Specific & Peculiar Recommendations

video games
24

@whatsarobot#7295

Thank you SO MUCH for that article you linked. I'm still trying to figure out how to talk about it but the relationships (business, cultural, technical, etc [even personal, as I am a veteran myself]) between videogames and the military is a subject that has been burning a hole in my brain for the past couple months. So it's not a surprise I've also been thinking about Kojima. I was already aware of Genocidal Organ and Harmony (because of the excellent trilogy of anime adaptations of Itoh's work, I havnt read the books), and considered Genocidal Organ important to help understand some things in MGS, but I had no idea the author and Kojima had such a direct relationship. I shouldnt be surprised! Definitely need to pick up "wired for war" now.

I also second "the men who stare at goats", which unfortunately is a case where the movie adaptation should be avoided at all costs. I'll rack my brain for other answers and get back to you. In the mean time, check this out

(skip the abstract)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7376277/

This is kind of an off the wall recommendation and the connection might not be immediately obvious (hint: there are other kinds of war besides people litterally shooting at each other) but have you seen the movie Network?

https://youtu.be/V9XeyBd_IuA

https://youtu.be/X4DXaKuOAZ0

>

You‘re television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You’re madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure, and pain… and love.

At the time of its release it was considered an outlandish dark comedy. It predicted reality television, among other things. Watching it today is sobering.

Edit: I have a habit of avoiding other peoples cumulative thoughts on a subject until I reach a conclusion on my own, but this subject is so big and encompasses so many things that I dont think that's ever going to happen. So if anyone has any interesting recommendations about the historical or modern junctures of the military and videogame industries (or even just stuff about the relationship between the military and GAMES), hit me with them. Preferably nonfiction, but if you know of a interesting or useful fictional metaphor hit me with that, too. I sometimes feel like I'm attempting to reinvent the wheel when trying to figure out how to approach this subject. Like the derogatory term "murder simulator" doesnt seem so silly when considered in this context.

26

I miss reading people's specific and peculiar recommendations!

I don't have anything that I'm looking _that_ hard for, but I'll try to think of a few things as an excuse to revive this thread so other people can take advantage of it.

Recommend me:

  • - Random people on the internet who have recorded over a thousand albums of weird avant garde noise. Specifically, I'm asking this because of this guy: https://becomingshadow.bandcamp.com. I could buy all 1580 of his releases for only €8,678.80! I love being able to just pick out some random album of his and be like “I wonder what this one will be like.”

  • - 80s and 90s Chinese language b-list pop. Mandarin or Cantonese is fine. For reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kodedQf71lw
  • - English translations of interviews with Japanese developers of interesting though not very successful Mega Drive, PC Engine, Saturn, Dreamcast and 90s Japanese PC games. E.g., I really liked this interview @exodus linked somewhere a while ago: http://shmuplations.com/battlemania/
    • 27

    @saddleblasters#7991 This doesn't quite hit on quantity, but this fella is a friend of mine who does some odd and fun stuff you may enjoy: https://soundcloud.com/cpieper

    New request from me:
    I'm working on a very specific, niche, streaming concept that I'm starting on Twitch. Does anyone have any experience streaming live footage from an iPad Pro 11? It's not the video I'll be streaming to a channel. I'll be offscreen and my webcam will be streaming video of another monitor mirroring what I'm doing on my iPad. That monitor doesn't have to be super crazy 4k, any HDMI. Video lag is okay but I do need my iPad not to lag as I use it.

    What's the best way to mirror my iPad on another monitor live? Thanks!

    28

    Trying to go with the original intention of this thread and not just post “recommend me games on this system” so here goes:

    What Nintendo DS games would you recommend to someone who already thinks they have a pretty good grasp on what's worth playing on the thing? I already know about Flower, Sun, and Rain. I know about Contact. I know about the fan translation of the first Ni No Kuni for it. I feel like I have a pretty solid grasp of what's the most popular stuff on there(999, Ghost Trick, Kirby Canvas Curse, TWEWY, Strange Journey etc). But what other stuff is there? What are the games you've played and think are cool that you never really see talked about? When some bozo(I'm the bozo in this scenario) comes out and thinks they know everything what are you putting forward?

    29

    @sabertoothalex#8026 Well I just mentioned these on another thread, but Sakura Note (same designer as Contact) and Houkago Shounen (Konami‘s attempt at a Boku no Natsuyasumi) are lovely little nostalgic Japanese adventures. If translation patches exist for those, I’d recommend them!

