Drowsy Emperor

Weird, I don't recall any slowdowns on the PS2. Its sad if they screwed up a simple upgrade

I don't know what's wrong with SMT designers. Every game I played in the series has an obscene encounter rate. Persona 3 has a 250 floor randomly generated dungeon FFS. Don't know whose bright idea that was in this day and age.

JRPG's are all very similar in some respects so burn out is expected if you play them constantly. Years have passed since I last took up the genre and by the time I'm through with the next few I have planned it will probably be years again before I pick it up.

This influx of codexians with the start of Project Eternity makes us old Obsidianites look like nice people. Even Volo's got his **** together.

JRPG's often have great premises, a nice opening to suck you in, more experimentation with settings than western RPGs. All too often they fail at resolving the storylines or resort to cliches, shallow characters and rely on far too much grind to add more length to gameplay. I've played: Final Fantasy IV (finished it. shallow, simple and a waste of time) Final Fantasy VII (finished it. rather unimpressed with the game in every respect) Final Fantasy VIII (quit a few hours in, dunno why) Final Fantasy X (finished it. Great game) Final Fantasy X-2 (finished it. Too girly for my tastes) Final Fantasy XII (top notch graphical design. in progress) Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (excellent visual design and setting. quit due to boredom with shallow and sparse story) Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (finished it. Great premise, some fine parts, poor story outcome, too grind heavy) Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga (in progress. Interesting premise, boring dungeons and gameplay) Suikoden III (quit due to boredom) Odin's Sphere (quit due to being too repetitive and boring) Dragon Quest VIII (plan on playing it through) Septerra Core (never finished it) ...can't remember if there was anything else Overall the two I liked best so far are FFX and FFXII. Persona 3 made a great impression and subsequently did everything to ruin it.

Games were always about making money, but I don't remember it ever being so obvious while actually playing the game. While playing certain AAA titles you can almost point out the individual parts the game is made of, which target audience its made for, the projected reaction on the player - and through these things, literally see the way it was intended that the game make money and sell itself as it were. Its a stifling, hollow experience without anything whimsical, random, without seeing that there were people actually involved in making the game. For all you know it could have been made in a factory according to a template. Worst of all it lacks the joy of the people working on it, the sort of thing you can see in wacky Fallout dialog or Baldur's Gate's side quests, the Witcher's crude humor, Shadow of the Colossus's artistic unity etc. That someone actually liked making the game and had a vision they followed through and through.

I haven't, my graphics card is half dead so I'm not likely to play it any time soon.

I feel Morrowind is a poor game too (after 25+ hours spent in it). The story was weak and painfully slow to start, the aren't any characters (even through the game is full of people), the quests are mostly trivial, the dungeons are similar and visually, the game is just ugly. Also, many of the mechanics are broken - its too easy to become too powerful and rich quickly. Its a make your own adventure type of game, without a compelling hook in it, just miles and miles of muddy brown terrain.. It was much the same experience I've gotten from Oblivion except Oblivion was mostly pretty to look at. Although it had the annoying level scaling, and somehow felt even deader than Morrowind. Fallout 3 felt even worse, a jumbled mess of poorly related ideas and concepts thrown into the game world. Of all their games that I've played, Morrowind was the best and considering how I feel of Morrowind that just says it all.

Strange. One would think that after finally getting it right (sorta) with Blood Money, they'd at least be able to copy/paste that level of quality.

Boring. At least Dawn of War 2 was, after the great DoW. The prospect of getting Homeworld 3 however, trumps any and all Warhammer games for me.

I feel sorry for Relic - they always deliver a good product. On the other hand, this might mean they can finally stop making Warhammer games.

NO, MORROWIND IS BETTER FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU

I think you're very insecure in your orientation. Not really, I just can't find a better word to describe anime or anything resembling it. Man I don't like anime either, but all it does is trade in one set of issues for another. Btw there are some rather good shows, films etc. Give Vision of Escaflowne a go, you won't regret it.

Okay, I'm delusional then.

