#the random super high framerate | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

d8tl55c · 11 months ago

Note

im having trouble assigning one metric like age, weight, vitals, emotional state, etc. to memory usage because it's such a computer-y concept- maybe a combination of several of those things?

when you're talking about memory... uh... it's not really...

it's weird- UM- heRE's HOw RAM WORKS:

in general* there's two ways to handle data:

slow to access, but i can store a lot of data basically forever, or super fast, but i can only store a little, temporarily.

RAM (Random Access Memory) is the second option. it's a physically different chip from the long-term-big-storage one, and it is designed to multitask many, many file accesses/calculations/other processes at once. video games, modeling/editing/animation software, and web browsers commonly eat up a lot of RAM (a LOT: check out Flash up there at the top easily munching 300 thousand K* for the simplest possible animation) *we are going to pretend it's that simple because trying to research this further made the later sections of RUSH-E start blasting in my head :) (further reading that looks correct probably about things that are and aren't the "active private working set" (column displayed by default in Task Manager -> Details and the animation))

(here's 3 windows of 18 tabs of OperaGX as an example)

so it's not really the runtime of the program ("im not sure if their memory usage is reliant on how long they've been existing..."), but what its function is, that foreshadows its required RAM.

"...or how. complex they were drawn." <- this one should work. since they're all separate programs, they each have to handle their own graphics, and would use a type of RAM to keep up their silky smooth framerates and procedural animations.

and there's the. THOUGHTS. SENTIENCE. that they all have, of course. i can only assume they use computer working memory (a bit more RAM) like humans use our working memory, and permanent save files stored elsewhere for long-term stuff, because there is no other reference for how a functioning person-program works.

that doesn't explain why orange's number is so different from RYGB... and even when a program doesn't display anything or have feelings the RAM usage shown in Task Manager changes a lot... but in IV it stays exactly the same throughout for every single program..... (i was about to be excited if trying to end TheSecondComing.exe spiked his metrics or something but nothing happens *sad nerd face*) .....so im pretty sure not much was intended on Alan's part by assigning any of these RAM usage values, except for cinematic reasons: giving TheSecondComing.exe much less than the StickFigure[Color].exes forces c!Alan to search for it, realize it has a weird name, and zoom in all dramatic on it for the Description reveal, all because it's further down the list. :P

but if i were forced to speculate anyway-

id guess that the StickFigure[Color].exes use more RAM because they come from a game. maybe they're carrying around the game scripts that are responsible for waiting for user inputs. TheSecondComing.exe was never designed to be controlled, so would lack user input listeners by default. why does RYGB have different individual RAM usages? heck if i know- the discrepancies are small enough i think it's just. normal fluctuations. since they're doing different stuff and are variations on the same program, they'd likely stay near each other in RAM requirements, but trade places with who's using the most constantly.

is that all? uhhhh well all i know about getting user input is it can get complicated. suppose it might be 13,516 K complicated.

the only other thing i thought of is TSC.exe could hide suspiciously high RAM usage by stealing from Flash's allocated space. but i dont know if that's a real thing, even for worms. -> if it is, the story goes that, like Minecraft performance can increase by allocating more RAM for it, Flash probably has a big chunk set aside for processing animation-related stuff. TSC.exe, related/attached to Flash, may have access to this chunk, using some of Flash's resources instead of clocking more usage for itself on the Task Manager. the remaining 3,012 K may therefore be impossible to hide or outsource, and would account for... idk, the minimum RAM required to maintain a sapient stick figure? <- again, fully riffing and playing pretend with my touys there though. NOT sure if any of that section is anything. but it would be neat \o/

(side note: i tried to look back and see if avast! describes TCO's memory usage, but that metric doesn't show up :T and i dont think there was time to check TDL's or anyone else's in III or V)

SO WHAT IS IT HUH?

aaaaaaaaauuuu

it's not clear what the differences mean. it likely does not mean anything at all canonically (cinematic reasons). but i can confidently say that the Memory value probably corresponds to an individual stick figure's current: physical state (stored position, limb arrangements, collisions), display data (color, frame generation, frame display), emotional state (neutral vs intense), mental state (how hard they are thinking), extra features (game data, other attachments to parent programs), independence (is or isn't using memory through another program), and probably other things simultaneously.

i went and collected those numbers

however... it seems this metric we were discussing wasn't related to file size after all, it was memory usage.

i do not know enough about memory to immediately recognize the implications of this information but still cool to know and weird and interesting that they're so different 👉👉 handing to you for safekeeping

OHHHHHHHH !!!!!! i didnt even see the memory tab i really thought it was their file weight lol. man i really wonder what i can do with it. seems like red is consuming too much memory LOL

im not sure if their memory usage is reliant on how long they've been existing or how. complex they were drawn. its interesting to think about. we keeping it fr

#it's no Performance Reliability but it might mean..... ssssomething?#im having fun #probably #it remains to be seen #trying to apply my own rules...#lowest RAM of RYGB at task manager boot - green - relaxed pose. doesn't react quickly to TSC panicking. curious about Alan but mostly chill #highest RAM - red - explores the furthest from comfort zone. wonders about Flash. interacts with cute critter (known to be excited by)#mmm. maybe. not even im fully settled on this information hfdfhdfh #i think all of my speculations sound sweeping and rigid #because i want things to make sense and rhyme and i want to work them out first try and prove and disprove w/o shades of grey #but i ALSO want to consider angles that i can't see #so take em with a handful of salt pls because i also like to think about and respect others' universes and ideas #we can all make a big gorgeous salty beach together- <3 #for now HERE'S. for you. made with love and my current knowledge of the arcane arts (comp sci/eng). what i could come up with o/*#subpixels #alan becker #animator vs animation

70 notes · View notes

blazehedgehog · 5 years ago

Note

Thoughts on Nintendo making the Super Mario 35 game and 3D All Stars limited physically and even digitally?

It’s legitimately surprising how blind Nintendo is certain things. And even if they aren’t blind, they’re... ignorant, in a sense? Frugal to a fault? They’re dumb. Amazingly dumb. Let’s go with that. That's a nice way to put it.

I tweeted that I’d recently finished replaying Super Mario Sunshine a year or two ago (it took me roughly four years!) and that I’d burned through the PC port of Super Mario 64 not that long ago over the course of a single weekend. And that, because of this, I found it hard to justify paying $60 for the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection.

I don’t want this to sound like “because I played them for free, I don’t want to buy them.” I already bought and paid for Super Mario Sunshine on the Gamecube, and I own at least two, maybe even three copies of Super Mario 64 (original cart, Wii VC, Wii U VC). That's because Super Mario 64 is also one of the most influential games of all time. I know I say that a lot, but I'll repeat it as many times as I need to. Any third person action game made in the last 25 years owes something to what Super Mario 64 figured out -- analog character movement, how to set up the camera, all of it. Even if Super Mario 64 didn’t invent everything about 3D character movement, it probably still figured out a better way to do it. All modern game design roads lead back to that game. I will absolutely buy another copy of Super Mario 64.

But you have to do it right.

If you aren’t matching or or exceeding the work that fans are doing for free, then you are asking me to pay money for a worse quality product.

I can play Super Mario 64 at wide screen, in 4K, at 60fps, with modern camera controls, thanks to the PC port. It sounds cleaner, and it looks better than the N64 game did. Even if you subtract the recreated textures and the high-def models and just play the game with the original assets, it’s still running smoother and plays tighter, but still feels like Super Mario 64.

A case could be made that these enhancements to Super Mario 64 are pretty big and would require lots of new work and testing (as if Nintendo couldn’t just account for that). But, then, what about Super Mario Sunshine? Now, the All-Stars version has been updated to run in widescreen, sure, but even more could be done without messing anything up.

Super Mario Sunshine as it shipped on the Gamecube ran at 30fps, but that’s not always how the game was shown. For a large portion of its development, Super Mario Sunshine actually ran at 60fps. At some point, Nintendo decided to cap it at 30fps, likely because it couldn't maintain a stable 60. Using the emulator Dolphin, and the right Gameshark/Gecko code modifier, it’s possible to restore Sunshine’s original 60fps framerate.

youtube

All the game logic under the hood was probably always running at 60fps, it’s just they capped the rendering at 30 for the final game. And yet, the All-Stars version seemingly retains the 30fps cap, even though the Switch could probably do 60fps in this game with both joycons tied behind its back.

For a company that constantly oversteps their boundaries when it comes to fighting the threat of piracy, they sure seem to be making an excellent case for why people should pirate their games, because they’re lowballing things like this and expecting consumers to gobble it up. Thank you Mister Nintendo, sir, for this generous offering of reheated table scraps.

No other extras, no other bonuses. You get these three games and a soundtrack player. Development history? Alternate versions, like Super Mario 64 DS? What about archival material? Concept art, or anything like that? A lot of people are over the moon about Nintendo history right now thanks to the Gigaleak. No? You’re not going to provide anything interesting or cool? Just a bare bones collection of three games presented basically as-is? Not even Super Mario Galaxy 2? Can't be too generous, after all. It's only been 35 years, and Mario's just one of the biggest, most important franchises in all of gaming. Gotta save Galaxy 2 for the, uh... next 3D Mario collection...?

The whole release date thing is just the final slap in the face. It’s Nintendo creating their own artificial scarcity. This is something I’ve picked up on regarding t-shirts -- I run a Redbubble store with shirts I’ve done, and the sales have never been stellar. In four or five years, I’ve made something like $18. Total.

Why? Because they’re always available. The few times I’ve actually encouraged sales a little bit is when I suggested some shirts might be getting retired, eventually. And when you think about it, that’s the entire crux of something like The Yetee. Either you buy this shirt right now, right here, today, or it goes away and may never come back. Limited edition stuff boosts sales because it forces people to make a decision.

It also boosts a festering aftermarket, where, because people know this is a limited edition thing, they can effectively “buy stock” that will effectively collect interest over time. Buy them at $60 now, mark them up for $80, or $90, or $120+ in a year or three. But then all that does is create a scenario where legitimate customers aren’t going to be able to buy the product, because the people who flip these in the aftermarket will have spent $1500 hoping to make a return of $2500-$3000.

You saw this with Amiibo. You saw it with the NES Classic and SNES Classic. It is TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY and every store front worth a penny allows “third party sellers.” Everything is Ebay now. Wal-mart, Newegg, Best Buy, Amazon, Target, whatever. You name a major retail brand, and they probably let some random goober scalp aftermarket products out of their garage. In many states, scalping tickets is banned, but online this is just “business.” I’m sure Jeff Bezos is elated you spent $230 on a Squid Sisters Amiibo double pack (original MSRP: $30). You don’t get to be the richest man in the world by forcing your best moneymakers to play fair.

Nintendo has taken many notes. The bare minimum of effort, for full price, and “oh, gosh, you better buy it now! It might not ever come back! The faster you give us your money, the better!”

Go jump in a lake. I get better and more features in an emulator and I can play these games right now, today, if I really wanted to. If you aren’t going to offer competitive features and business, then our conversation is over.

#questions #nintendo #switch #super mario 3d all-stars #super mario 64 #super mario sunshine #super mario galaxy #scalping #rant #Anonymous

20 notes · View notes

terramythos · 5 years ago

Text

Pokemon Sword and Shield negative based on the game completely leaking yesterday under the cut. There are some spoilers but nothing related to the story.