    There's Magician's Quest, which is Animal Crossing but with wizard-type people.

    Solatorobo: Red the Hunter is the spiritual sequel to Tail Concerto, and is one of the most graphically beautiful DS games.

    Infinite Space is a really cool space-faring ship-building JRPG from Platinum that might be well-known, but I don't see people talking about it!

    30

    @sabertoothalex#8026 Blood of Bahamut may be worth checking out. I say “may” because I haven‘t played it myself, but given the “heroes trying to slay giants whom they also live on” fantasy premise, it’s the sort of game that's destined to become a Hidden Gem™ in the next few years.

    There's also *Sigma Harmonics*, a murder mystery RPG built mainly around gathering evidence to solve supernatural murders, and then solving them with a kind of improvised Go board. Whether or not a hypothesis is successful depends on your ability to assert it, IE by defeating a boss that becomes stronger the further you are from the correct answer. This produces interesting results, thematically speaking.

    31

    Hell yeah, thanks both of you. Really wish I could read Japanese as Sakura Note is waaaaaaaay up my alley. I'll check out all of these.

    32

    re: DS games:

    you could try Moon and see what it‘s like when I write a bunch of stuff and then somebody else rewrites it (lol). I wrote all the terminal text in that game, telling a whole backstory there, but then like 30% of it got rewritten. You could ALSO try a terrible game I worked on called Barnyard Blast. I realize the prompt wasn’t “games brandon sheffield worked on” but it‘s hard to think of other games people wouldn’t have played!! The DSiware Gameloft Castlevania clone Soul of Darkness is quite good?

    @saddleblasters As for 80s cantopop, I've got loads but it's all stuck on records and I can't god darn read any chinese, so it's hard to put in here, buuuuuuut lemme try:

    this cover of crush is 90s but it RULES and the video is like time traveling into a dreamcast
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNkNGDF4RHs

    Also 90s, also a cover, also rules if you like smooth R&B, which you should:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax1IPvEsLJM

    Karen Mok's (this is 2000s, sorry, honk) you are so beautiful is exactly my vibe
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gfuIsHGPaA

    I'll try to get my proper 80s stuff together later. it requires me hand writing the chinese characters into some translation software so I can then copy that to search. it's dumb as heck.

    33

    @exodus#8268 hey, I have a pretty decent command of Chinese. If you want, maybe we could come to some arrangement, where, like, you take pictures of what you have, send them to me, and I try to figure out what everything is? I don’t know if this would actually be more convenient for you, but I am a big fan of going to old bookstores and secondhand shops, typing the names of everything I see into my phone, which is basically what this would be, so I wouldn’t mind.

    I guess pm me (now that we can do that on this forum) if you want to figure something out?

    34

    any recommendations on a pencil sharpener (or other method) that will produce a sharp point on water-soluble graphite pencils? I've tried a few and can only get a rounded point. This is for HB soluble specifically

    36

    @“Syzygy”#p42344 Surely this specific and peculiar need must have been answered on the Internet by now, the nature-illiterate city boy in me thought, and there you go.

    Based on the criteria I could figure out, I would hazard to guess [a **red-shouldered hawk**, maybe?](https://www.fws.gov/lab/featheratlas/feather.php?Bird=RSHA_primary_imm_female) They are indeed [found on the North-American East Coast.](http://www.nenature.com/RedShoulderedHawk.htm)

    37

    @“MichaelDMcGrath”#p6857 I have only just noticed this thread, and thank you for this set of recommendations! I had previously tried Duolingo (blarg) and Rosetta Stone, which I figured had to be good for what they were charging for it… and was left underwhelmed.

    I'm giving iKnow a go now, seems good initially. I'll stick with it and see how I feel after a month or so. I'm not sure why any of my previous attempts haven't stuck, but hopefully this one does.

    38

    @“rejj”#p42456 I‘m not 100% sure about Rosetta Stone, but with Duolingo, it probably has something to do with its use of spaced repetition. It’s become very popular in the language learning community over the past couple of decades because it turns language into a computer-legible phenomenon and lends itself very well to gamifying the language learning process, but often it comes at the cost of teaching you how the language is actually used.

    39

    I'm going to be up in San Francisco in a couple weeks for SF Zine Fest.