That's highly delusional and dishonest of you. Here's what Final Fantasy X looks like close to its native resolution, without an emulator adding filters, AF, AA: Also, holy ****, is that screenshot from an emulator a cut scene? That's even more dishonest.How is it that your FFX is double the resolution of what it would be on the PS2, but Morrowind is less than its max resolution? Yeah, if Bethesda decided to take control away from a player I'm sure they could dedicate all the polygons to the characters (while still managing to look really bad in the background) Morrowind could have looked as good. In the end you should care how much freedom of movement and control you are given, because a game completely on rails consisting of quick time events will look better than any other game, but it will be a ****ty game to play. Yeah, Morrowind looks way better. What is even happening in FFX? I don't want this to turn into some sort of war, the whole point was to give some credit where its due, namely Japanese designers. The fact that you're insisting on FFX native resolution as its supposed disadvantage is strange to say the least considering that its made for television sets which operate on those resolutions. Only when you take a screenshot directly from the PS2's signal and paste it on a PC screen (your screenshot) do those issues you describe show up. No one is going to do that anyway, you're either going to play it on the TV or with an emulator and in both cases its going to look far better than what you claim because: a) TV smooths out all those errors, or b)because the emulator features take care of them It simply does not look like what you claim it does, (especially the contrast and the edges) and I should know because I had it in my PS2 yesterday to show my gf what the game looks like. I also played morrowind just last month. Btw, the fact that you can upscale FFX's graphics 10 years later with appropriate software (but no mods) and the game still looks good is a testament to sound design choices during its making. It uses the resources at its disposal extremely well and that's an achievement in itself. PS I don't know what quick time events you're talking about, there aren't any in FFX.

Both sides are being defensive. That someone states there isn't enough motivation to pick up a console, however, they shouldn't have to riposte statements of the obvious that there are probably some games on the system that they would like. It's like it's completely unfathomable for someone to have different tastes. The difference here, is those defending themselves for being primarily PC gamers were demonstrating how they personally are not interested. He, on the other hand, is going around telling other people that they're wrong. One of these perspectives is non-confrontational and even perfectly okay with other people having different preferences. The other less so, and by doing so keeps the discussion going when otherwise it should probably have just died some time ago. I started out on the Apple II and the Mac, got myself a Nintendo, then a Super Nintendo, while also using the PC. Then focused heavily on the PSX and N64, until Half-Life converted me to full on PC gamer. I was indifferent to the PS2/XBox, and the only reason why I picked up a 360 was because my friends and I were on a Rock Band kick. Having owned the console, there are games I picked up that I definitely wouldn't have otherwise (since the 360 cost was sunk), I still preferred the games on the PC and in general found myself with absolutely no shortage of games to play in spite of this restriction. I have zero beef if people prefer to play on any of the consoles, and despite jokingly referring to myself as part of the "PC Master Race" you'll still see me commenting against PC gamers that talk down to console gamers too. And you are looking too much into it. I was telling them that its possible they could be wrong without even knowing it. From the perspective of the end user the technology and its limitations are irrelevant. FFX looks better on my TV than Morrowind on my PC (without even going into the world design comparison, effects, use of colors etc). Incidentally, this is FFX, emulated on PC, released year 2001: Morrowind 2003: Yeah, it would be unreasonable to expect that an open world game would look better than a linear one filled with pre rendered scenes, and few on screen characters, but in the end,as a gamer - I shouldn't have to care about that. I can play FFX today, and there's no way around the fact that Morrowind is ugly as hell, badly animated and well, brown.

I think everyone should play Final Fantasy, and at least give the Shin Megami Tensei series a go. If you don't like any of those the chances are you aren't going to like anything else. I dislike many of the conventions of JRPG's (which are really just obsolete conventions of western RPGs), and I find many anime characters quite irritating, but there is no denying that japanese do some aspects of their games extremely well. Really thinking back, when FFX was released it was graphically so far beyond anything released in the west at the time that its not even worth comparing. A few years later everyone was going bonkers over Morrowind's "photorealism" and that game looks, even today, like crap in comparison to FFX.

Every system ever made likely has some games on it that I like. You're awfully defensive, and for what purpose? Because someone doesn't typically like the games on a console so it's not an issue for them to not get one? I'm just giving some advice I could have used at the time. I'm not a great fan of console gaming myself, but getting one certainly opened me up to some new experiences.

