Quest 64 Is Being Recompiled For PC
I’ve always liked this game. It’s not amazing but it’s fine. I like the colors. I don’t think it really deserves the hate.
Re: "Beyond Incredibly Dumb" - The Internet Doesn't Like People Sealing Up Graded 3DS Consoles
I mean, in the case of objects with batteries it’s a good point. You’ve got to be able to access the battery or else it will eventually damage the product, defeating the point of the grading. But otherwise grading and sealing in plastic is the norm for all collectibles, isn’t it? Cards and comics and everything. I’m not surprised that the practice has come to video games as well.
Re: Talking Point: What Are Your Retro Gaming Resolutions For The New Year?
I have two big goals -
First, play some of the games that I have but have rarely played (some of these games have been sitting on the shelf for twenty years or more).
Second, I am going to attempt to write a "memoir" (not sure if that's the correct term) going through all my memories of growing up as a dedicated gamer in the '90's. This is because, ultimately, I think I may be liquidating my collection soon. These are my childhood games and I don't want to lose all my memories and such, so I'm planning to try to write everything down. I may self publish it as a book or make it into a website or something. But the bottom line is that it's becoming impractical for me to continue dragging these games around with me. They're just going to get damaged in a move eventually, and I don't have a CRT and I basically never actually play the original hardware anymore. In practice, I'm pretty much all emulation now. But yeah... there are so many memories with these games.
Re: "The World Needs More Games Like This" - Atari CEO's Best Game Of 2025 Proves He Has Impeccable Taste
These were fantastic games. They should do a collection on switch or something. It’s absurd that the whole series is unavailable.
Re: Sorry Nintendo, But It Doesn't Look Like Switch Will Overtake PS2 As The Best-Selling Console Of All Time
I believe the switch may well get there eventually. It all depends on how long they keep it on the market, and whether they can lower the price at some point. I actually think that certain kind of person (like me) may buy second switches once the price is right, just to try and future proof their switch collection. It can’t be fully migrated to switch 2 at this time for compatibility and storage reasons. I definitely think between kids/families and super users they could sell several million more over the next say five years.
Edit: I bought a PS2 slim when they went down to $99 and I still have it, factory sealed. So it’s only fair I do the same for Nintendo!
Re: "There's Basically Nothing" - Final Fantasy VII Remake's Director Reveals "Almost No Documentation" Exists For The Original
“Hamaguchi explains that the one thing he didn't want to do was "overwrite the original game with my own fan perspective version of it and create a new version of the game which is essentially a fan fiction of it."”
…guys, how are we going to break the news to him?
Re: Random: GameStop Drops A Clanger After Declaring The Console Wars "Over"
Eh, it’s joke. I think it’s funny. Definitely things are changing, anyway.
Re: "Not A Funko Pop In Sight" - Step Back In Time With This Amazing '90s Electronics Boutique Footage
@StyrofoamCup Interesting, I also consider the death of the Dreamcast to be the end of what I term the “classic” era of gaming. The PS2 ushered us into the modern era, although the modern era didn’t reach its full stride until the HD consoles came out.
Now the modern era is on its way out. Replacing it is something like an online live-service era. Time will tell what that really looks like. I believe we’re in the transition years right now.
Re: "Not A Funko Pop In Sight" - Step Back In Time With This Amazing '90s Electronics Boutique Footage
@Sketcz strongly agree. I remember these days well, and fondly. The video game stores were full of games. The games themselves were different too - much more varied. It was an explosion of color; games of every kind and style. And it wasn’t only the video game stores! There were Tower Records and Suncoast videos, in fact every store was bursting with stuff. Malls were jam packed with people and a very specific energy. You would just run into friends walking around, it was a whole special social world. Anyway stores now space the products apart much more, presumably in order to disguise the fact that they have much less merchandise than they used to.
Re: Team Ninja Founder & Dead Or Alive Creator Tomonobu Itagaki Has Passed Away
Wow, sad news. Ninja Gaiden ‘04 is still to this day the best 3D action game I’ve played, I think. Only the Bayonetta games come close. His interviews were always hilarious, because he was such a character. RIP
Re: New Emulator Ymir Now Boasts Over 90% Compatibility With The Sega Saturn's Library
@Cyber_Akuma yeah, I’ve heard that it’s very difficult. Not being a technical person myself I only sort of understand but what I really don’t understand is why Sega engineered it that way in the first place? How was this unusual system architecture good for them anyway? I guess they had their reasons…
Re: New Emulator Ymir Now Boasts Over 90% Compatibility With The Sega Saturn's Library
If someone can make a Saturn emulator that’s as automatic to use as the PSX emulator I’ve used for 12 years that would be exciting. It’s incredible that the Saturn is so difficult to emulate! But maybe we’re finally going to get there.