    Any specific & peculiar recommendations for neighborhoods or spots to sleep / hang out?

    40

    Specific but not necessarily all that peculiar:

    I have played a handful of 3D action games throughout my life, but I've never really gotten good at any or appreciated them the way I appreciate very technical 2D action games like, say, Battle Mania or Bangai-O Spirits. I got sucked into emulation at a pretty young age and couldn't afford modern consoles and games for them until becoming something resembling an adult, so I've just played way more 2D stuff over the course of my life.

    I want to pick one 3D action game and force myself to really learn it. Maybe I'll eventually play a bunch, but it seems best to start with just one.

    My criteria:

  • - 3D: The game should really use its 3D-ness. Part of why I want to do this is for the purposes of researching/understanding what can be done with 3D space.
  • - Technical: I should have to actually learn how to play the game. In, say, Touhou if you don't navigate the bullets you die immediately. Even if the game has a bunch of other systems built on top of it, there is this minimum skill of not dying that is necessary and omnipresent, and which is constantly being tested to further and further extremes as you proceed through the stages/go up difficulty levels. In a lot of the 3D games I've played, I've been able to get very far without learning the basic skills of the game, which ends up feeling awful to me, and I'd rather the game just kill me. Perhaps this has more to do with modern design sensibilities than 3D vs 2D, so it might be hard to find a game that really satisfies in this regard -- but if possible I'd like something that is extremely confident in it's basic moment to moment gameplay and will scream at me if I'm not doing it right.
  • - Action: For my purposes, I'd like to minimize doing anything that isn't action (solving puzzles, story, exploring the game world). The game can have that other stuff, but the more I'm forced to do it, the more I'll feel distracted from my main goal (getting good at a technical 3D action game).
  • - I have a PS4 and Switch. I've also been able to tolerably emulate most PS2 and Gamecube games that I've tried, but I know PS2 emulation is notorious for being finicky regardless of computing power. Doubt I'd be able to emulate PS3 or xbox 360.

    • And to give some more hints about what I'm looking for, here are some of the 3D action games I've played before with notes on what I thought about them:

  • - Zelda OoT, MM, WW, and TP. None of these really were "technical", and I didn't feel like I had to get very good at the combat system. I think I was especially disappointed with OoT when I replayed it a few years ago after reading some interviews with devs that really talked up the innovations they made regarding 3D space (e.g. the levels were compared to puzzle boxes, the targeting system was compared to grunts circling the hero in traditional theatre). Conceptually that all seemed very cool, but when I played the game again, those innovations seemed to be hardly used, only giving a small taste of what 3D action can be. This might just be not wanting to overload players unfamiliar with 3D action, but I don't remember being particularly impressed with any of the later Zeldas I've played either.
  • - Dark Souls. I suppose this was basically OoT combat, but made much more challenging, with many different weapons that have different weights and lengths. I stopped around Blighttown. I definitely enjoyed aspects of the game, navigating the environments, some of the fights with basic enemy grunts -- but I found the whole experience very slow, and I didn't feel like I was getting better at the game so much as learning self control and patience, waiting for the moments where I could safely attack. It's possible that I was playing "the wrong way", and relying on an overly defensive play-style as a crutch to learning the game. If I replay it I might want to try going through the game without a shield, though not sure how much I actually want to replay (I don't like dark fantasy all that much).
  • - Shadow of the Colossus. This also seemed like a descendent of OoT combat, though they've gotten rid of any careful crowd control of enemy grunts, and instead there's just giant moving 3D objects to navigate. The early stages of the colossus battles, when you're on the ground and trying to find an opening to climb the colossus, are a bit similar to Dark Souls boss fights, but once you're on the colossus it's a completely different game. This has the problem that Zelda games have, where I don't really feel like I have to be good at the game. If I crawl around on the colossus long enough eventually I'll find all the white spots and kill it. There's no real precision.
  • - The Yakuza series. I definitely could learn to play these games in a proficient way, but whenever I play them I get a lot more concerned about the story and sidequests, and since you basically have infinite health (just pause at any moment and use healing items) I never actually feel the need to get good at fighting. Also something tells me that, as far as 3D action games go, the Yakuza games are "just ok." They seem like they could exist as 2D brawlers without sacrificing *too* much of the experience.
  • - Bayonetta. I played this on the easiest difficulty a long time ago, and I really didn't feel like I was doing anything other than pressing buttons a lot and sometimes winning, sometimes losing. If I died I would try again and eventually get to the end of the level and earn a horrible ranking. I believe there were a bunch of combos to memorize? I suspect part of my experience was a result of not really understanding what each of the combos are useful for or being able to think quickly enough to use the appropriate combo in the appropriate situation (if that is indeed how you're supposed to play this sort of game). Like the Yakuza games, I didn't really feel the 3D was taken advantage of. Though it's very possible I just didn't know how to play, and because I was proceeding through easy without retrying levels to get better ranks, I never actually learned how to play.