Perhaps because some of us don't feel like we're missing any "good games?" Shooters aren't generally my thing, and neither are sports games. I've had no interest in the FF series or the other RPG's I've seen for consoles. Console exclusives are rare-ish and most of the time they aren't even games I care about in the first place. All my favorite games and genres are ones that (still) don't/wouldn't work well on consoles. All the little independent games I'm interested in are for PC. I can think of one console exclusive game in all these years that I was slightly interested in, and that was Red Dead Redemption. One "maybe" game isn't enough for me to spend $400+ just to play it. I'd get more use/function from spending $400 on a new camera lens. So why should I waste money, even if I have the money to waste, on something that will end up sitting on a shelf unused? Just because one has money to "throw around" doesn't mean one necessarily throws it around indiscriminately when there's no personal benefit/gain. And I've seen plenty of console "elitists" just as much as I see PC "elitists" - neither platform consists of a group that is exempt from such attitudes. Seems silly to me either way. I like red apples, someone else likes golden apples. They're both apples. Just play. Yeah, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you're actually well informed about what games are available on the 2 main consoles. Because I sure as hell wasn't back in the day when I was only playing the PC (why would I be?) and I distinctly remember saying the same things you're saying now and realizing later (when it turned out that the PS2 had a massive catalog of good titles, in just about every genre) that I was talking out of my bum. At least with that console its inconceivable that you could find yourself not liking any of the games that are available on it. But, whatever, each to his/her own. Btw console exclusives aren't rare, there are less of them now than there used to be but the PS2 has easily a hundred games (probably hundreds though) that were never released on any other platform. And shooters are mostly a PC genre you know, if you think console gaming is all shooters and sports games... well.

Not wanting one just means you're denying yourself quite a few good games *shrug*. Why would you not want a console, presuming you had the money to throw around? My post was making fun of the tribal attitudes, I also have both. While most of my best gaming moments were on the PC, there were at least two games I played on the PS2 (the only console I ever owned) that were mindblowing (FFX, SOC) and plenty of other worthwhile ones.

The thing is, there are no proponents of consoles here, its the snobs who have both vs the pc only disadvantaged (who in typical proleterian fashion adopt the I DONT NEEDS IT argument, because MY PC CAN DOES IT ALL BETTERZ [not because I can't afford it, no sir]). Technically I'd be a snob if if I wasn't running obsolete hardware on both fronts.

The only problem is that you're likely to buy a PC anyway. However, even the combined price of a basic netbook + console is still less than what a gaming rig would come down to and you have the benefit of having two devices. However one issue is important - the dropping quality of console (and PC, but more important on the console) hardware. The fact that Sony gives only a one year warranty (the same that you would get for a hair dryer) tells you a lot about their projected failure rates. That's worrying, while I can open the PS2 and clean the laser what am I going to do if the PS3 screws up after the warranty expires? According to wiki, I think the failure rate for the PS3 is 10%, and while its not near the horrid X360 that's still pretty bad. More importantly, what is this going to mean for the next generation. PS2 was worse than PS1, and PS3 is worse than both in terms of hardware quality.

I don't know what console games look like on new TV's but one thing to take into consideration is that the lower resolutions that consoles work on are adapted for those tvs. You're not sitting as close as you would to a PC monitor and the tv blurs a lot of those jagged edges that would stick out like a sore thumb on a PC. My PS2 games look great on an old CRT,(comparatively speaking, much better than many games of the time on the PC) while those same games emulated on the PC look like crap. But please, continue with the **** slinging. Because the PC computer and console computer are two computers and there is only space for one in this town.

If it has to be one, then it's clearly PS4. MS has sucky exclusives and sucky policies. Its very likely you're right. However I'm not impressed by the PS3, I feel they screwed it up. Too few exclusives, too few landmark games, practically no RPG's - certainly no exceptional ones and a small game library. This makes me feel nervous about PS4. I don't want to invest in something that's going to have all the same multiplatform games (that the PC can do better). Obviously the XboX360 is even worse in this regard. I'm still playing all of its (worthwhile) games on my wreck of a PC and they look better too. But what if the next xbox is significantly cheaper (like half the price) of the next PS? That's something to consider. You're looking in the wrong market. Remember, PS3 is backwards compatible with PS1 games. I can play all the PS1 RPGs on my PS3. In addition, PS3 has had plenty of RPGs...released internationally when talking about the US.... Of course that means you'd have to import. Half of them are not really what Western audiences are into though...such as the Atelier series, the Agarest series which made it to the west...some of those that didn't copy that type of humor and behavior.... My PS3 also plays all my PS2 RPGs...so in truth I have FAR more RPGs that can play on my PS3 than I do on any other system...inclusive of my PC right now. I believe only the first versions of the PS3, the fat one are backwards compatible. The rest (indeed all of the ones available now on the market) omitted PS2 hardware to reduce costs. That's what I read on the wiki...

Which says a lot, considering Histoire secrète is not particularly good by Franco-Belgian comic scene standards (which sadly, have degraded over the last 20 years).