So Pokemon SW/SH leaked completely yesterday and people are losing their minds at uh, how low quality it is? Based PURELY on the leaks and footage I’ve seen, and paired with what we already knew was happening, I super recommend not buying these. Here’s a list of known stuff that I consider a big deal. Some is speculation but the vast majority is confirmed:

The numbers are in and over 400 Pokemon (FOUR HUNDRED - HALF THE ROSTER) are missing entirely. Unlike previous games they CANNOT be transferred in. Game Freak is already on record saying they will be re-added in a future game. They are NOT being patched into this one, despite what some people are claiming.

In addition, 144 moves have been cut completely, including staples/mainstays like Pursuit, Hidden Power (!!!), Return (!), and Faint Attack. If you transfer a Pokemon with these moves, it locks the move and encourages you to delete it. Presumably this means these cuts are permanent.

There are major graphical issues. Game Freak claimed they cut over half the roster to focus on high quality animation, but animation is severely lacking. The Pokemon models in the overworld wander in circles in a default animation. There is nothing special. In addition, cutscenes reuse animations from characters in Sun and Moon (Hop and Hau have identical character animations). One endgame cutscene has a character turn around, and instead of animating it, the model spins 180 degrees on its axis and walks away. The Wild Area has sudden pop-in of trees and Pokemon models reminiscent of PS2-era graphics– in addition to framerate drops. Textures do not seem HD in many cases. The list goes on.

I cannot stress this enough – Experience Share CANNOT be turned off. It was an optional feature in the last few gens to make the game easier, but could be toggled. This one has it on by default and you cannot turn it off at all. The game is not balanced with this in mind, so you will always be ridiculously overleveled. Yes, this is a game for kids, but it’s honestly insulting to defend this decision as if children are incapable of choosing what difficulty they want (or implying adults were not marketed to– you can’t have it both ways).

The game actually PREVENTS you from catching Pokemon over a certain level threshold based on your gym progress. If you run into a shiny Pokemon or another Pokemon you want that does not meet the arbitrary requirement, you’re shit out of luck.

Many, many features have been cut entirely. This includes but is not limited to: Mega Evolutions, Z Moves, Wonder Trading, and the GTS. There is nothing of substance to replace them. They’re just gone.

Based on what we know about Pokemon Home, it will feature the GTS or something like it (they advertise it as a trading system). This would mean that access to a feature available since Diamond and Pearl is now locked behind 2 subscription walls.

One of the main features of the game, Gigantimax, is exclusive to the story battles. It is not used at all outside of them. There is no way for you to use it or engage with it outside of the story. There is no postgame or metagame option for it.

The Wild Area was marketed as an open world area to explore. On top of the graphical issues cited earlier, is in actuality very small and takes roughly 15 mins to explore. This was the other main feature I can remember the game advertising.

The story takes about 16 hours to complete, and postgame is about 2 hours. That’s the shortest Pokemon game in recent memory. In addition, from what I understand, the routes are largely linear with few choices for exploration, so they go by very quickly.

Music appears to be absent from some fights and no one can tell if this is intentional or not. It seems inconsistent so people are assuming this is a bug, but it could be a creative decision.

Battle Tower (the postgame) is very short and missing mainstay options. There are no bosses at all.

Perhaps a nitpick, but I find this one baffling: there are no sound settings. Instead, you have to talk to an obscure, optional NPC hidden away in a random area. He gives you a key item that lets you adjust the sound settings. I have no idea what GameFreak is thinking here.

This level of quality is inexcusable for the most profitable franchise on the entire planet.

At best, this game is the product of insane crunch and rush due to contracts GameFreak has to fulfill. At worst, this is GameFreak testing the waters to see how little they can put into a main Pokemon title and still make money. Either way, these releases should not be supported.

If any of these are proven wrong please let me know.

22 notes · View notes

evquadebf · 1 year ago

Text

I don't agree with you on various things: first, the framerate. Crazy thing to say when the difference between like 200 and 150fps is noticeable (and good); some games don't need super high fps but 30? This isn't a movie shot from real life (infinite fps), 30 are noticeably bad even just navigating an interface.

On the balooning storage requirements and texture resolutions, I somewhat agree, in that we're definitely taking this too far (with big studios using this to push smaller studios with less capabilities to be photorealistic to that extent, and less budget to do so), and we should absolutely be doing things to reduce the space taken up by games (such as allowing people to download just some texture packs and not all of them). However, I do think the increased graphics quality and polygon counts is, all else being equal (and with an appropriate artstyle), a good thing.

This is not to say that so-called AAA games are better than the older games, but they have increased in scope (personally I think this is generally a bad thing because the increase comes from random and unnecessary things rather than core parts of the gameplay or story), and more stuff = more storage.

To provide some positive examples, Isonzo is 23GB (it is a multiplayer game so much less things to store, and is made by a smaller studio, so not nearly as large as the huge games around today) and has great graphics, that are very much a step above the previous installment of the series (Tannenberg). Helldivers 2 is much larger, at 74GB, but still a very good looking game. Is it 11 times better looking than Skyrim? Probably not, but it is like 4 times better looking (at least in terms of fidelity, which is not the same as prettyness of the game or artstyle as a whole).

Another thing to keep in mind when talking about the look and feel of old games is nostalgia and the fact that back in the day we were used to having much worse performance: I grew up playing early mobile games that looked like shit and ran at like 10 fps, flash games that took like 200ms to react to my commands, and minecraft (ultra low fidelity, charming artstyle). Back in the day I had no complaints with the quality and framerate, now I would find them nearly unplayable, simply because everything is much better performing. However, when I think back to them, I'm not capable of really feeling the shittyness of the graphics, I still remember them as fine playing and looking games, despite their actual performance figures and graphical fidelity. This is to say that when thinking of the progress of computer performance, it's misleading to just think back to the "good old days" without actually getting a feel for older games in the current day.

(this is not at all to say you haven't done this, just specifying a thing to be mindful of, since I fell into this a few times, especially when thinking of the performance of some of my older computers).

All said, I agree with the spirit, if not the letter, of most of what you said (except for the framerate)

here are my biggest gaming hot takes:

- no game actually needs to run faster than 30 FPS

- no texture needs to be bigger than 2k, and most don’t need to be bigger than 1k (save for megatextures). A good chunk should actually be smaller than 1k

- lower poly counts > high poly counts

Once you pass a certain threshold, it doesn’t even affect the style of the game that much, and you’re just using exponentially more power to get exponentially smaller results

Like, for example, the original Skyrim was 4 GB. The remaster is 22 GB. That’s five-and-a-half times more space for the exact same content! The graphical improvements are honestly negligible, especially when you consider the massive leap in storage and RAM used.

These sorts of things just hit diminishing returns so quickly— My eyes can’t tell the difference between 1k and 4k textures.

We have so many fun ways to get the maximum mileage out of every pixel and every polygon. It’s sad to see those techniques slowly trickle away from big-budget games!

Even as storage space becomes less and less of a concern, there’s something satisfying about keeping everything as small and tidy as possible

#anyway have a nice day

8K notes · View notes

dizzydennis · 5 years ago

Text

A long, in-depth review of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020

I remember playing the first Mario & Sonic game back on the Nintendo Wii. It was simple and a bit unbelievable that this was the first time these two gaming icons would be in a video game together. While the Olympics were literally nobody’s choice to have these heroes meet, it made for a fun albeit simplistic party game. I enjoyed my time with it, but it wasn’t until the second game, Mario & Sonic at the Winter Olympic Games that I fell in love with the series. The amount of variety and fan service was staggering and it was very clear that a lot of passion had gone into this game, but as the games moved to the Wii U, it was apparent that the creative was drying up as the game focused more on the typical Olympic events.

That takes us to 2019 where the series has returned on the Nintendo Switch. Considering the fact that this game was made to coincide with the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, I was very excited. Not only is this the home country of both Mario and Sonic, but it’s where I’ve been living for the past 4 and a half years. I was worried when the series skipped the Pyeongchang Olympics that we would never see them in Japan. However, fate would be kind to me. The only question was: does this new edition reach the previous highs that the best Mario & Sonic outings have reached or is it another missed opportunity.

This game has a very interesting premise too. Since Tokyo was the host of the Olympics back in 1964, there is a time travel plot where Sonic, Eggman, Mario, Bowser, and Toad get sucked into a video game world based on those events. It allows for a fresh idea presented with classic sprites of these beloved characters. With the 2020 Olympic events combined with the 1964 events, there are plenty of events to try out.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t describe how nice the game looks. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is a very good looking game. In single player, the game constantly runs at 60FPS with highly detailed character models and lush environments. The crowds consisting of Toads, Shy Guys, Flickies, and more are still 2D textures that are animated well, but when inspected, they do not hold up. In Olympic events where the game is handled in splitscreen, the framerate can often take a hit. It’s nothing unplayable, but it is very noticeable. The menus are also very slick though a bit simplistic from past entries. Even so, you’ll be treated with wonderful character renders over the backdrop of various Tokyo locales. The only problem with the visuals come from the retro 1964 mode. While the sprites look fine, there is a huge clash between the Super Mario characters being 8-bit sprites while the Sonic characters are 16-bit sprites. It seems as this was done for broad appeal since Mario’s NES outings and Sonic’s Genesis outings are arguably their most well-known appearances. Even so, it doesn’t mesh together perfectly.

So the game looks good for the most part, but how does it sound? Honestly, it’s a mixed bag and a particularly odd one too. During story mode, characters do not speak in full sentences. Sonic may say “Hey” while the text box fills in an entire sentence of dialogue. This isn’t a problem, but what is a bit distracting are the voice samples chosen; specifically, the Super Mario characters. Mario and Luigi have no text boxes with their dialogue, but instead will only make small noises or words. It becomes increasingly annoying as their responses are so limited. You cannot skip or fast forward any dialogue boxes or animations either. There was no reason to keep them from talking as Bowser, Princess Peach, and Toad all talk just as the Sonic characters do. However, characters like Luigi, Daisy, and the Koopalings have the most peculiar voice samples. Daisy sounds like she’s about to cough up her lunch and the Koopalings have this odd reverb effect that sounds like a rendering error. Many of these samples just sound unpleasant and you’ll be hearing them enough that it becomes grating.

Now, the Mario & Sonic series has been praised by fans for their amazing remixes of classic songs. These remixes allowed some unique flair to be given to countless songs from Mario and Sonic’s catalogue. So, one may wonder how many remixes there are in Mario & Sonic Tokyo. Two. There are only two remixes from the respective series. Sonic’s side received a rather standard and unimpressive remix of Metropolitan Highway from Sonic Forces. It doesn’t improve the original song at all and feels a bit half baked. On the other side, Mario received a remix of Peach’s Castle theme and it’s frankly awful. Just sped up with synth-like instruments. When this has been a repeated highlight for these games, (even in the less-than-stellar Wii U games), it’s baffling that SEGA and Nintendo didn’t try harder here. It feels lazy and extremely disappointing. In past games, you could go back to any event and change the standard background music to whatever songs you have unlocked. It’s just not possible here. That means that during the events, you’ll be listening to original music. Thankfully, it’s mostly very good! I am a big fan of the tunes set to Rugby Sevens, a battle with Metal Sonic, Surfing, and Dream Shooting. A lot of the music has a Japanese flair to it and it’s very well composed. Some songs are extremely catchy and I’ve found myself remembering and humming them outside of my time with the game. However, during the lengthy story cutscenes, you may be cycling through the same 5 or 6 songs and it can become old very quickly. They are good songs, but even the retro music wears thin when it’s been playing for most of your downtime.