    • Games I'm considering:

  • - Bujingai: it was highly recommended on the podcast's PS2 episode, I like its aesthetic, I like Gackt, though I have no idea how much it meets all my criteria. It definitely seems do a lot more with 3D than Yakuza or Bayonetta, and the combat looks cool from videos I've seen, though I have no idea what actually playing it is like.
  • - God Hand: I really know nothing about it, and every time it's brought up on the forum or the podcast I don't really feel any closer to knowing what it's like (other than having dodges mapped to right stick other than camera controls) -- though it's been recommended so many times that it seems highly possible that it's the game I'm supposed to play.
  • - Devil May Cry: @"Syzygy"#279 called DMC5 [possibly the greatest action game of all time](https://forums.insertcredit.com/d/935-playstation-4-or-so-you-want-to-be-a-samurai/8), so if there's no reason not to, I might just skip to that rather than playing earlier games in the series. (Also that atting of Syzygy is an invitation for him (or anyone else) to convince me one of the other games in his ps4 samurai thread might be better for my specific purposes.)
  • - Sekiro: It seems like it is designed specifically to address what kept me from enjoying Dark Souls? Also if I'm going to be in a dark fantasy world, I like East Asian dark fantasy a lot more than Western dark fantasy. (which reminds me: I really liked Inu-Oh! I saw it a few weeks ago but forgot to mention it to anyone. Maybe I should write something about it in the movies thread.)

    • Or should I play some shooter??? I guess a lot of the games I call 2D action might be classified as STGs or STG-adjacent, but 3D shooters seems like something else entirely to me? At least first person shooters do. I'd be open to any suggestions that I play a 3rd person shooter -- though I am extremely bad at precise aiming in 3D space, and that seems like a very different skill than whatever's being practiced in most melee based 3D action games.

    Any tips that might eliminate certain games from my list or add other games that I might not have considered would be appreciated! Like I said at the beginning, I've played mostly 2D games my whole life, and to some degree have had the attitude that post-PS1 3D isn't for me. This results in a tendency to tune out discussion of modern 3D action games. As such, there might be some very obvious picks that meet all my criteria that I haven't thought about! I'm also open to the possibility that I'm thinking about 3D action games the wrong way, wanting too much for them to be just like 2D games, so I'd be interesting in hearing any arguments for how I *should* be thinking about 3D action games and how to enjoy them as they are.

    41

    Sekiro is a solid choice. The Xbox Ninja Gaiden too ofc. God Hand is great but idk if you’d be better served by playing a more “normal” game by your criteria before playing it

    42

    Genji for PS2 is another good one but it’s less “technical” and 3D

    43

    [upl-image-preview url=“https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/405617-vanquish-windows-front-cover.jpg”]

    44

    @“saddleblasters”#p83661 I‘d recommend the mirrors edge games, a lot of close combat games won’t emphasise 3D-ness as it can get confusing and complicated for dev and player.

    Mirrors edge 1's combat isn't that sure of itself but running through the 3d levels is lots of fun. If you can get it cheap go as far as you can. (It tapers off with heavy shooting levels.

    Mirror's edge catalyst has very 3D combat. It's all based on momentum with jumping onto people and kicking out of wall runs being stronger. The guards all stumble around each other. The set levels in this game are all 3d focused with lots of elevation and running where you shouldn't be. The main problem with this game is the skilltree, so it takes a little while to get into.
    Its often very cheap for ps4.

    If you want a more combat focused game, one of the newer Monster Hunter games could be good. These games require a lot of spatial awareness, and the newer combat has fun jump attacks.

    45

    # @“saddleblasters”#p83661 [size=99]GOD HAND[/size]

    Ok, that's my schtick, but actually. In terms of what other forum members claim to be the best action games of all time, **GOD HAND** is my #1 and _Sekiro_ is my #2.