Re: Ghost In The Shell On PS1 Happened Because Masamune Shirow Loved Jumping Flash
PS1 GitS needs a rerelease, pronto. The game is surprisingly good and holds up pretty well. I rented it back in the day but never owned. I would love to own this game properly.
Re: Code Mystics "Horrified" By Accusation Its New Real Bout Fatal Fury 2 Port Uses AI-Generated Art
AI is already so good that we (humans) can’t reliably tell the difference between a human hurrying or just being bad and AI generation. I will say this though (and I am an artist btw, although I don’t work in digital media): from what I have seen messing around with AI image generation I think it will be a long while before AI can do something like draw a whole comic book, or make all the concept art for a game or anything like that. It does not know how to stay on model. And the pace of progress seems to be slowing, as I think they are running out of training material. So I think human artists will be necessary for quite a while yet.
Re: Electronic Gaming Monthly Is Getting Its Own YouTube Documentary, Thanks To Game Sack And My Life In Gaming
@The_Nintendo_Pedant I also lived the magazine and subscribed for several years. I still have the old issues. Among many things I also recall the Hsu and Chan comics being very funny.
Re: Bitmap Books Next Release Aims To Be The "Definitive Book Of SNES RPGs"
I have their earlier jrpg book. It seems like there would an awful lot of overlap. I assume this book differentiates by going into more detail or something? From the brief description in this article it sounds like the essays may have a little more depth.
Re: "Reject This Ugly Husk And Play The Original" - Panzer Dragoon II Zwei Remake Isn't Going Down Well With Fans
@Professor_Icepick This is where I’m at too. The first remake was not too bad after the patches. Still I’m not too confident. And I suppose I would prefer a collection of the original Saturn versions in the end.
Re: "I Hope Elon Musk Never Googles Me, Because I'll Be Murdered", Says Deus Ex Co-Writer
@CO_Andy I’m not in favor of the tariffs (I’m very much a free market guy) but I think it’s worth considering that the answer to your question might be yes, UNLESS there was equal coverage of taxes that impact the hobby, regulations that impact the hobby, cultural rules that impact the hobby, etc. I’m not trying to say anything about this site in particular, which I think does a good job and which I do not think is too political. But just as a matter of logic, I think if there were say 8 policies that impact the hobby, and 7 of them went unremarked on, and then one gets singled out for attention, it could be the singling out that makes it arguably political, not the actual content on the article.
Re: "I Hope Elon Musk Never Googles Me, Because I'll Be Murdered", Says Deus Ex Co-Writer
@lordlad I don’t find the politics in Metal Gear to be interesting or even coherent. Metal Gear is a paranoid techno thriller, a common genre similar to Tom Clancy perhaps or other popular works. It doesn’t seem to have any actual message or point that makes sense. “Nuclear weapons are bad” is standard sentiment and stopping a nuclear launch of some kind is a standard thriller plot.
All the stuff about free will, destiny and genetics is far more interesting. Do our genes determine our fate? And to some degree the ethical question around the use of violence are interesting as well. Solid Snake is something like an embodiment of virtuous masculinity. The games tacitly imply that snake uses violence virtuously, unlike the “bad guys” but this is frequently put into question by the dialogue. Although Snake is never really made out as a villain, the games nevertheless ask us to contemplate what the difference is between his (and therefore the players) use of violence and the antagonist’s.
That stuff is interesting, but I don’t think Metal Gear says anything insightful about the United States as a nation or geopolitics in general for that matter…
I guess my point is that anyone offended by the “politics” in Metal Gear is taking it too seriously.
Re: NSFW Dating Sim 'Gambler: Queen's Cup' Has Been Translated Into English
@Sketcz I’ve not played this game or really any games like it. But I do think sexuality is really under explored in games, especially compared to how much effort has gone into perfecting violence. CDProjekt, BioWare, a couple others… only a handful of studios are even willing to try. I hope as games like this become more widely available we start to see more developers (and big developers) exploring how to include sex in their games…
Re: "Please Support Us" Pleads Yuzo Koshiro As Pirated Earthion ROM Appears Online
People who just want the rom as a back-up after buying the steam version or whatever I have no problem. But anybody pirating a game that just came out just because they’re too cheap to buy it is pretty lame. Especially small indie games, come on people. Don’t do that.