Sonic fans have always been passionate about the voice work of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Thankfully, the new voice clips (during events) are pretty good. Characters have interesting remarks when winning and some of them speak perfectly to their established characters. I believe that for the Sonic characters, most if not all of the voice clips are new. There are some baffling ones like Sonic saying “Ole!” and “Right through that wall!” at the most random times. Characters like Tails and Vector are very endearing in this game. Even so, it works well and as a fan, it was fun to hear. The Mario characters definitely have some new voice clips, but it’s hard to tell when their characters don’t vocally emote as often outside of this game. I’m sure there are some repeated clips, but there not all reused.

As this is a minigame collection, it’s important to question how the game actually plays. Overall, I think the Olympic events have been reworked in a significant enough way that it feels rewarding… though not perfect. For example, the 100M race, skateboarding, and badminton are a few events that are just too simplistic for their own good. They are just not as fulfilling to play through as other events. Rugby sevens, soccer (which is strangely called Football despite the fact that Japan calls the sport soccer), Karate, Archery, Sport Climbing, and Equestrian are a few of the events that are just exhilarating. Most of the events have done an admirable job allowing for motion controls with two joy cons, one joy con, or buttons. Since I have been gaming since the early 1990s, I almost always prefer button controls. Even so, I have to admit that the motion controls are fun… for some of the events. Archery is a blast with motion controls, as are the track & field events. The game seems to make a conscious effort to balance the less accurate use of motion controls to button controls. That’s great, but it can make some events feel unfairly difficult due to the handicap. For example, when using button controls, the Boxing event feels almost impossible to win without a huge amount of luck. If you’re knocked down while using buttons, you have to jam the A button to get up and it feels nearly impossible to recover within the allotted time. It’s something that was so aggravating that I found myself praying that SEGA would release a quality of life patch for this game to iron out some of the problems.

The 1964 events are pretty different from the 2020 events. Since they’re based on retro video games, they only allow for button controls. But with this aesthetic comes simplified gameplay. I found these events to be fun, but not too engaging. Shooting, 10M Platform, Marathon were pretty fun, but I wasn’t wowed by these. It’s 2019 and I think I can speak for many when I say that using retro sprites in your game doesn’t excite people as much as it used to. It sometimes comes across as desperate fan service. While these events are fun, I have to question: Has the game really benefited from going with this throwback? It has certainly increased the amount of events and didn’t hurt the overall package, but I also wasn’t blown away by their inclusion. Speaking of these retro events, it’s very saddening that it’s only limited to 8 characters. Classic characters like Donkey Kong, Metal Sonic, and especially Amy Rose are left out for seemingly no reason. This kind of exclusivity from the “classic” side of Sonic has been limited to Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Dr. Eggman for a long while now and it seems to ignore that Amy was part of that original crew too. Moreover, I’m sure fans would have loved to see more characters in this retro style. If SEGA/Nintendo had made more of an effort, we could have possibly seen more modern characters like Shadow the Hedgehog or Waluigi.

Throughout story mode there are also a number of mini games. In 2020, Luigi and Tails partake in many events. Whether it’s climbing up the side of Tokyo Tower, battling Shy Guys, or kicking a rugby ball to attack Metal Sonic; these events share their DNA with the normal Olympic events. Some of the ideas are creative, but they are over before they really begin. Again, they’re simplistic and through that simplicity is their downfall. I love the ideas on display, but I want them to be more engaging. One particular mini game that I was fond of has you searching for a particular Toad at the famous Shibuya Scramble. It’s basically a virtual version of a Where’s Waldo game, but it’s very fun and unique. The only problem is that it ends after finding three targets. If there was an option for this to be expanded into an endurance mode, then I think it would really have some legs.

The mini games for the 1964 world are a bit more unique, but are still overly simple. You might be sneaking into a museum, using Sonic’s speed to chase down a bullet train (shinkansen), or even using the biplane known as the Tornado to attack Eggman’s mechs above Tokyo. Interestingly, that sky battle is the most complex of all the mini games, but even it ends after three stages. What works so well with this mode is that the stage consists of numerous Sonic enemies with decent fan service throughout. You’ll battle Eggman’s first boss from Sonic the Hedgehog 1 as well as Mecha Sonic and the Metropolis Zone boss from Sonic 2. It’s so bizarre that this great amount of fan service is so hidden. You must re-enter this game a second time from a completely different menu to see this.

There are three Dream Events in this game. The first being Dream Racing which is honestly fantastic. It’s based on a stage from Sonic Forces and features a downhill race on hoverboards with Mario Kart-like items. It’s a bit clunky on certain parts, but it’s a lot of fun. The kinetic energy of the whole thing makes me want more than just one stage based on this. It’s definitely a highlight and if there was entire game based on a more refined version of this... I wouldn’t be opposed. Following that is Dream Karate based on the Mushroom Kingdom from Super Mario Odyssey. It’s a mess. There doesn’t seem to be any clear strategy and it favors chaos over defined goals. Also, it hardly uses the Mario universe. It’s just a square arena set in a Mario world with a bad remix in the background. Very disappointing. Lastly is Dream Shooting which takes place in a Japanese temple with each corner of the temple representing a different season. It uses the gyro controls of the Nintendo Switch and it’s very fun. A little clunky here and there, but enjoyable nonetheless. It has one crucial flaw in the fact that your character will laugh every single time they hit a target. It gets annoying quick when you’re constantly firing away and hearing them cackle nonstop. I don’t know how that sort of thing still gets by developers.

The story mode was heavily pushed with a lot of the promotion for this game. I can honestly say that this is not the type of game that needs a story, but it’s the kind of dopey thing that I am absolutely on board for. I was hoping for an over-the-top plot that had these characters doing ridiculous things based on idea from the Olympics. My expectations weren’t completely baseless either. Past games on the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS have had story campaigns and they got wild with shadow clones of the characters to Dr. Eggman releasing giant robots. The games even featured some surprisingly well animated cutscenes too. You wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that I was hyped for this mode. What we got, however, was bare bones. I like the corny idea of the heroes and villains getting sucked into the retro game world. That’s wonderful, but unfortunately it doesn’t really get zanier than that. In 2020, Tails and Luigi work to save their friends by participating in regular Olympic events. In 1964, Mario and Sonic save themselves by participating in regular Olympic events. Yes, there are occasional mini games, but as I mentioned earlier, they are so simple and feel like they’ve finished before they’ve begun. Where’s the fun, the stupidly epic nature you can achieve when featuring franchises like Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog? Why can’t Eggman use the Gold Medals to make this fire monster that will compete against Mario and Sonic? Why can’t Metal Sonic cause chaos in Tokyo while Tails and Luigi stop him with a small platforming challenge? I know that there was an attempt with the mini games that are available, but it still comes up short and leaves me wanting a lot more.

This problem is completely related to the story as well. Meaning that while it has some genuinely great moments, it is a slog to get through at times. It has one formula and it follows that formula for the entire campaign. Every time, it’s a chore of: “go to this venue, talk to the character, face that character in an event, have them give you an item.” It never breaks off from this formula. Even the mini games follow the same structure. Again, where’s the heart? This is just running through the motions of a story. I’d love for it to really go wild with the Olympics and the characters at their disposal. One thing I couldn’t wrap my head around was the use of Luigi. This game really, really, really likes Luigi. He has the most mini games out of anybody, he’s featured in the story more than any other character, and once the game is finished, you are stuck using Luigi for any of the events within the epilogue. This includes the Dream Events too. Considering the fact that this game came out just one day after Luigi’s Mansion 3, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was intentional. It’s very odd that a game with Mario & Sonic in the title gives so much of the spotlight to Luigi. Along with his annoying vocal grunts that I mentioned earlier, I found Luigi got on my nerves throughout the story. The game also never lets you control any Sonic characters outside of a few events. Despite the fact that they are in pairs for the entire story, on the map screens, you can only control Mario in 1964 and Luigi in 2020. Not for nothing, but I’d like to control Sonic and Tails if I had the choice. This isn’t a huge complaint, but it’s something I noticed.

There are some positives to the story mode though. Certain character interactions are fantastic. I really loved bumping into Jet the Hawk, Wario & Waluigi, and Ludwig von Koopa during the campaign. Jet still refers to Sonic by his full name which was a bit of character consistency that made me smile. Sonic is also written pretty well. Since Mario doesn’t talk, Sonic does all of the talking for the heroes. He’s got a great mix of cockiness, heroism, and that cheesy factor that makes him so likeable. I was happy seeing how Sonic acted even if it wasn’t anything too mind blowing. Bowser and Eggman are written a bit more incompetent than usual, but it works well for comedic effect. There is also a moment in the climax that taps into that greatness I was hoping for. It’s a fantastic moment that I won’t spoil, but I enjoyed it and cared about what was happening to all of the character in the retro game world.

Throughout the map screens, you can find trivia pods. This seems like cheap filler, but I have to be honest… I actually found them very fun. There are 4 types of trivia cards: Olympic trivia, Japan trivia, Mario character trivia, and Sonic character trivia. I found myself learning a lot about the Olympics and Japan through this game. Often I became aware of things I never knew of. As a fan too, seeing Amy’s love for fortune reading or the game teasing that Wario and Waluigi are just two dudes who hang out together was a nice treat. However, being a big fan also means you know when they make mistakes. So when they say that Eggman Nega is Eggman’s descendant, I can’t help, but roll my eye. Yes, I know the Sonic Rivals games messed up the continuity, but the Sonic Rush games clearly established he’s from another dimension. His name is Eggman NEGA for crying out loud! In fact, his whole character is stated time and time again that he hates Eggman and yet he spends a vast majority of the campaign actively trying to save Eggman from the video game world. How many wires got crossed when they were making this game? Also, some pods say that Shadow being born on the Space Colony ARK is just a rumor... when we’ve had TWO games dedicated to that backstory. It just left me flabbergasted. Other trivia pods are just a waste of time though. “What color are Wendy’s shoes,” read one question that had a full body picture of Wendy attached to it. (Yes, you could clearly see her shoes). Were they that lazy with some of these?

One particular thing about the story mode that had me laughing while also sighing was how much this game praises Japan. It’s honestly hilarious. Talking to Toads or animals around the map screens almost always has them saying how amazing Japan is, how the Olympics are this perfect accumulation of everybody’s efforts, or how nice and incredible Japanese achievements and citizens are. I’m not saying that Japan is a bad country, but when you’re constantly being told this stuff, after a while it just seems like excessive. I’m not blind to the fact that this game was made to be a commercial of sorts for the 2020 Olympic games and for Japan too, but the game clearly has more love and more of a desire to promote Japan than it does the two lead stars of the game. Let’s be honest here, Olympic fans aren’t coming out in droves to play this game, Mario and Sonic fans are.

