Sore Thumbs III: What Non-BT Video Games Are You Playing?

[Akamia]

In-between sessions of Helldivers 2, Star Trek Online, and the occasional day of MWO and Crab Champions, I'm finding time to play the newest entry in the 8-Bit RTS series, 9-Bit Armies: A Bit Too Far.

It's got a lot of familiar stuff going on from the original 8-Bit Armies. The playable factions are, effectively, the original Renegades and Guardians with new names. It also brings some new stuff with it, like naval combat and mega structures (which in this case means combining four structures of some specific types to create a bigger, stronger version of it) and a means to expand your base and economy without necessarily "base crawling" everywhere you need to be the way you usually had to in the original games.

But of course, it's an early access game, and it's got some bugs that need to be fixed. It's a fun game, though; definitely an improvement on what made the original game fun to play, as far as I'm concerned!

[Sapphirus]

Yesterday in Super Mario Bros. 3 I've made it to the 7th world.  Man those ice levels from the 6th world are annoying, like all ice levels.  THis is through the Switch's NES Catalogue

[Sartris]

Try the Japanese version some time where you go to small Mario from a suit in one hit

Good times!

[Darth Nichos]

The most annoying and disastrous thing happened to me today; I was about 3/4 of the way thru Gramblue Fantasy Relink and you can only have one save file

My Save File became corrupted

[Prospernia]

I found my old copy of Heavy Gear II (Hey, it's non-Battletech), that I got from Electronic-Boutique, probably like, twenty-years ago. for $1.99.  I remember I tried it on my old Windows Millennium PC and it wouldn't work, so, I just discarded it in the pile. 

[chanman]

I found my old copy of Heavy Gear II (Hey, it's non-Battletech), that I got from Electronic-Boutique, probably like, twenty-years ago. for $1.99.  I remember I tried it on my old Windows Millennium PC and it wouldn't work, so, I just discarded it in the pile.

You know, with the Activision Blizzard acquisition complete, Microsoft now owns all the IP and rights to a bunch of the 90s mech games although it's missing out on MW3.

We know, of course, about the rights to Battletech video games via FASA Interactive, but Activision Blizzard brings with it Sierra's homegrown Metaltech setting (Earthsiege/Starsiege/Tribes/Missionforce:Cyberstorm) and Heavy Gear 1/2, although I don't know about the licensing agreement with Dreampod 9.

Earthsiege, for those unfamiliar with it, is a kind of Terminator-esque post-apocalyptic setting. Also in Microsoft's IP portfolio? Crimson skies, and Interstate '76 from Activision.






I don't know how it'd fare in the market today, but I tell you this: my cold, dead heart, would explode from joy 
I don't think I'm asking for anything weird, just the obvious crossover nexus of dieselpunk dogfights and Zeppelins crossed with heavily armed muscle cars and at least two flavours of gigantic mecha.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Microsoft wanted Activision-Blizzard for WoW and the company's mobile game studio, since live service games are generally a license to print money no matter how bad they are (Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League looking to be an exception due to its decade of development time and already-dismally small player base).

But I'm certainly happy to dream of Interstate 76 being updated with modern gameplay and graphics for consoles.  Fun fact: the reason the game exists is because Activision decided that after the money they'd spent on Mechwarrior 2's game engine they wanted to try making another game on it for a better return on their investment.

[Triptych]

Switched to Necromancer mastery in my new playthrough for Last Epoch. I just raise armies of skeleton mages, wraiths and fire golems to kill everything I encounter, and my minions never seem to die either, even against bosses. It's kind of easy mode with this meta style, but its a great way to unwind after a long day. 

[NeonKnight]

Microsoft wanted Activision-Blizzard for WoW and the company's mobile game studio, since live service games are generally a license to print money no matter how bad they are (Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League looking to be an exception due to its decade of development time and already-dismally small player base).

Ooooo....it's not the exception, it's just the latest in a long list:

https://www.thegamer.com/live-service-games-shut-down-quickly/

[chanman]

Microsoft wanted Activision-Blizzard for WoW and the company's mobile game studio, since live service games are generally a license to print money no matter how bad they are (Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League looking to be an exception due to its decade of development time and already-dismally small player base).