    I hope you didn't order your criteria according to importance, because while **GOD HAND** might cover most of those pretty well (Puzzles and exploration are pretty much an afterthought's afterthought, **GOD HAND** being Technically demanding is a given at this point, you will need to emulate it but as far as I understand it it works good on PCSX2), it mostly qualifies as 3D somewhat by technicality. Its action cantankerously, borderline insanely expresses a staunch "3D-ness," but it's a certain kind of 3D-ness to say the least. Its 3D-ness concerns the character and enemies with an extreme focus, and, well, the game _has_ 3D environments, but they're pretty barebones. Though, if you consider the spatial conditions of where enemies are and how to deal with them being wherever they are to be a 3D environment, the idea that the barriers and physical confines of level design being pretty workhorse shouldn't bother you.

    To be as concise yet evocative as I can be in terms of explaining why I think it is the G.O.A.T. of all G.O.A.T.s for action games, you can get a "Vertical Slice" in the first 15-20 minutes against the first handful of enemies. During this time, at least, if you are going to like **GOD HAND** anyway, it will still most likely feel absolutely _awful_ to play: the tank controls will feel achingly antique, the dodging will feel awkward, the enemies will seem like they can gang up on you and surround you so easily, your moves will feel incomprehensible AND weak, and the existence of a 3D camera being controlled in a videogame will feel like a blissful dream you're experiencing in a barren inhospitable land...

    ...until, for what may seem like at first even just a lone split second, it will feel **_absolutely incredible._** You will launch an enemy into another enemy, or you've broken an enemy's guard (on purpose), or you'll dodge at just the right time, and you will feel like you will never want anything more than to do it again. Getting better at **GOD HAND** means chasing that feeling, nailing a move or a dodge or a juggle or a guard break or a launch, to feel it more deeply as well as more often, because of course it means you are succeeding at the game according to its prescribed gameplay parameters, but also, especially as the difficult ramps up more and more, eventually it ends up feeling like you are doing the videogame equivalent of slicing an apple precisely in half down the middle with a bow and arrow off of the head of someone doing a wheelie on a motorcycle, but pretty much still with the constant fear that the motorcycle is going to crash into you too (you're also jumping off of the motorcyle during this trick shot).

    There are gameplay mechanics reasons for what I believe causes this feeling in **GOD HAND,** and it being hard as fuck is only part of it. This is probably impossible to convey in a concise way (for my dumb ass anyway), but here are some reasons that come off the top of my head: almost every movement or action in the game is cancelable, once you get used to this plus its input buffering the idea of the game being slow and unwieldly transforms into you feeling like Ultra Instinct Goku who is playing the game from 10 milliseconds in the future, everything cool is punctuated by the sound effects in a way that just doesn't get old (the glass smash sound effect from guard breaking will embed itself in your brain forever), the move loadout system is actually really engaging and fun to tinker with overall thanks to its to-this-day-impressive level of customization (you really do actually create your move set and main combos from scratch), the enemy behaviour has a refreshing and constant unpredictability which makes all of this feel like you need to _execute_ on it in a way that means it always feels earned and never rote, its story and cutscenes will kill any unnecessary brain cells you don't need anymore, it is _rock fucking hard_ but actually for the most part only if you want it to be as it has an honest-to-goodness explicitly communicated adaptive difficulty system, and you can hit the slots and feel like a Capcom, Sega, or Chunsoft ass Japanese uncle born in the 60s, genuinely warmly wrapping your arm around a junior colleague after the Friday night blowout at the local yakitori bar, and loudly proclaiming how Blackjack makes every videogame better.

    I said this after playing **GOD HAND** for an hour:

    >

    You have not lived until you have landed a Barrel Roll Kick in GOD HAND. Quote

    I stand by that statement, for two, seemingly contradictory reasons:

  • 1.

    As it is included in your opening move loadout, it is the most likely and most reliable first purveyor of that incredible feeling of being good at GOD HAND, due to its properties of being unblockable, guaranteeing the launching of most enemies, and it being hard to land at all, since it both has a long wind up animation and locks you into said wind up animation (not common for anything to animation lock you at all)

  • 2.

    Enough familiarity with **GOD HAND's** moves will bring with it the realization that the Barrel Roll Kick **_sucks**._ The Barrel Roll Kick is just the gateway launching move...