Online play has been included too. Honestly, there isn’t too much to say about it. If you’ve played Super Smash Bros. Ultimate or Super Mario Maker 2 online before then you know what to expect. Nintendo’s shoddy online service doesn’t do Mario & Sonic any favors. It’s functional, but button delay and occasional lag are very apparent and do hamper the experience. I enjoyed a few games of Rugby Sevens online, but I never felt like I had as much control as I did when I was playing solo. For games like the Javelin Throw or Triple Jump that require pinpoint accuracy, I don’t see how this is going to be viable. Nintendo can make some great games, but they are constantly behind in all other aspects.

Plenty can be said about Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Mechanically, all of the changes to the many events have benefited how they played. There’s a lot to experience here, but the game shies away from using the potential of having such iconic heroes in their line-up. I don’t know if it’s incompetence or laziness, but this doesn’t not reach the heights that it should. It has less Dream Events, less music remixes, less fan service, and a less ambitious story than previous Mario & Sonic games. Many people come into these games knowing they’ll be simple, but also feeling that the fan service and winks to the source material will elevate it into something great. Nevertheless, it feels like SEGA and Nintendo believed that putting Sonic and company in cute outfits would be enough to excuse other lackluster elements. I worry that this review may have come across as overly negative. There are many things I love about this game and I find that the game can be a real blast to play! The variety of the events and the pure fun factor of some cannot be denied. There are many good qualities to be found in this product, but when it lacks that special shine and polish that is to be expected by now, it inevitably feels disappointing. I don’t hate this game in the slightest, but I’d be lying if I said it I wasn’t left wanting more as a fan. SEGA and Nintendo are big companies and they can do better than this; we should expect more from them. At the end of the day, I will definitely be popping this game in from time to time. The mechanics are fun and there are lovable characters in here. I just wish they were celebrated more than the Olympics themselves.

#Sonic the Hedgehog #Nintendo #Mario and Sonic #mario & sonic at the olympic games #nintendo switch

13 notes · View notes

saam-pahlavan · 7 years ago

Text

1000 Hours of Overwatch and I still don’t think I’m good at it.

Too Many Hours

Overwatch is definitely the game I spent the most time playing this year, so I thought I’d do a write up detailing my experience with the game. I probably accrued more than 600+ hours of OW this year spread across 3...now 4 accounts. (Yes I know I’m insane)

The first thing you need to understand about Overwatch is that it’s not really an FPS game. Yes your camera is in first person and you run around and shoot stuff. But Blizzard tricked us all into playing a MOBA. In a game that’s so hero centric and team based your raw mechanical FPS skill will only get you so far. Running straight into an enemy team and trying to take on multiple enemies is just going to get you killed and put your team at a disadvantage. In MOBAs not only do you need some mechanical skill but you really need to use your head. Do I take on this fight? Do I flank around their team to go for their supports? Do I peel back for my team to help them survive an engagement? Yeah I know what you’re saying “BUT SAAM OVERWATCH DOESN’T HAVE TOWERS OR CREEPS OR WHATEVER”. Very true, but it’s still heavily objective based and dependent on communication. At the end of the day you want to win as a team, doesn’t matter how many medals you have. In a lot of cases making sure you live is more important than going for a pick that you think you might get.

Let’s Get Technical

This year I also feel like I improved my skills in not only Overwatch but in FPS games in general. It meant having to relearn aiming with a mouse and at first it was pretty uncomfortable and put some strain on my arm, but I’m making some shots now that surprise me. Here’s how I did it.

Most of the time people have a really high mouse sensitivity, but lowering your DPI / sensitivity will allow you to have more accurate shots and tracking. I used a simple technique to figure out mine. First you should separate your aim into 3 different segments. Long range, mid range, and close range. For Long range you want to be using smaller micro movements of the mouse (your fingers basically), mid range should use you wrist, and short range is for whipping around (use your arm).

If you want to know more about this kinda stuff this video sums it up really well and how you can find yours - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRFWLJazYYo

I also used this table to pinpoint my sensitivity - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5Gz5hImLq2WQ2pXRTlRd3E3TFk/view?pli=1

Along with mouse sensitivity I’d say getting a higher framerate out of the game reduces input lag and makes the game feel pretty different. Overwatch “favors the shooter” which means if someone lands a shot on their end then it goes through. It’s why sometimes you’ll feel like you went around a corner but got shot anyway, it makes the game feel more responsive on the players end even if that means the other player is going to be penalized for it. In a fast paced game like Overwatch miliseconds matter a lot so set your settings to low and get yourself a monitor that can go beyond 60 fps if you’re serious. I’m not saying it’s required, but it’s a huge help.

Improving as a player

There’s 3 things that I think make up a great OW player. Mechanical Skill, Communication, and Game Sense.

Mechanical Skill - Can you aim? This is something you just get better at over time. Try aimbooster dot com for practice (do this for 2 weeks).

Communication - Talk to your teammates! They need to know what’s going on. You’ll get better at comms as you keep playing and run into other players with good communication, you’ll pick up the lingo.

Game Sense - Does the enemy McCree have his Ult? Is Tracer around the corner waiting to flank? Paying attention to what your enemy is doing and when they’re going to do it is very important. I find that most people lack this skill the most in a game like OW. I wanna say playing Sombra improved my game sense the most, Sombra is a hero that relies heavily on know what the enemy team is up to and shutting them down. Along with knowing when your teammates are going to ult so you can get in those sweet EMP combos.

Competitive Overwatch is a nightmare

Alright time to be brutally honest. You’re not going to get better at Overwatch by playing Quickplay. Your mechanical skill might improve, but you will not learn how to play the game. That’s why you must enter the firey hell that is competitive Overwatch which is filled with throwers, angry teens, and uncooperative teammates. It’s ok though, because I have the key to getting you through this hellhole.

First, Remember that Comp is random. The teammates you will get are best matched to your “skill level” but it’s always a luck of the draw on who will be on your team. You might get a thrower, a leaver, or an incredible good person on your team. It’s pretty random so don’t get caught up in it.

Second, You are the only constant in this equation. Focus on improving yourself because it’s literally the only thing you can do. Whether that’s your aim, communication, or game sense it’s the one thing you have control over.

Third. Don’t blame others. Straight up telling a teammate they’re doing bad isn’t going to make them miraculously gain super aimbot skills and win. People in comp are VERY sensitive. When I’m looking for a teammate to switch I try not to target anyone with a “hey Reaper can you switch?”, instead I’ll say “I think a Pharah would be good here” or “Hey I think we could use another support because they’re diving our backline”. Try to provide context of why you think you need a different hero on the team.

Fourth. Stop playing if you’re not 100%. I’ve gotten pretty good at judging whether I’m tilted, tired, or not feeling in top shape because of OW. If you continue to play when you’re tilted you’re gonna have a baaaaad time. Hop into another mode or just take a break. As much as your physical health matters in OW your mental health is just as important if not more.

Numba 5. Mute the rude boys. If you find that a teammate is tilted and just straight up abusing your other teammates you should report them then mute. There’s basically no saving someone once they’ve tilted, you’re not there to be their psychiatrist so just mute them and try your best.

Six. Communication is really important in comp. It can be scary talking to a bunch of strangers especially if they’re toxic (remember Numba 5), but your comms are going to let your teammates know what’s going on in the battlefield. Information is key, knowing a “Mercy is one”, or “Hog hook is down”, can allow your teammates to adjust accordingly.

Seven. Don’t worry about your SR. Just keep playing, practice, try to analyze your gameplay and what went wrong. SR will go up and down, don’t let it affect your emotional state.

Eight. There’s probably something I could put here but I can’t think of it right now.

Climbing Ranks

This year I went from about mid Plat (2750) to Masters (3500) so I thought I’d share some insight on what I think is the major issue for players in some tiers.

Gold - I think gold comes down to mechanical skill and maybe some positioning, I didn’t spend a lot of time here on my Sombra account so I can’t say much about it.

Plat - Players do not know how to position themselves in Plat, which makes sense because it’s where a majority of players are. They’ve got FPS skill but aren’t realizing where they should be putting themselves in relation to their team. An Ana that’ right behind a Rein is a good example of this, Ana has range, find a nice high spot where the team has to dive you to get to you. A lot of the time I just see people firing at the enemy team before a fight has even begun because they think they can get a pick? Your Lucio shooting straight into a Rein shield isn’t going to do anything and now you’re out of position and oh our Lucio is dead.

Diamond - Diamond is where the egos have grown even bigger than in Plat. Which means everyone thinks they can carry with the hero their own. Switching heroes is the biggest problem in Diamond. Even if X hero is your best hero, switching to a different hero might benefit your team greatly. You don’t have to have carry potential with every hero you play. I found that by expanding my hero pool from only Winston / Rein to all Main tanks, some flex tanks (Dva Hog Zarya), and some supports (Mercy Ana Zen) that I could help out my team in different spots. You’re not going to get paired up with the perfect team comp every time, so it’s good to be able to know some of the other heroes.

Masters - Not sure what the problem is here. I just got here!

What I want to see changed

1. More micro hero changes, buff and nerf a little here and there.

2. More hero changes, OW is pretty slow with meta changes and I like the periods where people are still figuring out the meta.

3. Remove medals till after the game. I’ve only found that medals act as bragging rights and don’t actually bring anything good to convos with your team people just use them as ways to defend themselves in an argument or abuse their teammates.

4. Performance based SR - Blizzard is doing this yay!

5. Nerf Scatter Arrow - Broken ass ability.

6. More defensive Ults. A tank with a defensive ult would be cool.

Why I’ll continue playing Overwatch in 2018

I really like playing this game. OW isn’t really a game to me anymore, but more of a skill I’ve improved over it. Hell I’ve got 4 accounts now, I’m a fan of what Blizzard is doing to FPS games. This game isn’t just about aim it’s more about outsmarting your enemy and when you pull off a really great teamplay it feels great. Overwatch feels like it’s using every part of my brain. There’s no randomness when it comes down to coming across an enemy (besides Scatter Arrow), if you approach a situation and know how to react you can do really well. I also love how the heroes and meta change over time, keeps the game fresh.

Well that’s my giant brain dump of OW! See you in competitive!

#overwatch

3 notes · View notes

budgetgamingna · 5 years ago

Photo

Balthazar’s Dream

My experience with Balthazar’s Dream has been a nightmare. What seemed to be a cute action platformer about a dog rescuing his best friend quickly became a flea infestation of bad controls, mechanics, and level design.

Individual scores below are based off a top score of 20 for each category.

Gameplay (8) – Balthazar’s Dream claims to be a challenging puzzle platformer. The game is difficult for sure, but not because of difficult puzzles or tough platforming. This title relies heavily on its fear mechanic where if Balthazar is close to an enemy for too long, directional controls will be reversed and at peak fear any jump action is amplified to get across large gaps. I like the idea of this mechanic, but it was poorly implemented as you can’t control when a super jump becomes available with fear buildup being inconsistent. This led to the platforming being challenging only because there is no way to get good timing for jumps, and Balthazar would repeatedly swan dive off ledges. In many cases, I ended up using poor level design where I jumped on walls or other objects in the level as platforms that clearly were not designed to be such. Gameplay was also made more challenging by a plethora of bugs like getting one hit killed by a single flea when it takes three of them at once to kill Balthazar. The most disappointing thing is that this game provides great variety in enemies to avoid and environmental hazards, but almost all of these had at least one bug associated with it. The puzzles are also more of a game of chance as seen in the first level having to score a basket with Balthazar launching a ball at random and hoping it bounces just right to land in the basket. A quick search on twitter shows that this part of the first level is where many give up on the game.