But I'm certainly happy to dream of Interstate 76 being updated with modern gameplay and graphics for consoles.  Fun fact: the reason the game exists is because Activision decided that after the money they'd spent on Mechwarrior 2's game engine they wanted to try making another game on it for a better return on their investment.

Big live service games are generally a huge fiscal sink unless they explode onto the market and can maintain their player base. They simply have far too many ongoing costs, from servers to moderation and community engagement to a stream of new content.

Especially if they aren't charging subscription fees, they need to continuously be churning new content with good uptake rates just to keep the lights on, and you'll never get the slow burn or long tail of games with small but devoted bases or that explode in popularity years after release due to being rediscovered by say, a streamer with a huge viewership or going viral on social media.

There are exceptions like Eve Online, but they aren't really mass market endeavours either. I guess Star Citizen is effectively a live service game where they continually sell content to keep making payroll...

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Ooooo....it's not the exception, it's just the latest in a long list:

https://www.thegamer.com/live-service-games-shut-down-quickly/

No, it's the exception in that it had a long and expensive development time.  Most live service games do not and consequently it's actually really easy for the studio to make a profit even if the game doesn't last too long.

This is because of microtransactions.  Put in a whole lot of microtransations and pay-to-win mechanics and you'll get players who will drop thousands of dollars into the game on gatcha.  Only a small percentage of the player base is willing to do this, but that small percentage spends enough to insure that the game makes money anyway, even if support for it is dropped in less than a year.  It's why companies like Square and EA are still pushing live service games even with how many high-profile flops there have been.

And then you get into the field of mobile games, which has become almost entirely dominated by live service gatcha type games that are all basically just the same game with different skins.

[NeonKnight]

Well, then don;t forget SKULL AND BONES:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/03/09/skull-and-bones-looks-like-its-doing-worse-than-suicide-squad-kill-the-justice-league/?sh=166423b31c72

Longer development, and bombing harsh.

[Prospernia]

Is there a map-editor for Heavy Gear II? 

Also, back in the day, I remembered Microsoft's games were exclusive and expensive like Age of Empires and Close Combat;  critics were raving about them; now, I can find them for $0.50 cents at the local library used book-stores.  (Age of Mythology, anyways).

[elf25s]

my friend sent me a copy of unloop its a cute puzzle game sort of like pipes
relaxing in weird way...

[Prospernia]

Steel Panthers again;

Japan vs. USMC '44, Assault.  Japan-side; I dug my forces in, and got a patrol boat that went actively hunted down Landing-boat.  I got three of them, but, I had C&C on, so I couldn't command my boat to move.  The USMC landed their mortars and tanks first, which were easy-picking for my 47mm ATGs and my infantry.  My plan was to resist the landing at a few points, then, stage ambushes along the route to the objectives.  It worked; I got scores of USMC vehicles hit.  I was surprised how many kills I got hitting Sherman-tanks with 47mm rounds.  Well, because of C&C, I couldn't move any of my forces.  So, my initial plan failed.  I did get a strong-point with 150mm cannon that was very effective against the landing-craft.   Some highlights were, an 70mm Infantry gun took out a USMC LVT, with one surviving crew, that jumped out and took out the cannon!  I had a squad inside a house that was surrounded; they used flame-throwers and grenades and still, they lasted several-turns, with the house literally on fire!

Right now, I'm Germans v. Poland, Sept, '39.  The Poles aren't that easy to roll over; I've got a Panzer Company and mechanized, two Panzer-Grenadier companies and their infantry is slowing me down and I'm taking moderate-losses. They love to shoot at my scout-motorcycles. 

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Been playing Tekken 8.  Much better story mode than 7, and the Character Episodes are much better than the one-off battles.  I am rather annoyed that the game has costumes for some of the characters that are updated versions of their classic Tekken and Tekken 2 outfits, like Nina's catsuit, Marshall Law's classic Bruce Lee tracksuit, or King's button-down shirt with suspenders and tie.  And made them all paid DLC.