Re: Talking Point: If You Think AI Can Make SNES Games, We Have Some Magic Beans We'd Love To Sell You
If the idea is that you give an AI a prompt that goes something like “make me a Super Nintendo game in the style of x with features a, b, and c” and it just does it - I agree we’re very far away from that.
However as a hobbyist developer using the game maker engine I am already using AI successfully to improve my projects. The AI can tutor me on programming principles (I am almost entirely self taught), and I have used it in that capacity to create much more sophisticated input controllers, game state managers, etc. it can code chunks of the game for you. It’s not yet capable of engineering the whole software so you have to manage that but it will produce the relevant functions and routines and you can plug them in. They usually. It’s also pretty good at helping you track down bugs. it’s a good brainstorming partner when it comes to coming up with level ideas and mechanic ideas and so forth. AI so far is bad at pixel art - you can’t yet give it a doodle and expect it to turn it into good sprites. But it can help with music and to some degree animation.
It does this very fast too - much faster than looking up relevant tutorials or something. It takes the job of like three people and makes it one. Soon it will take the job of six people and make it one. That makes over 80% of the workforce redundant.
Re: "The Xbox Project Has Failed" - Picking Up The Pieces After Microsoft's Darkest Day In Gaming
The whole AAA business model is unsustainable. Xbox in so far as it is particularly associated with cutting edge tech, is particularly vulnerable. I do wonder how things might have gone under various counter factuals but anyway… as it is, Xbox will become basically a third party publisher soon (I’ve been predicting this for years), Sony will position itself as the grown up console and Nintendo will be the offbeat option, more oriented towards families and smaller/weirder experiences. That arrangement will be stable for a while, then it too will fade. In the long run consoles are on the way out. Sony will become something like a publisher too. Nintendo will hang on the longest because they don’t have an alternative business model ready. They’ll figure one out though once they have to. They do have extremely valuable IP. I give consoles as we think of them maybe 20 years?
Re: Can Top Gear's Former Stig Beat The (Unofficial) OutRun World Record?
One of my favorite games. It never gets old. They need to rerelease the 2006 game and then they need to make new one!
Re: Quartet (No, Not That One) Is A JRPG Which Takes Direct Aim At Your Nostalgia Gland
@Wezlypipz I almost forgot about that one! I did hear good things. I’ll check it out.
Re: Quartet (No, Not That One) Is A JRPG Which Takes Direct Aim At Your Nostalgia Gland
I’ve yet to find an indie rpg that really succeeds for me. (Caveat: I have not yet played Sea of Stars. It’s in my backlog though, so I’ll get to it soon). I did play Shadows of Adam and I thought it was pretty good, although not quite really up to the level of its inspirations. A similar game from the same developers has promise because Shadows of Adam came pretty close to greatness. I will definitely be keeping an eye on this one.
Re: Final Fantasy Tactics Writer Yasumi Matsuno Just Found Out About The Game's Most Famous False Quote
@Gryffin I think that’s what it’s trying to say. Fines are regressive; they land harder on the poor than the wealthy. Nevertheless I think this is another example of a pithy political meme that is actually simpleminded and dumb if you slow down at all to think about it (lots of these on all sides). So I guess my reaction is, I’m glad he didn’t write it! It speaks well of him that he was too smart to write this, lol.
Re: The Making Of: Ape Escape, Sony's Groundbreaking Platformer That Unlocked The DualShock's Potential
One of my favorite games. A bonafide classic!
Re: Capcom Is Keen To Make More Of Its Fighting Games Available On Modern Systems
Good list. I’d buy it.
Re: The Sega Classic OutRun Is Coming To The Big Screen, With Michael Bay Attached To Direct
What on Earth…? If this is true it’s such a strange decision. I don’t see how this license brings anything to the table. There’s no story, there’s no characters… I don’t think it even brings much to the table in terms of brand awareness… very strange.
Re: Upcoming Saturn Tribute Reissue To Skip Xbox Due To "Provocative Expressions"
I don’t understand this, basically, is this an underage character thing? Because the platform holders do allow nudity, so it can’t just be that…
Re: Lunar Remastered Collection Uses The Working Designs Script
Personally I’m glad. The goofy jokes are part of the charm. Now I wonder if they cleaned up some of the stuff that uh… didn’t age so well? Is that what they mean by “in general, based on the Working Designs script”?
Re: What Happens When An Arms Dealer Publishes Your Video Game?