Audio (12) – Outside of some issues with audio clipping caused by the fear mechanic, the soundtrack is the best aspect of Balthazar’s Dream. Each chapter has a different track that suits the levels well. My favorite is in Chapter 6 where a heart-pounding rhythm plays as you race against a descending ceiling. Unfortunately, I will never find out if the final levels get even better musically. There is no voice over in this title with the story being told through balloon chat and animal sounds.

Performance (5) – This game could have easily been called Murphy’s Law as everything that could go wrong in my playthrough did. During my two hours of gameplay I had multiple crashes, framerate drops, audio clipping, and eventually a game-breaking bug. Even after resetting the game multiple times I am stuck in an eternal loop of spawning and dying right away so I will never get past level six. I also recommend never pausing the game. If you need to take a break just put the screen to sleep. For me, pausing would lead to a reset of the game as I could not get out of the pause screen.

Visual (11) – The trailer for Balthazar’s Dream is what first got me excited for this title outside of the sale price point with cutesy pixel graphics. The visual design begins quite poorly in the first level but gets better as the game progresses into deeper and darker dreams. Balthazar’s dreams are nicely varied seeing him go from a home, to a forest, and even into outer space. Enemy and environmental hazard designs are also quite appropriate for what a dog would fear like cats and vacuums.

Budget (6) – Balthazar’s Dream retails for $8, but I was able to get it on a big sale for only $0.80. At full price I can not recommend this game to anyone based off the short run time and high chance of not being able to complete the game anyway. There is no replay value in this game unless if you want to run it through with all the five choosable dogs as there are no secrets or collectibles. Even on sale, I have a hard time recommending this title unless you enjoy the challenge of completing a poorly designed game.

I really wanted to enjoy and be able to recommend Balthazar’s Dream. I gave up on it three times and would return to it the next day because I feel there is something special that can be had here. The game has good bones, but needs a major overhaul patch for bugs and to polish core mechanics before I give it a second chance.

Critical Score: 42 Personal Score: 40 Final Answer: 41

#nintendo switch #budgetgamingna #balthazar'sdream #indiereviews

0 notes

banalitywars · 6 years ago

Text

Getting To 60 FPS In The Banality Wars Menu

Framerates in games isn't a very glamorous topic. But I think it's worth discussing.

So in case you don't know the frame rate (frames per second or FPS) is the number of frames drawn to the screen every second. Most computers can achieve 60 FPS as long as what they're doing is not too taxing.

But, of course, this brings up an interesting question. Does 60 frames per second literally mean 60 frames per second? So if I were to record the screen for exactly 1 second would I see 60 frames? No, of course not. Maybe a high end computer could achieve this, but for most devices 60 frames per second means on average there are 60 frames per second.

And the way it is usually measured is you take 1 second divided by the time to draw a frame. So if your frame took 20 milliseconds to render you assume every subsequent frame will also take 20 ms. So 1 second divided by 20 ms or 0.02 seconds gives us 50 frames per second. So the term 'frames per second' is a bit misleading. I think it should be called 'frame latency' but no one likes my ideas.

Anyways then we usually do a weighted average of frame latencies. This is done by the classic counter = counter * 0.5 + frameLatency * 0.5. This simply means counter will be weighted heavily (50%) to the current value of frame latency. The last frame will have a weight of 25%, the one before 12.5% and so on. Or said mathematically: counter = frameLatency_0 * 0.5 + frameLatency_1 * 0.25 + ... + frameLatency_n * 0.5^2

So now that we reviewed what frame rates mean we can discuss the problem. When the settings pane is open the frame rate tanks. This is what the settings look like.

"How is that tanking the frame rate?" you ask. "That's just a text box!" And to that I say, "Appearances are deceiving. Especially when doing graphics work. And also it's not just a textbox. There's also a dropshadow and a background."

And to be honest the FPS wasn't that bad here. I was still getting 42FPS on my Xiaomi Mi A1 with Snapdragon 625 that I got for less than $300 before tax 2 years ago. I believe this phone is even slower than the Galaxy A10 which you can get for under 150 CAD now. But even on such a low end device it wasn't 60FPS. And that just felt wrong.

So what's the first thing I do when I see an FPS problem? I go to the profiler:

Of course this created a problem. My computer was so fast the random background noise of FPS values going up and down made it impossible to tell this was an issue and what was causing it. Plus the profiler is pretty useless for anything other than a C# script causing problems. Graphics issues get creatively confusing names like GraphicsDrawPostUpdate. Like what does that even mean?

But nothing the profiler did stood out as an issue. So my immediate suspicion was that the problem was that it was a graphics issue. And that would mean it's an overdraw issue.

Now overdraw refers to drawing a pixel more than once in a single frame. That's how GPU's work. They have like a million cores and each core draws one pixel at a time. In a CPU there's only a few cores so this would take forever. "So why don't CPU's have like a million cores?" you say. Well, that's because a GPU core is super stripped down. You ever try to program for a GPU? Not fun. So if you tried to run something other than drawing pixels on a GPU it would likely be much slower. Although I hear some machine learning and cryptocurrency algorithms have been adapted to run on GPU's.

So back to overdraw. Sometimes you need overdraw. Such as you draw something translucent. Say you wanted to draw a translucent black circle over a translucent black square like this.

To do this start with a blank page.

Then draw the black square.

Then draw the black circle to get the final image.

But see all those darker pixels? They were all drawn twice. When we drew the black square and when we drew the black circle. This can lead to slowdowns.

So in the settings I noticed 0there is a black box covering the entire background. Maybe this was the issue for the slowdowns. So I disabled it. And to my amazement the FPS went up... by 2. So it went from 42 FPS to 44 FPS. Not exactly something to get excited about. So the lesson is this: overdraw isn't bad.

But the mystery remained? What was causing the issue? So I tried disabling something else. The dropshadow shader. And to my amazement the problem went away. We shot right up to 60 FPS. Hallelujah!

So why was this the case? Well the dropshadow shader was basically calculating a 2 dimensional gaussian distribution to emulate a shadow. This is what it looks like:

See all those pow(x, y)'s? Each one takes x and raises it to the power of y. Yeah, a lot of math. And for each pixel. No wonder it was running so slow. This was never a problem before but I guess because the dropshadow shader was on an object so big it was causing issues.

So I simply replaced the one giant gaussian shader with 8 smaller shaders (1 for each corner and edge). This significantly cuts down on overdraw from that inefficient shader. The only issue now is it doesn't look that good on square-ish devices. Looking at you iPad.

I'm also thinking of applying this change to anywhere that there's a dropshadow as the improvement is so significant.

So that's how I got my FPS to 60 on the settings pane. I guess the moral of this story is that overdraw is your friend unless the shader that does overdraw is inefficient. Then overdraw is not your friend.

This article originally appeared on my Patreon blog.

#mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; } /* Add your own Mailchimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */

Subscribe For Development Builds

0 notes

entergamingxp · 5 years ago

Text

For the first time, I’m having fun with Fallout 76 • Eurogamer.net

When I reviewed Fallout 76 at launch, I said it was in desperate need of a hub – a town or a city filled with NPCs. Now, with the release of free update Wastelanders, it’s not just got one city, it’s got two – and a bucketload of NPCs to boot.

The addition of NPCs and all they bring with them – dialogue choices, voice acting, quests and actual story – drags Fallout 76 towards the traditional single-player Fallout experience, and it’s all the better for it. Fallout 76 is improved in pretty much every department just by having other characters in the game world who speak and who are not robots. Even hearing enemy raiders chat while they’re skulking about is refreshing, not because it is a remarkable thing for a Fallout game, but because it is a remarkable thing for Fallout 76. This is the thing about the Wastelanders update: it feels great because Fallout 76 was so bad.

I stuck with Fallout 76 for a month or so after it came out, then dropped off pretty hard. So I dusted off my existing character and entered the post-apocalypse expecting the most significant of refreshes – a relaunch of Fallout 76, really. And to Bethesda’s credit, Wastelanders is it.

Outside the door to Fallout 76 a robot like all the others has some new things to say. It points you in the direction of a couple of human characters – human characters! – who have arrived in Appalachia on the hunt for a mystical treasure housed in a new-found vault. Talking to them took me aback at first, even though I’ve spent hundreds of hours talking to NPCs in other Bethesda games. And what’s this? Fallout 76 lets you pick from multiple lines of dialogue – none of the response wheel rubbish from Fallout 4. And wait! There are SPECIAL checks. Charisma all of a sudden has value in a game that since launch had been mostly about combat and crafting. Even better, there are unique speech checks you can only select if you have a low rating in one of the SPECIAL categories. These lines open up dialogue that’s a lot of fun. Huh. I’m having a lot of fun! It’s almost like I’m playing Fallout 3, or Fallout: New Vegas!

Soon enough I’m at a bar that’s just opened up down the road. The Wayward is run by a wonderfully voice-acted landlady called Duchess who asks for your help in dealing with a raider problem. This is hardly a revolutionary quest setup for Fallout, but for Fallout 76 it’s a breath of fresh air. There are decisions to make, the kind of decisions that actually change how things pan out. There are different ways to complete missions. You can intimidate NPCs into giving you what you want, if your strength is high enough. You can use your intelligence to get your own way. Sometimes your luck will help you out. And yes, charisma is back. Finger guns!

Wastelanders is well-written, too – and at times funny. The ghoul character voiced by the actor who plays Jay in the Jay and Silent Bob films is a lot of fun. I ended up trying to intimidate a robot who thought I was a spirit into giving me an assaultron body because the head of an assaultron asked me to find her a new body (long story). Also, the assaultron is sort of maybe having a weird kind of probably quite painful sexual relationship with a chap who I found lying in a mine. This kind of silliness is what Fallout should be about. It’s retro futuristic black comedy – and Fallout 76 has had none of it outside terminals, holodisks and dusty scraps of paper until now.

Sometimes you get speech checks that are only available if you have a really low rating in a specific SPECIAL. The results are often pretty funny.

This is all a precursor to the new main quest, which revolves around inoculating two new factions from the scorch disease. Foundation is a new hub that has been plonked onto Spruce Knob and let me tell you, walking up to it the first time gave me that tinge of excitement I always get in my belly whenever I discover a new city in a Bethesda game. It’s full of people bashing metal together, sweeping the floor (yes, the toilets are still post-apocalyptic disgusting despite people being around to clean them) and… talking to each other! There’s a kid running about. There’s a guy who’s a layabout. Inside the headquarters I convince one of the settlers, via a luck check, to be my ally, and after I build him a chair at my camp he moves in, giving me a unique quest and plenty of dialogue. The boss of Foundation sets me on an entirely different quest. There’s another chap who offers me work. There’s reputation with the faction to earn. There’s a lot to do, and it’s intoxicating.

Eventually I’ll have to decide whether to side with this Foundation lot or the raider faction who’ve built a city called Crater at the Crashed Space Station. But for now I’m happy keeping both sweet, playing their quests, earning rep and enjoying the novelty of what is, ostensibly at least, a pretty decent Bethesda Fallout experience.