Still enjoying the game a lot.  Hope that they focus on a more balanced approach when it comes to DLC characters and gives us more old favorites from the start rather than stuffing a whole lot of crossover characters and new characters who are basically the same as old characters.

[elf25s]

tekken is up to 8?
last one i played was 3

[Sartris]

a japanese company named D4 Enterprises is releasing a number of NEC 8801 PC titles including Ys I and II. most are not translated to english at all. fortunately my knowledge of the Ys series transcends language

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

tekken is up to 8?
last one i played was 3

Eight numbered games, plus two non-canon tag-battle games (called Tekken Tag Tournament and Tekken Tag Tournament 2, very imaginative, I know), and some spinoffs that didn't do very well.  Also an animated movie based on the second game, a poorly-rated live action movie based on the first, and an anime series on Netflix loosely based on the third.  Plus two crossover games with Street Fighter (one of which was never released outside of Japan).  And a comic book at some point.

It's not exactly as big as Street Fighter, but it's done pretty well.

[Akamia]

Beat the Overlords campaign to 9-Bit Armies. Twice, once on Easy and once on Normal difficulty.

It turns out [spoiler]the Overlords are in fact the previously nameless opposing faction to the Renegades in the original 8-Bit Armies campaign, back when the Renegades were the only faction in the game but the game still needed an enemy to beat; this is the canon explanation for why their tech is exactly the same, because the Renegades stole all of it from the Overlords. Some time-travel shenanigans undid the Eternal Commander's – that is, the player character of those games – involvement in the war that set the course for everything that happened throughout the original 8-Bit RTS trilogy. So the Renegades are no more, because there was no Eternal Commander to lead them to victory against the Overlords in this version of the setting, and the Overlords stomped out the Guardians for the most part, whom originally rose up to oppose the Renegades; what resistance cells remain reorganized into the Sentinels, who are the Overlords's primary opposition in the 9-Bit Armies campaign.[/spoiler]

Honestly, I'm probably the only one here who cares about this, but hey, I'm having a good time with it. Looking forward to the Sentinels campaign, which I expect will take place after the Overlords campaign as is seemingly tradition with this series. lol

[Wrangler]

Beat the Overlords campaign to 9-Bit Armies. Twice, once on Easy and once on Normal difficulty.

That's funny. I just bought the game today.

[Akamia]

Oh yeah? Maybe we could play together at some point! :D

I beat it again on Hard today, in co-op mode. I am now very ready for the Sentinels campaign whenever that's coming. For now, though, I'm probably gonna focus on achievement hunting what's presently possible. Gonna need a human player for an ally when I attempt to fight 6 Hard bots; there's an achievement for doing that specifically, apparently.

[Wrangler]

Maybe a little bit till I am ready to play other players, I've never ever played the series ever.

I'm still just dabbling while I'm working. I'll let you know if I'm freed up and know how to play. Lol

[Akamia]

Fair enough! It's a good game, even in its early-access stage!

[Bedwyr]

For those that loved Ogre Battle on the SNES and Ogre Battle 64 on the N64, Unicord Overlord is indeed going to be your jam. It doesn't surpass either but it definitely scratches that itch for RTS army maneuvering combined with JRPG squad battles and experience gain.

[elf25s]

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2024-04-05/front-mission-2-remake-game-releases-for-ps5-ps4-xbox-one-xbox-series-x-s-pc-on-april-30/.209580
front mission 2 remake is out at the end of the month...

[Sapphirus]

I continued Touhou: Hero of Ice Fairy.  Man the boss fight with [spoiler]Marisa Kirasame[/spoiler]'s tough.  That's why Touhou's a Bullet Hell game franchsie ;)

[elf25s]

so far only one i am looking to this month is front mission 2 remake

[Triptych]

Slay the Spire. Never played this before. It's fun!

[Wrangler]

so far only one i am looking to this month is front mission 2 remake

I am soooooooooooooo waiting for that.