I guess this could be controversial but I don’t even see what’s bad about Anduril. As I understand it anyway they’re a defense contractor, they’re not selling weapons to terrorists or whatnot. Is the idea that there should be no defense contractors at all? Or just no US military or something? I thought people were upset that Trump was cutting off Ukraine but where do people think these kinds of weapons come from? It’s as though people only want to think one step ahead. But if you think two steps ahead it’s pretty obvious that a world without companies like Anduril would be a far worse place. I think what’s important is that these sorts of companies behave in a lawful manner, which as far as I’ve heard is the case with this company so I don’t see the problem.
Re: Billy Mitchell Has Won His Defamation Lawsuit Against The YouTuber Karl Jobst
I feel like Billy Mitchell has some definite bad PR, but at the same time the vitriol against him seems totally disproportionate to what he did. I think this is case of the internet deciding someone is a villain and then deciding everything is justified since we already know they’re a villain…
That being said this sounds like a pretty harsh judgement.
Re: Looking Beyond America - How Game History Is Connected On A Global Scale
This is interesting to me, as it’s sort of a version of a problem that I’m familiar with from art history, and which I imagine is common to all cultural studies, namely the impossibility of disentangling all the conflicting goals and information of historical projects. You could always go to a higher level of resolution, and go another step backward in the causal chain, to find an even more fundamental and “important” origin for whatever is being discussed. Where you arrest this process is partly arbitrary and conventional. The result is that diametrically opposite accounts can be equally “true” at different levels of resolution. For example, in art, Picasso is by most accounts more important than Braques. A survey book might skip Braques entirely and present Picasso as the sole creator of cubism, at least for all intents and purposes. And somebody else could come along and say that that’s inaccurate and that Braques was the real inventor of cubism and a very important artist, etc, and that’s totally true in a sense. But also everything that matters about cubism has to do with what Picasso did with it and the effect he has on other artists throughout the twentieth century. So is Braques important or is he basically an irrelevant side story? He’s both and which you present depends on the level of detail in the account you’re developing.
Like, is Populous an important game? Yes it more or less birthed an entire genre and also launched the career of Peter Molyneux, who has a pretty big presence in gaming for many years. On the other hand I could imagine a survey text skipping Populous and the entire God-sim genre. At a certain level Populous is not very important, nor any God-sim game. They were a sub genre of the PC scene, difficult to port to console successfully, there were no movies or tie-in shows, they didn’t break through into popular culture the way mascot characters did, and the genre petered out in relatively short amount of time (by historical standards). Both of these accounts are “true” but they’re just operating at different levels of detail.
Re: One Of The Worst Games Of All Time Is Coming To Steam
I have not heard of this game before but it does indeed sound bad. But there was a big rig arcade game that I recall being pretty fun… I would like to see THAT game get a rerelease.
Re: Publisher Unbound Slides Into Administration
@kkalata glad to hear this! I have bought a lot of the hg101 books and I hope to buy a lot more in the future. It would have been terrible to think you weren’t getting paid at all!
Re: "Might Be Time To Go Back To A Corporate Job" - Trump's Tariffs Come Into Effect
@Zeebor15
And you may ask yourself - where is my beautiful retro emulator console?
Letting the days go by, water flowing underground…
Re: Activision Comes Under Fire For Using AI Art To Gauge Interest In New Mobile Games
How can people tell that it’s AI? Is it because of the sloppy appearance? (I.e., circles aren’t round, edges don’t line up, perspective is skewed, etc.) I’m an artist and I can’t always tell. I’m fascinated by people who developed such a strong eye for this stuff so quickly.
Re: This New Gibson Controller Will Work With Some Of Your Old PS3 Guitar Hero & Rock Band Games
@mariteaux that’s good to know, thanks for the info.
Re: What's The Most Influential Video Game of All Time? BAFTA Needs Your Help To Decide
I mean I feel like it’s probably Super Mario bros. It’s tricky because it partly depends on how many “generations” of influence were allowed to consider. But with SMB I think we could argue that it popularized the entire structure and basic format of 2D side scrolling games, including of course running and jumping, a progression of distance levels, a variety of mechanically diverse enemies that interact with the level design, periodic climactic “boss” fights, secrets and power ups, and then the imperative of recreating the game in 3D caused Nintendo to basically repeat the whole performance fir 3D games.
I think it’s important to note that influence is not the same thing as inventing. Other games may have done these things first but it was SMB that was “influential” and turned them into the standard template for an enormous percentage of video games.