There’s a lot I’ve yet to encounter. I’m not far off getting to the new vault, but I’ve yet to see it. Apparently I can romance an ally, so I’m keeping an eye out for those dialogue options. I haven’t got to the point yet where I have meaningfully experienced the new Gold Bullion system. This new currency, which apparently will end up being the late game caps/time sink, is the ticket to the new endgame gear (the new power armour, that sort of thing). And I’ve only brushed up against the Blood Eagles raiders and the Cult of the Mothman – and by that I mean I ran away as their high-level cronies shot me in the back.

Fallout 76 is actually a game I want to play now, which is something I never thought I’d say after reviewing the thing back in November 2018. Even on the tech side of things the game is much better than it was. I’m not sure if this is something brought about with Wastelanders, but the game runs a lot better on my base PlayStation 4 than it did at launch. There are occasional severe framerate issues, but on the whole it runs okay, and I have yet to encounter a game-breaking bug. This is a win for Fallout 76, as far as I’m concerned.

You can have an ally wander about your camp, now. It’s creepy when they just stand there, watching you sleep…

But I must check myself: there is a novelty here. Wastelanders is the game Fallout 76 should have been at launch, but it still suffers from very serious issues. The combat remains awful. It’s unresponsive and janky and nowhere near as tight as it needs to be for Fallout 76 to be played as a shooter, which, given the awful VATs system, is unavoidable. Most of the time it looks pretty crap. Occasionally I’ll find myself in just the right place at just the right time of day, with the sun casting rays that reflect off a stream, and I’ll think Appalachia scrubs up well. But then I’ll look at an NPC face and throw up in my mouth a bit. Fallout 76’s NPCs have that trademark Bethesda NPC jank, unfortunately. You’ll be talking to one of them and they’ll just dart up or down for no reason. They do not look well. At all.

And you can tell Fallout 76’s NPCs have been sort of Frankensteined into the game somewhat. Meaningful story decisions (let an NPC live or die, sabotage the settlers in favour of the raiders, etc) are confined to small instanced spaces that allow for world changes unique to you as a player. You cannot meaningfully change the world on a wider basis, because of course you can’t. This is an MMO, with lots of players running about the map. You can’t nuke a town Megaton-style because other players need to have access to it at all times. Hilariously, if you actually nuke one of the new cities, which is a thing you can do in Fallout 76, the people inside put on Hazmat suits and continue about their business, sweeping the floors and moaning about the work they’re having to do. Talk about chill.

Foundation is one of a number of new settlements in the game.

And Fallout 76 continues to be at odds with itself because it’s now trying to be a single-player Fallout game but other players are in on it. This is good and bad. While I was out questing a high level character trained a super tough boss character right on top of the house I was trying to get into, just, I presume, to annoy me. Fair enough! This is Fallout, I suppose. But it was also annoying. On the other hand, while I was fussing at my (embarrassingly threadbare) camp, a high level player dropped a paper bag on the ground filled with stimpacks and other supplies. I gave them the heart emoji for that. How lovely! And then, there are some players who are just weird. While I was hanging around outside the Wayward, a player nearby noted, on voice comms no less, that there was a lot of corn around. He then said: “I guess you could say… it’s CORNY! LOL.” Then he left.

Actual humans don’t spoil the successful integration of Fallout 76’s virtual humans, though. And credit where it’s due: Bethesda has stuck with Fallout 76, which suffered one of the most significant launch disasters of this generation, when I suspected it would ditch it. The developer has made some truly baffling decisions with this game. Locking private worlds behind a subscription is even more of a face palm feature now NPCs are in the game. And repair kits, which are used to fix broken weapons and armour (they break a lot), should not be available to buy for real-world money. But adding NPCs was definitely the right call. It means that if you, like me, approach Fallout 76 as a sort of weird single-player Fallout game with the occasional random player jumping about in power armour, it’s actually okay.

Who’d have thought?

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/04/for-the-first-time-im-having-fun-with-fallout-76-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=for-the-first-time-im-having-fun-with-fallout-76-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

0 notes

terryblount · 6 years ago

Text

Toki Review

Once upon a time during the arcade golden era, numerous games were releasing at a constant pace, each one aiming to captivate young players with pockets full of coins. With so many games to choose from, companies had to distinguish themselves through the latest technologies, custom arcade cabinets, colorful creativity, and other innovative methods.

During this time of wonders, arcade and home console companies like Namco, Nintendo, and Sega fiercely fought to stay on the cutting edge of glory. It was during this time that a small company called TAD Corporation created a surprise hit platformer; a game called Toki.

The glorious Toki title screen, coming at you from 1989 to 2019!

Here’s a little history of the company. TAD Corporation started making games in 1988 and had immediate success with its arcade hit Cabal. This success allowed the next year’s release of Toki; a curious game and a bit different from the competition.

Toki was another sudden success thanks to smart design choices and over-the-top humor. It kept some of the clichés from that era (such as a damsel in distress and an evil wizard), but Toki subverted the concept of the hero. Usually you’d play as the super-muscular and attractive main character, but in Toki you played as Toki, the somewhat ugly protagonist.

The story goes that he was an unlucky Tarzan-like fellow that, while saving his beloved Wanda, was transformed into a hairy primate. He became a sort of antihero, and his new powers (shooting magical spheres from his mouth, obviously!) allowed him to go on a quest to save his love and do battle with the forces of evil, ultimately confronting the wily wizard.

Here we see Tarz…ehm, Toki being transformed by the big baddie!

Given the story context, the game was set in the winning choice of a colorful jungle rather than the common industrial or fantasy settings of the era. Hence, the characters contrasted wonderfully with the nicely detailed backgrounds of each stage, attracting the eyes of wandering arcade-goers.

The nicely drawn world map. A whole jungle world to explore, stage by stage.

The gameplay itself consists of basic platforming by today’s standards. Various jumping patterns and enemy movements can be learned as you go. There’s power-ups to improve Toki’s abilities, including new skills like fire shots and gear like an American football suit to protect him (quite humorous looking).

Even with all this creative and colorful design, the arcade version of Toki unfortunately didn’t become a household name. It was successful, meaning lots of players loved the game, but the Toki brand and mascot never hit the mainstream.

On a personal note living in Italy, the game was quite well known because it was available at so many beaches and camping sites, where all the old arcade games were sent (probably because they were cheaper to rent or buy than the fancy new cabinets).

The first level’s always easy. Notice the use of one of the ‘old school’ video filters.

Thankfully, though, Toki did find more notoriety upon entering people’s homes. Over the next few years after release, the game became available on numerous home systems and computers. Some compromises did have to be made on certain versions in order to make the game run on less powerful systems, creating various levels of quality.

For those who are old enough to remember, one of the biggest publishers and porting houses was a company called Ocean Software which, thanks to its French division, created the best ports of Toki for the two most powerful gaming consoles of that time: the Amiga and Atari ST. With these excellent versions, finally eager players could enjoy the game at home without the hassle of the coin-eating arcade life.

Despite the success of their first two games, in just 1993 TAD Corporation closed its doors, and Toki was relegated to the distant memories of many players, only occasionally being remembered through old cassettes, discs, and random beach bars and arcades.

Under the sea, Under the sea! Nice goggles, Toki!

Then, in 2009, something happened: for its 20th anniversary a team from France–including some of the original Ocean Software people who created the Amiga port–decided to remake the game for modern platforms, thanks to their in-depth knowledge gathered at the time of the original port. Unfortunately, for various budget or publishing reasons, the game never came out and, apart from a few discussions here and there and sparse news, the game seemed to be vaporware.

This finally brings us to the present, with another French company, Microids, announcing a full remake of the game would come out close to the game’s 30th anniversary. First released on the Nintendo Switch in 2018, finally Toki has made its glorious return in 2019 to various modern platforms, to the joy (and surprise) of many.

The remake process has been handled very faithfully by reconstructing from scratch all assets, including redrawing all characters with high-resolution cartoon imagery, while painting the backgrounds in a semi-watercolor style. There’s also a fully re-orchestrated soundtrack that works well to enhance the charming and zany humor of the game.

The first boss! Remain calm and don’t get stomped!

On the technical side, the game plays at a high framerate and is so much smoother than its old school roots. Apart from a few moments of lag (probably my PC’s fault), the game runs great. Other nice features include various video filters to recreate the old-fashioned monitors of our childhoods, a speedrun mode, and a jukebox option to listen to the tunes both old and new.

Being originally quite hard, this modern Toki also allows players to change the difficulty. If you’re like me–platformers aren’t my strong suit–you may have some problems finishing the game even on the lowest difficulty because of tricky platforming and placement of many enemies in some stages.

The second level begins to make you struggle if you’re not a platforming expert.

In conclusion, even if it is a simple game–easy to describe and hard to master–thirty years on Toki remains a work of art thanks to the loving of remake treatment it has received, giving new life to this great old game. We’ve seen this done in recent years with other games like Wonder Boy, and hopefully the trend of quality modernizations of classic games at a budget price will continue.

As a reviewer, it’s hard to review Toki simply because it feels out of time, coming from another age. However, I really hope you’ll love Toki as much as I have loved it. If you’re looking for a fun lower-priced game to play with old school platforming and timeless charm, this new Toki is likely for you.

Beautiful recreated art

Lots of neat new features

Runs well on old PCs

Faithful to original

Budget price

Developed by some of the original porting team

Platforming isn’t for everyone

Simplistic gameplay but sometimes very hard

No option for the original pixel graphics

Playtime: 10 hours total (and counting). Mathieu has not completed the game, but he’s still playing it (and dying lots of times!).

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit laptop computer, with 16GB of Ram, Nvidia 1050Ti.

The post Toki Review appeared first on DSOGaming.

Toki Review published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

0 notes

gamingtipsandtrickshacks · 6 years ago

Text

Extinction Review -- Not the Sharpest Tool in the Shed

In recent years, Iron Galaxy Studios has become known for their work on fighting games like Killer Instinct and Divekick. That being said, the studio’s newest game Extinction breaks that mold by being an action game where players fighting giant ogres called the Ravenii. I have always found it interesting to see developers mainly known within the industry for their work in one particular genre branch out and try something new. It can lead to fresh, innovate titles in other genres due to the different perspective those developers bring.

The studio’s ambition to develop something different does result in some spectacular Ravenii-slaying moments that make the game’s smaller, more focused moments intense and memorable. Unfortunately, when looked at as a whole, Extinction suffers from repetitiveness, an incredibly bland story, and some technical issues.

youtube

In Extinction, players are defending the Kingdom of Delorum, which is the last bastion for humanity. Almost out of nowhere, the Ravenii came through portals from another planet, and began to kill and destroy everything in sight. Main characters Avil and Xandra are the last members of an ancient order called the Sentinels, who supposedly saved the world from a Ravenii invasion a long time ago, and go to Delorum to get the help of King Yarrow in order to escape the clutches of the Ravenii.

While the premise does seem somewhat interesting, the plot winds up very dull. Most of the story is told through exposition-heavy dialogue once players complete a mission, with barely anything happening on screen. While the voice acting is decent, things quickly get boring. Events that sound intriguing and multiple character deaths happen off-screen and are just told to you, which causes the story to feel very disconnected.

“While the voice acting and bits animation are enjoyable, the story Extinction is telling is not.“

The only big highlights in the story are flashback scenes, and that’s mainly due to the fact that they are actually showcased through animated cutscenes. Unfortunately, these are somewhat randomly peppered in throughout the story with minimal relation to what’s actually is going on, and the story they tell is pretty predictable.

If Extinction’s story had been integrated better into its gameplay, it may have been more engaging, albeit still very formulaic. Sadly, we are stuck with a story that tells more than it shows, all just to lead up to a lukewarm and fairly predictable ending. While the voice acting and bits animation are enjoyable, the story Extinction is telling is not. One the bright side, it doesn’t overstay it welcome in length.

Extinction fortunately fares better on the gameplay side of things, though even this is flawed in a few areas. As I briefly mentioned before, Extinction is split up into missions, each of which has a main objectives and side objectives for players to complete. Some levels are even randomized, which may keep the story fresh on repeat playthroughs if you decide to just go through and ignore the plot. If you aren’t fighting the Ravenii as Avil, you are running around to summon portals to save civilians and killing the enemies that attack them.

It’s pretty basic action game fare, though the game does attempt to have an interesting take on basic combat. While there is only one attack button, players can time and hold button presses to craft specific combos. There are even other techniques like cancelling a move mid-animation, which is a clear carry-over from Iron Galaxy’s fighting game roots. While there is depth for dedicated players to get into, the combos that I discovered I discovered weren’t that useful, so I didn’t really use them unless I was attacking a damage-sponge of an enemy.

The enemies also don’t hit you often enough to make cancelling that important; it’s easier in some scenarios to just ignore them and activate the portal to whisk the surrounding civilians away. While this gameplay base is just serviceable, it does feed into and influence the most enjoyable thing in the game, taking on the giant Ravenii.

Extinction boasts a pretty fluid movement system that makes climbing and traversing the game’s various environments pretty fun. Each level has a ton of added verticality, which helps when taking on the Ravenii. While some levels will just have you saving civilians or killing smaller emeries, most of the main story chapters have players take on some Ravenii, whether it be to kill a certain number of them or defend some watchtowers.

Avil has the ability to pull off a Rune Strike, which slows time around him and allows him to target a specific part of the Ravenii, who all wear armor with special attributes. While Wooden armor can be taken out with a simple Rune Strike, others can be more difficult to take down. Players may have to destroy locks, wait for the Ravenii to attack before striking, or have the giant beast hit itself to hurt their own armor. Armor is randomly generated on almost every Ravenii too, which keep encounters with them fresh.

“Killing Ravenii can be super exhilarating, and very rewarding after a tough fight.”

Once their armor is taken care of, and one of their limbs is bare, you can hit it with a Rune Strike to disable the Ravenii. Cutting off an arm will make it harder for them to attack, while cutting off their leg will cause them to fall over of a little while before the limb regenerates. To kill a Ravenii, their head has to be sliced off, which can only be done with a special Kill Strike.

By saving civilians, killing enemies, and cutting off limbs, one’s Kill Strike meter will rise. In order to kill a Ravenii, this has to be maxed out an their neck needs to be exposed. Once all these requirements are met, their heads can be chopped off in a satisfying fashion. Killing Ravenii can be super exhilarating, and very rewarding after a tough fight. Avil is pretty fragile when fighting, as are the destructible environments, so killing one of the giants does feel like quite the accomplishment the first few times you do it.

Each area of city itself has its own life bar, so players will have to make sure the Ravenii don’t do too much damage in each scenario. Fighting the Ravenii is the best part of the game by far, which makes me wish some of the aforementioned gameplay and story fluff was cut out in favor of more ogre slaying action. It’s a fairly unique gameplay situation, with the closest comparison being the Attack on Titan games.

Still, the main campaign can sometimes get a tad dull as players have to focus on the story and some level objectives that don’t have to do with killing Ravenii, and even when you do, things can feel repetitive, environments blend together, and the formulaic “save civillians, kill smaller enemies, kill Ravenii” objectives begin to feel samey, and are only hampered by a story that doesn’t go anywhere interesting.

“The biggest highlight of the whole package is the titular Extinction mode.”

That being said, Extinction shine more in its side modes. While still a bit repetitive, the Daily Challenge and Skirmish modes both have players fighting through mostly enjoyable randomly generated levels, and don’t have to worry about mediocre story weighing things down. The biggest highlight of the whole package is the titular Extinction mode though.

In this mode, players have to fend off wave after wave of Ravenii for a high score, fighting until their Avil or the city he is defending are completely decimated. Extinction mode focuses the most on the best aspect of the game, killing Ravenii, and thus comes out the most memorable mode in an otherwise underwhelming package. If there is one mode I will be returning too in Extinction, it will be this.

On the technical side of things, Extinction tends to be a mixed bag. Environments are colorful, but areas designs all blend together and the visual design, even of the Ravenii, aren’t incredibly memorable. While the game tries to keep up with all the action on a base PS4, the framerate did start to chug the further I got into the game when more was happening on screen. I also did run into a few random glitches that caused me to reload levels, but these never impeded progress too much and can be patched out in the future.

If you are looking for a game that will give you an adrenalin rush by letting you fight a giant ogre, then you may come away satisfied from Extinction. When you are felling a Ravenii in slow motion, things can get real gratifying, you just do have to trudge through a ton of mediocre and repetitive elements to get there. Extinction’s story and some repetitiveness do ultimately let the package down as a whole, but I am glad to see Iron Galaxy tried tackle a different idea outside of their comfort zone, even if it didn’t pan out entirely.

0 notes

nazih-fares · 7 years ago

Text

As you will soon realize throughout this review, it is almost impossible to talk about Brawlout without talking about Super Smash Bros. Both visually and gameplay mechanics similar, Angry Mob Game’s title is almost identical to the Nintendo franchise – but with a few nice personal ideas, and a lot of grinding to enjoy it to the full.

Let’s start at the core of the title: Brawlout is a fighting game in which you can fight with up to four characters at once in a 2.5D arena. Those arenas can consist of different platforms, interactive elements, but mostly two gigantic gaps of void to the right and left of each stage. The goal is simple: you must expulse each opponent players from the arena which can be done in numerous ways. Each character has a damage percentage that increases as he takes hits, and the higher the number, the further he gets tossed away in the air by attacks.

And so, any person would therefore call Brawlout a party game instead of a competitive fighting game, but I would not. The simple attack set of each character may offer less variation, but the emphasis is much more on your own reflexes and quick thinking during fights. You do not count frames in Brawlout, but use your character as an extension of your own instinct. If you take on someone of your level, then fights are both intense and hilarious, which is a combination I was lucky to encounter in a handful of multiplayer games.

The Brawlout fighting system may be at the level of recent Super Smash Bros. games. On the other hand, the charm of Nintendo’s own series is clearly lacking in this game on that front. Virtually all the characters in the game were created by the developer, except for two guest characters from Guacamelee and Hyper Light Drifter. Sadly, my first reproach is that other than these two characters, the rest of Brawlout’s roster is pretty much lacking the personality of what you would get with Nintendo’s brawler. Perhaps it is unfair to compare the design of Nintendo characters with those of a small studio, but the identical game systems make it impossible not to continuously align them while you play. And sadly, Brawlout characters are very much like copycats of known ones, like the electric werewolf called Volt that looks and plays like Blanka from Street Fighter, or they are just lacking the supporting backstory and legacy behind them, that a Smash Bros. has with all their fighters.

In addition, you will not find the randomness of a Nintendo game here. There are no random objects, buffs and weapons that fall from the sky, and levels barely change while you’re fighting in comparison to Super Smash. That’s great, because for someone that wants to properly play with the competitive rules of Smash Bros, the lack of this roll of dice helps, but for those that are more on the casual side might get bored.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

But if there’s one thing I’m going to be focusing on when it comes to negativity of the game, then that would be the endless grind in the game. You see, when you start Brawlout for the first time, you have access to only 8 characters and three levels out of the respective 18 fighters and 11 stages. If you want more, you will have to save two different kind of currencies to buy 3 kinds of piñata (loot boxes), in which a random character, skins or other cosmetic upgrade can be found. Thankfully, Brawlout is not trying to use this trick to push any sort of microtransactions, but you will have to grind really hard to unlock your wanted characters and levels. Thankfully, every day you get a number of missions with which you earn a little bit more of the required currency, just like in a free-to-play game, but it’s rather a painful process, considering that objectives give you around 5-10 gems, and you’ll need 40 of these to buy a piñata to unlock a new fighter (which is pretty much a skinned version of the 6 Brawlout original characters).

In any case, everything mentioned above will not annoy the veteran Melee player. There’s a large community of Smash Bros. fans who have been playing the GameCube version at a high level for years and are competing until this day, and Brawlout is clearly meant for them. The grind for a new character is painful when you occasionally play a game, but is hardly an objection for someone who wants to master his or her character. The same applies to the characters which lacks originality or depth, which are not really an issue for someone that just want to compete.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

But unless you can manage to play locally which the game offers as mode for up to 4 players, I’m worried about those that want to compete online. At the time I’m writing this review, the online net code is a bit buggy with disconnections, but my issue was the lack of proper 4-man multiplayer. Don’t get me, wrong the mode is there, but you will need to create a lobby and invite players to join (something the Nintendo machine cannot do natively so far), but don’t expect any sort of quick play 4-man matchmaking, as the latter only works for 1v1. What’s even more scary for a game that aims at competitive players is the lack of actual servers, but relying peer-to-peer technology to support its online multiplayer experience, which sadly can ruin the fun for both players if one is not on par with proper decent internet connection.

Graphically speaking, Brawlout is one colorful and smooth title. On the front of artistic direction, the roster of characters are rather interesting, diverse and a little wacky, reminding me of other cell-shaded games like Jet Set Radio or even Battleborn. The stages or arenas, even if they are low in terms of interactivity when compared to Smash Bros., are rather well done and fit to the theme. However, Brawlout has some rather annoying flaws on the front of loading screens, which are both too many and too long for this type of game that will ask you to replay matches numerous times. The other issue is the rare, yet very noticeable big framerate drops, which is unacceptable in fighting games. Nevertheless, the title is locked at 60FPS – a must for fight games as well – and will play at 720p in handheld mode, and 1080p docked.

Brawlout was reviewed using a Nintendo Switch downloadable code provided by Angry Mob Games. The game was released on PC earlier this year, and will be coming soon on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in digital releases. We don’t discuss review scores with publishers or developers prior to the review being published.

At first sight, it is easy to call the new Brawlout a Super Smash Bros. clone, but it's more than that. As you will soon realize throughout this review, it is almost impossible to talk about Brawlout without talking about Super Smash Bros.

#3D #Action #Angry Mob Games #Arcade #Arena #Beat &039;em Up #Casual #comedy #Competitive #Early Access #Featured #Fighting #Indie #Multiplayer

0 notes

healthserv · 8 years ago

Text

Unreformed: Taming the Charge Monster

By, SAURABH JHA

Any backpacker travelling on a shoestring budget in Thailand knows not to blow their entire budget on premium whiskey in a premium hotel on the first night in Bangkok. Rather, you need to skip the occasional meal, stay in a cheap dorm with random strangers, and drink cheap beer on Khao San Road if you wish to see the country and return home without having to wash dishes in a restaurant in Bangkok to repay the loans. Both Democrats and Republicans seem impervious to a simple wisdom that I learnt when backpacking – you save money if you go for cheap stuff. The operative word here is “cheap.”

Both the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) impose cost sharing, such as deductibles. Deductibles lower premiums by cost shifting. Because the sick, for obvious reasons, are more likely to meet their deductibles sooner than the healthy, deductibles shift costs from the healthy to the sick, or are a “tax on the sick.” Deductibles also reduce premiums by reducing the administrative loading of insurance – because insurers have fewer small claims to process, administrative costs reduce.

Whatever the morality of deductibles, and they are a trade-off between higher premiums for healthy Peter and higher out of pocket expenditure for sick Paul, a deductible is short-lived if decimated, for example, by a single visit to the emergency department (ED) for vague chest pain which leads to a triple rule out CT angiogram. This is because the charges imposed on the patient before insurance kicks in are the list charges – the dreaded, illogical, evil and, frankly, stupid chargemaster rates. This is not like drinking premium whiskey in a premium hotel. It’s worse. It’s paying ten times the rate for premium whiskey in a premium hotel for cheap beer in Khao San Road.

The chargemaster is a hospital’s list price which hospitals use to show how much charity work they’re doing.

“Look we just did $3000 of charity by giving away ten $100 saline drips, which only cost us $2, for free. Can we keep our Mother Teresa, I mean non-profit status?”

Hospital administrators, in clandestine meetings, use the chargemaster to negotiate with insurers reimbursement for medical services. To give you an example of the negotiation, let’s take Tom, a brash CFO in a hospital in New York who, negotiating with Price, a brasher CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield, says “see, we charged that poor bastard, Abdul the cab driver, who has no insurance, $10, 000 for a triple rule out CT angiogram, and all we’re asking you for is $1000 for the rich employees at Goldman Sachs who make thirty times Abdul does. Is that really too much to ask for, Price?”

You can instantly see several elements, lunacies actually, about this set up. The higher the list price, the higher the starting point of the negotiation. The more aggressively Tom bargains, the more dollars the hospital gets. The more aggressively Price counter offers, the fewer dollars the hospital receives. If Tom knows that Price is an aggressive, alpha male bargainer, he’s likely to raise the list price of a CT angiogram. If Price adduces from Tom’s swings at the local golf club that he’s a “win at any cost”, Harvard MBA gunner with a Napoleon complex, he’s likely to make a ridiculous counter offer. This is a vicious cycle – logical and illogical in equal measures.

Let’s revisit their imaginary, though not unimaginable, conversation.

Tom: $10, 000 for CT angiogram for uninsured Abdul. For the rich people your plan covers, all I ask is $1000.

Price: No, $200. Take it or leave it.

Tom accepts, but his ego is bruised. Once bitten, twice shy. Tom returns with a vengeance.

Tom: $15, 000 for MRI/ MRA of the brain. That’s what we charged Abdul, that uninsured cab driver straddling the 400 % Federal Poverty Limit (FPL). For your Goldman Sachs’ bankers, all I ask for is $2000.

Price: No, $200. Take it or leave it.

Tom: Did I tell you we’re merging with three other hospitals in New York?

Price: ok, can we make it $1800?

Tom: Price, what difference does it make to you? The Medical Loss Ratio means you can pay hospitals as much as you want – it’ll get counted as “medical expenses.” Those framers of the ACA missed this obvious point.

Price: Tom, it’s not always about the money. Sometimes it’s the ego. Remember, I got bullied at school for not sharing my chocolate.

Tom: ok, $1900 – just because I got bullied at school, too.

Price: Thanks. Please don’t charge anyone else less than $1900 for MRI/ MRA of the brain. I know you might be tempted to because you could feel bad for bankrupting people. I also know Medicare only gives you $500 for MRI/ MRA.

Tom: I don’t feel bad for bankrupting people. You want the “most favored nation” status? That’s fine. Also, I can always use the anti-trust law to keep our negotiation secret. I’ll use a law to our advantage. These regulators are such idiots!

Price: Ha! They’re asses, to be precise.

Tom: Ha! Ha! Yes, asses!

Price: not even that uninsured cab driver, straddling the 400 % FPL. You can’t feel sorry for him just because he’ll be bankrupt. Remember, that’ll violate our treaty.

Tom: You mean Abdul? I wasn’t planning to. We still need to get the $100 he owes us for a saline drip we started just in case he was dehydrated. He wasn’t dehydrated, and he only used 1/3, but that’s not the point. If I must bankrupt that cab driver to keep our legal treaty, I will.

Price: Thanks Tom. No mercy on the middle class uninsured.

Tom: Don’t worry, Tom. There’ll be no mercy on those free riders – even the Democrats are on our side. They didn’t touch the chargemaster.

Price: They need both of us, which is why we supported the ACA. Without your high charges what’s the point of insurance? They need the insurers. They wouldn’t know their posteriors from their elbows without the insurers. Single payer? Bring it on. It’s great opportunity for administrators in private insurance to run the country.

Tom: I agree you guys are invaluable. But we stuffed the Democrats’ mouths with gold. That’s why they didn’t get in a tizzy with the chargemaster.

Price: But what about the Republicans? What if they get a whiff of the chargemaster? They’re an unpredictable lot – they have no principles. I really fear them.

Tom: Don’t worry about the Republicans. Just say “abolishing the chargemaster is a short step to socialism” and their frontal lobe will stop working.

In the phallic war, and eventual financial kumbaya, between Tom (hospital) and Price (insurers) it’s Abdul (unsubsidized middle class) who gets shafted. The chargemaster is American healthcare’s most evil component. It embarks on a feeding frenzy like remorseless sharks. It is responsible for the medical bankruptcies, which seem to cause angst in many who aren’t bankrupt. It’s like a local infection which causes septicemia, so one wonders why undifferentiated bombardment of the septicemia deliberately misses the source of infection.

The chargemaster is still here. How did the ACA miss this elephant in the room?

Healthcare reform is like an Olympic Valsalva maneuver which first leads to a belch then a fart.

That the ACA failed to tame the charges is testament either to the incompetence of central planners or the power of rent seeking. That the BCRA doesn’t even pretend to touch the charges exposes an extraordinary depth of Pavlovian anti-ACA feeling among the Republicans – they’re like a toddler, still mastering sphincteric control, who doesn’t want what his older brother has simply because his older brother has it.

That the policy wonks, health economists, and other quantitative moralizers who, in an unprecedented moral frenzy, have compared healthcare’s re-reform to ISIS and the Iraq War, have proposed little to tame the charges, reveals a troubling level of mathematical puritanism which resides in that no man’s land between absurdity and idiocy. Ideology, particularly when ostensibly supported by statistics, truly guts common sense.

For crying out loud, it’s the costs, stupid. Instead of moralizing about deductibles, “taxes on the sick,” whether healthcare is a right or privilege, personal freedom, and other ideological chicanery, how about lowering the ducking costs, people?

The left believes, rather disingenuously, that costs can be tamed by incentivizing doctors to do the right thing. It’s a Goldilocks aspiration which, far from dealing with costs, has created a Father Bear’s electronic medical records and a Mother Bear’s regulatory overload. Goldilocks ran away before tasting the porridge.

The right believes, rather comically, that costs can be tamed by giving people choice. The latest of this façade in choice is the Health Savings Account (HSA) – where pre-tax, Abdul can put aside money that he’d have used for visiting his relatives in Afghanistan to pay for medical services should he need them.

Let’s bring Abdul back into the story. Say he has a very low premium plan with a super high deductible of $15, 000. Say Abdul decided to go a little thrifty with his Eid celebrations and put $20, 000 over 3 years into the HSA. Unfortunately, Abdul has a dizzy spell, and visits the emergency room, gets a head CT to rule out stroke where some fastidious radiologist reports “please note MRI is more sensitive for acute stroke.” Abdul has an MRI, but also an MRA (because you might as well have a look at the arteries whilst you’re there). Everything is normal.

The unadjusted bill is $25, 000 – $15, 000 for the MRI/ MRA, which Tom used to extract as much money from Price. Abdul pays $15, 000 out of the charged $15, 000. The insurer, thanks to Price, pays $200 of the remaining $10, 000.

Abdul’s HSA is carpet bombed more mercilessly than Dresden. He defers that trip to Afghanistan, again, to visit his family he left behind. He wonders if the chargemaster was invented by the Taliban to fight the Americans.

At the risk of sounding naïve, allow me to make a modest proposal which I believe will be more effective in the long run than both the comically biblical ACA and the biblically comical BCRA.

Here it is. Please don’t be shocked by its brevity.

Jha’s Healthcare Reform in a Tweet:

“Thou shalt not charge un- or under-insured more than Medicare rates for services rendered in any hospital which accepts Medicare.”

Quad Erat Demonstrandum

About the Author:

Saurabh Jha is a cantankerous contributing editor to THCB. He can be reached on Twitter @RogueRad

Unreformed: Taming the Charge Monster published first on http://ift.tt/2sUuvu3

0 notes

isaacscrawford · 8 years ago

Text

Unreformed: Taming the Charge Monster

By, SAURABH JHA

The chargemaster is a hospital’s list price which hospitals use to show how much charity work they’re doing.

“Look we just did $3000 of charity by giving away ten $100 saline drips, which only cost us $2, for free. Can we keep our Mother Teresa, I mean non-profit status?”

Let’s revisit their imaginary, though not unimaginable, conversation.

Tom: $10, 000 for CT angiogram for uninsured Abdul. For the rich people your plan covers, all I ask is $1000.

Price: No, $200. Take it or leave it.

Tom accepts, but his ego is bruised. Once bitten, twice shy. Tom returns with a vengeance.

Price: No, $200. Take it or leave it.

Tom: Did I tell you we’re merging with three other hospitals in New York?

Price: ok, can we make it $1800?

Price: Tom, it’s not always about the money. Sometimes it’s the ego. Remember, I got bullied at school for not sharing my chocolate.

Tom: ok, $1900 – just because I got bullied at school, too.

Price: Ha! They’re asses, to be precise.

Tom: Ha! Ha! Yes, asses!

Price: not even that uninsured cab driver, straddling the 400 % FPL. You can’t feel sorry for him just because he’ll be bankrupt. Remember, that’ll violate our treaty.

Price: Thanks Tom. No mercy on the middle class uninsured.

Tom: Don’t worry, Tom. There’ll be no mercy on those free riders – even the Democrats are on our side. They didn’t touch the chargemaster.

Tom: I agree you guys are invaluable. But we stuffed the Democrats’ mouths with gold. That’s why they didn’t get in a tizzy with the chargemaster.

Price: But what about the Republicans? What if they get a whiff of the chargemaster? They’re an unpredictable lot – they have no principles. I really fear them.

Tom: Don’t worry about the Republicans. Just say “abolishing the chargemaster is a short step to socialism” and their frontal lobe will stop working.

The chargemaster is still here. How did the ACA miss this elephant in the room?

Healthcare reform is like an Olympic Valsalva maneuver which first leads to a belch then a fart.

At the risk of sounding naïve, allow me to make a modest proposal which I believe will be more effective in the long run than both the comically biblical ACA and the biblically comical BCRA.

Here it is. Please don’t be shocked by its brevity.

Jha’s Healthcare Reform in a Tweet:

“Thou shalt not charge un- or under-insured more than Medicare rates for services rendered in any hospital which accepts Medicare.”

Quad Erat Demonstrandum

About the Author:

Saurabh Jha is a cantankerous contributing editor to THCB. He can be reached on Twitter @RogueRad

Article source:The Health Care Blog

0 notes